Grad school back fat

The special package I ordered online arrived on Tuesday. The extra $14.95 for 2-day shipping was a total joke because it took more like 5 days to get here, but whatev, I'm glad it's finally here.

One time in 2009 I did the P90X challenge with my friend Mandy. We did gap leaps together, attempted Drey-A-Rolls together, laughed ourselves silly trying to do pull-ups, and well, saw each other's back-fat. She didn't really have back-fat, but I had accumulated some in grad school.

Our before and after pictures were actually quite impressive. I did about 80 days of the challenge and then just decided to take advantage of the fact that I was living in JACKSON FREAKING HOLE and I could ride my bike in front of the Tetons, hike all over the Tetons, and attempt rock climbing with my friends.

This is by NO MEANS an announcement that I am good at rock climbing. I am not. It is hard and I usually freaked out and had to get talked up and then get talked down on every climb, but I really liked the challenge of it and it made me stronger.

Yeah I know, it's a terrible picture, but DUH, this was way more fun than doing P90X in my teeny tiny loft I was living in that summer.

ANYWAY. I got great results with P90X but Tony Horton got kind of old after awhile and then I got more huge and it was more painful so P90X was off my list.

Then I heard about P90X2, yes 2. I watched the preview, and decided I wanted to give it a try. This time I bought the series. (The way I acquired P90X is not important) I spent last weekend buying things from strangers off of KSL Classifieds, Amazon, and Ross Dress for Less so I could be ready to bring it with Tony in my living room.

The journey began on Wednesday and today is already a rest and recovery day! My back needs it as I tweaked it getting a little too excited with a medicine ball twist.

I can't really give a review of the workouts yet, but from what I've experienced it is right on board with all the workout moves I have seen around those fancy super expensive private gyms where you get yelled at and are forced to do the crab walk up and down a soccer field. I've gone to three such gyms and felt that the workouts were well worth my time, but I just couldn't afford $149 a month so I quit after the Groupon intro.

That being said, I'm very excited to continue these workouts. I am also excited to report that on my first day, I had to weigh and measure. To my HUGE surprise, I was down  4 pounds PLUS the 3.5 pounds that mysteriously appeared my first week of doing Paleo. So either down 4 pounds or down 7.5 pounds, whatever way you want to look at it, it still counts.

I think this Paleo thing is right for me. I'm not saying it's right for everybody, but it's been a long time since I've felt this good about how I'm eating and my relationship with food. I've been solid for 3 weeks and it's become second nature to me. Still refining it, but that's what getting healthy takes. Patience, determination, failure, depression, letting go, refining, and oh the list goes on.