Epiphany of the Fox

At long last, Abbie and I have found ourselves a wedding venue. The $ has been mailed out. As soon as our date is penned, chiseled, lasered on the calendar, I’ll include a link to the beautiful venue.

Today was Yoga X. This marked the first time I did yoga. I cannot imagine a partner better than Abbie. We worked out to Tony Horton and Yoga X. I expected it to prove once and for all that I wasn’t as limber as a gymnast.

Seriously, I was hopping around and trying to reach hard to reach places on my body. Needless to say, I failed miserably in trying to achieve the results Yoga X wanted us to do. Fortunately, it was only the 1st day of Yoga.

Come Day 90, I should be able to hop less, reach more, and look better. Well, Abbie already is far better looking than me.

Oh, I wanted to mention that I wish I did do yoga before. It looks challenging. At first, I was like, “it’s for mamsy pamsies.” No offense intended to Yogis out there, but hey, I was curious about it. I never got around to doing it until now.

I’m glad I did.

I really slept well last night — out cold as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Onto the next workout tomorrow which will be legs, backs and Abs X.

Today was Shoulders, Arms and Abs Ripper X. I was able to keep up with Shoulders and Arms pretty well. I’ll need to adjust the weights for next week.

Abs Ripper X. Gosh! This was hard. Over 339 individual reps. I could not even do them all.

I’m still looking forward to Day 90.

This past few days of P90X, I ate in excess of 2,400 calories per day. Man, the size of the meals were HUGE, I mean, HUGE! Mountains of food. I actually gained weight.

Stay tuned.

News flash! I was told by Cristin over at the center that my insurance approved my “application” for my second surgery.

I’m thrilled about that! The date probably will be sometime in June on account of all the trips I’ll have to take in the next two months.

Then, and only then, will I be fully bionic. Ask me again in a year or so on whether this worked out for me or not.

So far, it is, beyond my wildest dreams. Just have to stick to the program and practice, practice, and PRACTICE!

Yesterday was Chest and Arms. Man, I was wiped by the time the end wrapped up. I thought I was done, until I reviewed the workout list. Oh boy, I missed the Abs X workout. Sigh. I’ll be getting back on the wagon tomorrow with Shoulders, Arms and Abs.

Today was Plyometrics, which is a jumping workout. Man, I was so wiped out and tired (your legs, calves, feet, all that burned like heck). My heart rate was between 162 and 168 (highest that I reached with this workout). Tony Horton hit 153, so I’m not too far off. He was around 45-48 years old when he did that workout regimen.

I look forward to the 30th day of this program because I have done nothing but gain weight (higher calorie intake each day). Abbie says that my body will catch up and start shedding these newly gained weight and start doing my spare tire.

Let’s see shall we? I WILL lose the spare tire.

Woo! I got a new map today in Phoenix to move moi forward in my bionic journey.

Things seem to be clearer. The cars whizzing by seem to be clearer from the door of the center. I didn’t have to listen hard to hear it. I just heard it and it was clear as day.

Now I got to get my brain to work with the resources I have.

The gory details about my measurements…

Weight: 194.4 lbs
Chest: 40 inch
Waist: 39-1/2 inch
Hips: 40 inch
Right Thigh: 23 inch
Left Thigh: 23 inch
Right Biceps: 14-1/2 inch
Left Biceps: 14 inch (this always was 1/2 to 1 inch smaller than my right biceps)

This is a quick post, mainly for my benefit, about my attempt at doing P90X xtreme home fitness.

I have had some people ask me why I wanted to do this. I look GREAT. Well, yes, I do look great, thanks to my genes, thank you. Take away my clothes, and all mirrors will break. You know?

You see, every time I go to the doctor, the triage nurses (are they called triage nurses?) alway say “you need to lose weight”. I usually weigh between 190 and 195 lbs. (today is 194.4 naked, as an example.)

If you do research online about “ideal” body weight for a height of 5’9″, you’d find out that I’m “overweight” and in some cases, close to obese (30 lbs overweight).

The ideal weight for my height is somewhere between 139 and 165! I was like, whoa! If I was 165, I’d look bony.

I found that interesting — that I’d be considered very overweight. I have had this look for so many years that it is “me.”

So why P90X? Three reasons:

1) I have borderline med to high cholesterol (about 210), which I’d like to bring down. Exercise will do that.

2) I always was into working out and have been working out off and on since college. Now that I have a future lifemate who also loves working out, I’m so psyched about working out together with a partner.

3) My wedding is later this year and I’d like to be buff by then. Hey, one can be vain sometimes. Gotta blind the eyes of those tourists in the Caribbean when I take off my shirt. Wait a minute…I’m gonna be one of those tourists too… I’ll wear my Joe Cool sunglasses when I take off my shirt then. Snoopy, eat my heart out!

Anyway, these are the reasons why I’m going into P90X. Again, why P90X, why not something else? I have been working out to Tony Horton in Power90 for about two years now — off and on.

I like Tony. I have done a variety of workout dvds and of all, I connect the best with Tony Horton. He has that vibe about him that gets you hooked.

Also, it was to that Power90 program’s credit that I have continued a low level of fitness — not out of shape, but yet out of shape if I do a lot, and still be in shape to meet most of the minimum requirements to do P90X.

Today is Day 1. I haven’t worked out yet, but I will later this evening. I did the pre-P90X measurements. The goal is to hit 175 lbs by mid-June.

Let’s see how this journey unfolds, shall we?

Bring it on!

It has been quite some time since I updated my blog. I wanted to reiterate one point before going ahead with my post.

This blog is intended for me to put down my thoughts and experiences. If it bores you, ok, you’re still welcome to read my posts — they will still be there. If it excites you, awesome, come along for the journey. This blog isn’t intended to be out in the mainstream. It’s really for me and my friends and family.

Now that’s out of the way. A lot has had happened since my last post.

The company where I work as an engineer has split into two companies. I and my group was split into its own company. Why do I bring this up? It has some bearing on my Bionic journey.

Prior to the split, I was approved for surgery, and I was going to do it back in October 2009. On account of the split, I had to endure Insurance Hell where I was in limbo for a month before I finally got insurance (and the coverage began on October 1st, but we got our cards near the end of October, go figure).

It didn’t end there. The Ear Center and I had to re-submit everything to that new insurance company (the previous company already pre-approved the surgery). The new insurance company took forever, and we followed up with them only to find out that they lost our paperwork. So we had to re-submit once again and asked them to review the stuff stat!

I got approved sometime in December 2009. I went ahead and scheduled surgery for January 28, 2010. The day could not have come fast enough for me.

Abbie came to be with me. Gregg and Brian came up to the outpatient surgery center.

To keep this short and sweet, the surgery was a success. My recovery was uneventful and smooth. I was activated 4 days after surgery. (VIDEO LINK TO COME)

Man, what I experienced on activation day was not I expected to say the least. Well, I had no expectations to begin with, but man, what I experienced was…WEIRD.

The video will show me saying “this is weird.” over and over. Looking back on this makes me laugh. Man, what a difference six weeks since activation has been.

Initially, all I heard were beepy sounds in response to sound stimuli. Everything, I mean, EVERYTHING sounded so beepy. I had two awesome vets in Abbie and Gregg, who told me that it’ll go away in due time.

Sure enough, it did…I do not remember when the beepy sounds got replaced with sounds that are not beepy (but not yet clear and understandable).

The 2nd mapping on Feb 22nd broadened up my horizons with the addition of the high frequencies (the last two electrodes were not really on) to my mapping program.

I have been working on speech comprehension. I’m still at the baby stages; the words that I hear do sound exactly like the words I’m reading, but my brain hasn’t clicked yet.

So the journey has begun and continues to this day.

Here’s my audiogram showing both my unaided and aided hearing loss.