DDP Yoga: The Next Big thing?

If you have had the pleasure of encountering this video online, you know how inspiring it is. I know it certainly made me tear up when I first watched it, and even know, I never get tired of watching, and get a little misty at the end.

I researched this, and discovered this workout is basically a sort of power yoga with some tai chi thrown in. The reviews are universally positive, and the various transformations are compelling indeed.

I'm not one to be suckered by a moving video, though. Even a really moving video.

It took me the better part of a year to decide this is what I wanted to do. I have a gym membership languishing in my credit card account, but I need something regular. I took yoga there for several months before they cancelled it, and I was amazed at how it made me feel.

I checked out a few reviews:

I Tried: DDP Yoga!
A Review of DDP Yoga... and an Apology to Diamond Dallas Page


The clincher for ordering this was the fact that this is a workout my husband wouldn't feel ashamed to do. He is NOT a healthy man, and is painfully sedentary. The only time he moves is when he goes out on the back porch to smoke.

So for my birthday, I ordered the program.

I've had some trouble getting into it regularly, but I've done several workouts, and LOVE how it makes me feel. I'm shaking at the end, and sweating. My muscles are sore and shaky.

I'm not crazy about the eating plan; it's a gluten-free, dairy-free plan. I really don't buy into the anti-gluten hype, although I'm honestly willing to try something- what I'm doing damn sure isn't working as well as it did in the first place. I can't go dairy-free, though; I love my cheese too much. ;)

But the physical stuff? Feels good. I'm more limber, breathing more easily, (after just a week!) and this is really about more than just getting bendy; DDP (Diamond Dallas Page) is a motivating guy, and he wants you to change your whole life.

Will it change mine? I don't know. I've only done the workout three or four times. But I WANT it to. And I think that's half the battle.

And if nothing else? Maybe I'll finally get to touch my toes.

Diet is nice, but exercise?

So I've figured out one of the reasons I've struggled to lose weight lately.

It's exercise.

Now, to be clear, I have lost weight; I just tend to lose it, gain it, and back again. My diet is mostly in tune, but I have a tendency to eat high.

Why?

Because I'm simply not satiated on less. I will never be able to function on 1200-1500 calories. My current range is 1400-1700 or so. This suits me, for the most part, but without exercise, I have to eat at the bottom of the range to do more than just maintain (which is what I've done since my 3 lb loss. It has stayed off, though!)

The secret, for me, is exercise. With exercise, I can eat more. When I work out, I like the balls-to-the-wall classes, like kickboxing. The more I exercise, the more I can eat! I am pretty good at getting lots of protein, so I don't need massive quantities.

Exercise has more benefits than an increased calorie range, though.

When I exercise, my moods are SO much better. I'll ride the high from a tough class for at least a day, and just feel fantastic. I ache less, and my arthritis bothers me less.

I understand that not everyone can join a gym. Not everyone has to. Maybe your exercise of choice is a video, or even a walk. I don't really think the kind of exercise you do is nearly as important as enjoying the exercise you do.

One critical component of exercise is strength training; without it, your program is incomplete, and you're abandoning the most important thing you can do. Strength training boosts your metabolism, and helps you look and feel better in the skin you're in. I love to lift weights, although I do keep a set of resistance bands at home. Not to mention, if you're not strength training, as much as 25% of your weight loss can come from lean muscle... which *drops* your metabolism. To preserve it, you need to hit the weights! (Or body weight exercises, or resistance bands. You get the idea.)

The point is, while you can lose weight by diet alone... it's so much harder. Exercise provides more than just weight loss benefits... it has incalculable benefits inside and outside of your body.

Best of all? It gets you away from this computer. ;)

Why I lift heavy

Someone posted this really great article in the Fitness forums, and I have to say, I agree with all of it.

Not long ago, I posted a blog on Sparkpeople about overcoming my fear of truly lifting heavy. But I never really explained why I want to.

Too many women are deathly afraid of weights. They've gotten into the myth of "low weight, high reps" for "toning" instead of "bulking up."

Which is unfortunately for them, a TOTAL myth!  Women as a general rule, just can't bulk up.  It's not in our genetic makeup! We're built different from men. And surprisingly, even men don't bulk up that way easily. It takes a LOT of hard work... hours and hours of lifting like a body builder, eating at a massive calorie surplus, taking supplements, and seriously trying. You can't accidentally bulk up by picking up 10 lb weights instead of 3!

The guy who teaches my boot camps, for example? I've seen him lift weights.  He lifts so much that he has to use a special device to keep it stable in his hands so he doesn't lose control of it and drop it.  He's far from huge! He's lean and cut, and has a very low body fat percentage, but he isn't bulky, in any sense of the word!  And he's a dude!

I lift heavy because I want to be strong. I will likely have broader shoulders than most women, because I'm built that way... while I have a small bone structure, I'm a tall woman (5'7) and curvy.  I will never be 130 lbs... and frankly, I don't want to be. When I was a teen, I was proud of the fact that I was heavier than I looked... 145, because I was STRONG. Muscular.

I want to be able to pick up heavy things. Not need help opening pickle jars. I want to have the strong muscles of a powerful woman.

I love how lifting heavy makes me feel.  Is it as heavy as some people? Not yet.  I'm getting there. But it's a study in opposites to look at the others in my classes. Where I'm lifting 25 lbs (two 10 lb weights on a 5 lb dumbell) they're lifting 15, or 10... or less!  And they have been for MONTHS. I know these people; they're friends and comrades, and they have been lifting this way for a long time, so it's not a matter of not being able to, yet.  But I have noticed something since I started ignoring the 7 1/2 lb weights for the 10s.

More people graduated from 5 lb weights to 7 1/2.

Is it because of me? I don't know. I'd like to hope so. But if me lifting heavy in a group Body Blast class inspires a classmate or two to go a bit more challenging... then that's okay with me. :)

I'm not weak. And neither are you.

A lot of times we berate ourselves for not being strong enough to do certain things. Women are the worst, too; we can't do many "boy" pushups, or a pullup... we call ourselves weak, and plan to be strong.

Here's the thing about that: YOU ARE NOT WEAK.

Weak people don't even try to do a pull up. Weak people don't care if they can't do a real pushup. Weak people don't make a plan to be able to do new things.

Weak people don't challenge themselves. Weak people don't try to make their lives better.

Weak people are content to live in their own misery. I'm not. And I doubt you are, either.

Yesterday while doing Boot Camp, our instructor had us do a lift where we held our barbells out straight, lowered our arms, and raised them again to head height. (I don't know what that's called.) It's really hard, especially for women, because those muscles are generally "weak" in women.

I was annoyed with myself because I was only able to do 10 of the first set, had to pause, and finish the last 3. It was a total of 16 reps for everyone else. I don't like not being able to finish reps... I pride myself on my strength, and love that I can do it.

Everyone else raised their eyebrows, and the instructor said "I'm surprised you did that many!"

You see, aside from the instructor himself... I had the heaviest weight in the class. Everyone else was using 2 1/2 or 5 lb weights on their barbells... I was using 7 1/2.

That, my dears, is not weak. I put more effort into my routine that anyone else had in that moment, and I kept fighting. I only missed 3 reps.

That, my friends, means I'm strong. NOT weak. STRONG.

And so are you. So don't look at what you can't do, and decide you're weaker for it. Look at what you CAN do, and realize just how powerful you really are.

Great abs are made in the kitchen... not in the gym

I just heard this ancient nugget of wisdom, and while the attribution for the original quote ranges widely (up to and including Arnold Schwarzenneger) the point behind it is simple.

Doing 1,000 crunches won't result in washboard abs.

What I think is a better quote is that "Great abs are made in the gym, but revealed in the kitchen."

What does this mean, exactly?

One big myth you'll hear a lot of overweight wannabe exercisers state is that they want to target X body part, or lose weight there. Back at the beginning of the year, I watched two ladies with very large backsides and thighs do the same thing for the two weeks they were there. Walk on the treadmill, then get on the thigh machines.

Day after day.

It was clear that they wanted to lose weight in their thighs.

Thing is, exercise doesn't work like that. Oh, you can tone your arms, or crunch your way to washboard abs... but you're not going to lose weight by doing planks.

You have to eat right! My trainer at the gym tells us often: You can't out-exercise a bad diet.

See, I'm one of those lucky people who carries most of her weight in her abdominal area. Heck, look at the title of my blog!

What the "great abs are made in the kitchen" means is that you have to eat right, because when you gain weight, you'll gain it wherever you're genetically predisposed to do. Right now, when I tighten my abs, I can FEEL the strength. I've been working on them hard, for five months. I HAVE washboard abs.

They're just hidden under 30 lbs of eeew.

So what I have to do is lose weight... I can't lose weight in targeted areas, I have to lose weight ALL OVER. By eating less than I burn, regularly exercising, I can lose that weight, and eventually, my gut will go. I'll show off the washboard abs I can FEEL under all that fat. My genetics tell me that my stress and my overeating puts weight there.

My habits in the kitchen will defeat it. I can do more crunches than anyone I know... but I won't be able to see them until my eating habits are caught up.

So let's spread the word:

Great abs are made in the gym, but REVEALED in the kitchen!

Working out sucks when you're a mom

And not for the reasons you think.

It's the little known horror of the aerobics class. Jumping jacks are your bane. And if you're smiling or nodding, you already know what I'm about to talk about.

Let's start with this morning. It started out as many of my mornings do; dragging out of bed some 30 minute after the alarm went off (I know, I know, I'm working on that. My snooze button gets overused.) I took the kid to school, and raced to the gym to catch the first class of the morning. It's a boot camp class, one of those "who the heck KNOWS what's coming next" sorts of things. We ran, we lunged, we generally grunted and groaned.

Then, the instructor told us WE would pick the next set of exercises. We stood in a circle, and took turns leading the group (about 6) in an exercise. Squats. Burpees. Windmills. Then... my bane of banes. Jumping jacks.

Not just a few, either. FIFTY jumping jacks.

Now, I'm hardly a newbie in the fitness world; on the technical side of things, jumping jacks aren't difficult. I have the physical capability of.

No, my friend, my problem with jumping jacks is Mom's Bane. My bladder.

Oh yes. I peed ALL OVER myself. This was, sadly enough, only 30 minutes into this hour long class. I usually wear protection, but this time I'd forgotten, and wasn't too worried about it since we usually do weight training in this class on Thursdays.

Fate has a funny way of treating you. I was thankful I'd worn a long t-shirt instead of my usual -torso-hugging workout shirt. It hid the worst of it, but I was about to die of embarrassment. This was a mixed class, with guys and girls. The girls know... and one friend shared my horror with sympathetic frowns when I told her.

I decided to finish, but then I intended to go home and change out my wet pants for something less... toddler-accident-ish.

But you know something? After the class, I was ready to flee in shame, and I realized something.

No one cared. No one stared, commented, nor looked. The only one who knew was a classmate who has the same problem. So instead of skipping out on my next class, an hour-long weight class, I said screw it... I'm staying.

So I did. And I even told the instructor, and she was proud of me for sticking with it. The other ladies in that class (all the guys chickened out, they think that our 5 and 7 lb weights are girly) sympathized and told me in conspiratorial tones they had the same problem.

So I finished my class, and my biceps are screaming. I could have run home, but I didn't.

So what if they had noticed. No one cares. Everyone's generally polite enough that even if they did notice, they're certainly not going to say anything. So if you worry about people laughing at your thighs, or looking like a dummy in Zumba or not knowing what to do in that spinning class... remember me. Remember my urine-soaked panties and gigantic wet spot, and know that if I can get through an hour and a half of gym class with that, you can manage to look a little silly.

Besides, all of us started somewhere. Five months ago, I was the newbie in the class. I was the one standing in the back, embarrassed by my flopping belly and jiggling thighs.

And I'm already looking, and feeling great. And when a newbie comes in class with that deer-in-headlights look, I smile, introduce myself, and tell her that she's going to love it.

Today in fitness

So today is the first day I've really been pleased with my own workout.

The first time I went to the gym, I did okay. I was struggling with my couch to 5k running plan, specifically my shins and ankle (it's a two year old severe sprain, ankle still weak), so I made the decision to take it down a notch, and just WALK. I need to build up the strength in my legs before I try running again.

I did pretty well, I think. My goal was 1 mile, and 30 minutes. I set the treadmill for 3 MPH, because that is a good, challenging speed for me without exhausting me at the end of it.

At about 10 minutes in, though, I was starting to get angry, feeling tired, like this was just too much. So I made myself a challenge. Go to 15 minutes. You haven't completed a single 30 minute session on the treadmill since you started a week ago, you can do this.

And I did. So I aimed for 20 minutes. And did. Then 25. At that point, I'm encouraging myself under my breath, saying "You can do this, just 5 minutes. Just 2 minutes. 1 more minute. Come on, now, just 30 seconds."

At exactly 30:00, I spotted the 1.4 on my distance.

1.4? Really? Surely I can go for .1 more and make it a nice, even mile and a half.

So I did.

I'm proud of that.

I wanted to try my hand at the weight machines, so I hopped on a tricep machine of some kind and did about 10 reps. It was just an experimental, "Can I do this" sort of thing, but I think I can, and I'm pleased. I got a little burn there, and I'm happy with that.

Today, my goal is to plan a weight training workout. I'm back on Sparkpeople, and have decided to try their beginner's strength training plans, that are printable. one of the things the gym personal trainer I had a consultation with said was I need to have a plan, and he's right. It just takes a bit more work and motivation when you have to do it on your own than when you're paying for a personal trainer.

I'm toying around with the idea of going in tonight for some crosstraining on the stationary bike, and maybe check out a zumba class at 6. I haven't decided yet.

Either way, I feel more productive than I have in a while.