Michaela Riley

March 11, 2010

I have to admit that starting the P90X...X for Extreme is extreme and difficult but can say that I have finished my first week of my new exercise plan and happy that I can pause the training when I need to catch my breath or lay on the floor because of  exhaustion.

Day one of Beach body consisted of about an hour of chest and back exercises utilizing various forms of equipment, a chair, chin up bar and bands...okay I could only do 3 chin ups and that was using the chair for support. I did over 120 push-ups and thank the Army for letting me be all that I could be a long time ago...sure that is the only reason I could do the push-ups. I did alternate female with male version push-ups...is that cheating, my shoulders and chest didn't think so.

Then 20 minutes of the amazing Ab Ripper X. Okay my abdomen is still sore after three sessions of nearly 350 core exercises....sound extreme it is. I know that this is a proven exercise program with proven results...the only proof I have so far is pain in places that have never hurt before. So it takes my mind off of the joint pain from arthritis so consider this a nice diversion...with benefits that remain to be seen.

The Yoga was really my least favorite of all and after an hour and a half I was ready to be finished until the next week. Yoga is on day four of the exercise plan for the next 4 weeks so I hope I begin to like that because an hour and a half is a long time to work on something that is not so much fun except of course for the Chaturanga and upward dog pose...my back and stomach felt great while doing those. ...a strange name for an exercise but this was my first yoga session.

As for the OBAGI and skin treatment...the redness, peeling followed by more redness and peeling is still going on after 5 weeks of the treatment. This is supposed to diminish somewhat about 6 weeks so I will be looking forward to being able to wear black again. My skin sheds so much that it looks like I have a very bad case of dandruff and as you can imagine this is embarrassing.