90 Day In-Home Boot Camp

"A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths." ~ Steven Wright

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been walking for 30min sessions during my 1hr lunch break. Since I'm walking around in my work clothes (shirt/tie/dress pants/dress shoes) the last thing I want to do is break a sweat, so I walk just fast enough to hit that fine line between being warm and actually sweating. My main goal was to get in a bit of exercise, where I would otherwise be sitting on my arse. It also gives me an excuse to get out of the office.

I plan on continuing my lunchtime walks, but only as a compliment to my new 90 commitment that I'm starting on Monday.

A few weeks ago I decided that it was time to get back on track and add some/any kind of fitness regiment to my life. I considered a lot of different possibilities from simple walks, to joining a gym near my work. I decided to try and keep is simple, which is the primary reason for my lunchtime walks, but I knew that this was only a start to ease me in to something bigger.... or at least more challenging.

I ruled out going to the gym for a few reasons:

1. It's a heck of a financial commitment.
2. I squandered the previous money I spent on gyms.
3. I don't feel comfortable enough in my own skin to exercise in front of others.
4. The gyms close to my work/home didn't open early enough in the morning to be able to workout before going to work...... +5pm @ a gym is just too busy.

In the end I opted to work out in the comfort of my own home. I scoured the internet looking for a well rounded routine that I could do with minimal equipment investment. I've never tried a DVD workout before, but I figured that this would be easier than trying to put together a training regiment by myself, and would probably once again require less equipment/money.

After a ton of consideration I chose the "Power 90: In-Home Boot Camp" created by Tony Horton (wikipedia link) and sold by a company called www.Beachbody.com

I was originally drawn to his P90X series, but after some thorough research a lot of users recommended purchasing/using his earlier Power 90 series if you where out of shape. I definitely fell into that category, so I chose to go with the Power 90 series for now and possibly progress to the P90X series later.

One of the reasons I chose the Power 90 series is because there seems to be a lot of satisfied users of his programs. I consistently found a lot of good reviews of series. Pretty much the only thing bad anyone had to say about him is that he's a bit annoying, which if that is the case, I'll learn to live with it. The other reason I chose this series is because it seems to be well rounded in it's approach: Fat burning, strengthening the whole body, cardio, building flexibility.

I purchased my Power 90 DVD set new off ebay. It's not as complete as the full series being offered now, but I knew it would meet my needs. It included the following:

• 3 DVD's (2 DVD's devoted to phases 1-4, and another DVD called "Fat Burning Express"
• Power 90 Program Guide & Transformation Tracker
  
• Fat Burner Food Plan
• 6 Day Fat Burning Express (guide: nutrition & explanation of the Express Disc)
• 90 Day Calendar
• Tape Measure

Needless to say I'm excited about starting, but not so excited about waking up an hour earlier to do the workouts. I like the fact that this series is based on a 90 day commitment, which is long enough to see results, but not so far away that there doesn't seem to be an end/goal in sight. The 90 days is also further broken down into 4 phases that you progress through, where your the one who decides it's time to progress to the next phase.

At some point in the future I'll post a review of both the Power 90 series and the resistance bands I purchased.