June 9, 2009

Vitalogy - Bodywork, Exercise Program, Fitness, Healthy Cooking - A 30 Day Wrap Up

I'm at the end of the 30 day Vitalogy challenge. Here are the results in a nutshell.

14 pounds lost
Lots of flexibility gained
Neck and shoulder pain and stiffness significantly reduced

And here's a summary of the takeaways I got from doing the course..

If your objective is to have muscles like Arnold Schwartzenegger then Vitalogy isn't your best option.
If your objective is overall fitness and health with increased movement and reduced pain then Vitalogy is definitely for you.
The two things that make Vitalogy work are its simplicity and the way you can easily fit it into a daily schedule.
The secret to really making Vitalogy integrate into your life is to learn the variations on the 4 basic movements and 4 basic recipies.
One of the movement variations is to do them holding small (3 lb) weights. This really builds strength.
The beauty of the VitalFood program is that it both keeps you out of the kitchen most of the time and keeps you out of restaurants.
The problem with restaurants is too big portions and unknown ingredients.
You will win in personal fitness when the program you choose to follow doesn't require you to make significant changes to your life. To go from a couch potato to something like P90X and make it permanent in your life requires a will of iron that most people don't have. The "How macho can you get" approach doesn't really work for most people.

The last bullet is really important. I've been looking into different workout, exercise, and fitness programs for quite some time. Here is the basic problem… if you're a carpenter you tend to see the solutions to all problems as a hammer. So, in the fitness game, the exercise programs are designed by people who are fit… maybe they have never been anything else. It's really discouraging to get something like a yoga fitness program and see postures that are impossible for you to do. It usually makes you put the program on the shelf and forget about it. If you have lost flexibility, mobility, and posture, then you experience daily defeats. It hurts when you just try to stand up. To add more defeats with exercises you can't really do is crazy. Now here is the real secret… by doing an exercise and fitness program that you can really do easily no matter what your fitness level, you begin to see daily victories and that motivates you to do more. It's really just that simple.

Tags: diet, exercise, Food, Health, Vitalogy