I surpassed the 45th out of 90 Beach Body P90 Home Fitness program sessions this week. I finished #48 tonight, but wanted to give my thoughts now that I am halfway through the circuit.
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I completed session 36 of 90 yesterday. I also finished my first week of the more difficult Phase 3 and Phase 4 parts of the program. The sessions are longer and there are more repetitions and sets. There is an extra phase of exercises in the strength training part, and the ab routine doubles from 100 to 200 exercises. I haven’t attempted the “Ab Ripper 200″ part yet. It still scares me.

So far I have lost a half inch from my waist since September and 1.5 inches from my hips. My chest has gone up an inch. I have measurements of my bicep and thigh, but I can’t remember exactly where I started my initial measurement from so I am skeptical to see the results.

In general, I feel like I am getting stronger. However, I don’t know how I am going to handle the monotony of doing another 54 sessions. I have tentatively decided to take a one-week break after session 60 and do the Fat Burning Express workout that was so much fun.
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Ah, yes. It’s time to shame myself into exercising more by posting images of myself on the Internet. I’m on week three of the P90 home fitness program. I started out with a week of the P90 Fat Burning Express workout, and then dove right into the regular program.

It is obvious that the P90 base program came out way before the Fat Burning Express special. The whole production lacks the polish and enthusiasm of the later Hawaiian session. There are some older-school exercises in the program, such as dumb bell flies, that are frowned upon in most workout programs today. Since the P90 base program is geared towards beginners, I was surprised to find flies and the standing single-armed French Press as part of the regime. These exercises are okay when you are both experienced and have the supporting musculature required to do these movements without injury. However, I feel that someone unsupervised and new to lifting may do more harm than good.

Tony Horton is still cute, but his showmanship and intensity is lower than in the Fat Burning Express. I grin when he says his signature lines: “we’re having some fun,” and “checking on the kids!!” but the one-off jokes have yet to materialize.

On the positive side, the P90 home fitness starter program exercises have the same adjustable levels of intensity I wrote about in my review of the Fat Burning Express. If you can’t do a particular exercise due to injury, flexibility, or just plain exhaustion, Tony demonstrates at LEAST one alternate mode for each movement.

Keep in mind I am in Phase 1/2, the first disc of the two-part set. There is a Phase 3/4 that is more intense, but I am not quite ready to take that on. Phase 1 is a cardiovascular workout that culminates in a 100-rep ab routine. Phase 2 is a strength training routine (plyometric and weights/resistance). Each session is about a half hour, although the Phase 1 is slightly longer.

I feel a lot stronger and more flexible than a month ago. My endurance is also up. I am having problems getting consistent measurements, but I look better than I did in September. More than anything, I appreciate the brevity of the sessions and the accessibility of working out at home. A few times I have been sitting on the couch watching TV or playing the Xbox 360 and thought, “I don’t want to work out tonight.” Then I realize that I’m going to sit in front of the TV for another half hour anyway, so why not work out in the meantime? I’ve only missed two days since starting the base exercise program.

Warning! It’s just me in my under-roos, so avert the eyes of children and those faint of heart.

Without further ado, here I am in my graphically furry glory.
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I’ve put on some pounds, or at least some mid-section cushion, since going back to an office job. It’s been too easy to go out to lunch with co-workers. It also didn’t help that I’ve been ingesting incredibly yummy desserts since my birthday almost a month ago.

I was talking with my boss about it and she felt the same way — it was time to shed a few pounds. She purchased the P90 in-home boot camp. The set came with a “bonus” 6-Day Fat Burning Express program. My boss did it and lost six pounds in six days. I was curious, and she let me borrow it.
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My master bathroom is at the opposite end of the house from the hot water heater. The shower is the last piece of plumbing to get hot water. I had accepted that I would have to stand in front of the shower with my hand under the water until I found the LED shower light at ThinkGeek.

Water pressure turns a little turbine inside the shower head to power ten LEDs. The LEDs shine blue until the water reaches 89°F, then it turns red.

Great googly moogly! Were my days of unexpectedly getting into a cold shower over?
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My skin gets really dry. I am inside a climate controlled, low-humidity environment for most of the day. I use Badger Balm (reviewed here) during the winter months and have tried several hand lotions (see my negative review of Vaseline’s Intensive Care Total Moisture). Despite my best efforts, sometimes my skin just dries out too much and flakes. During the summer and winter months my face gets particularly bad, as I have the AC or heat cranked, respectively. I needed an exfoliant, but didn’t want to smell like a chick.

Every Man Jack sells grooming supplies for men. They sell everything from body wash to shaving products to skin care products. Target carries a lot of their stuff, and I picked up a five ounce squeezable tube of their mint facial scrub about two months ago for $5. I purchased the mint, as the scent was clean without being overwhelming. There is a non-scented version if you are sensitive to perfumes or don’t want the mint scent to clash with whatever else you wear.

Directions are simple: apply a dime-sized amount of scrub to your face every other day. I do this in the shower before I shave. The grit in the scrub painlessly scours the dry skin off. A quick rinse with water and you’re all set.

I have been really pleased with the Every Man Jack facial scrub. It is inexpensive (I have another two month’s worth of product left), is easy to use, and works. I have found that I develop fewer ingrown hairs or razor burn now that I am using the exfoliant. I think removing the dead, flaky skin from my face and throat helps my razor from getting clogged up as easily.

At five bucks you can’t go wrong with the EMJ scrub.

Last year I grew my facial hair out from the day after Thanksgiving to sometime in March-ish. It was nice, especially while riding my motorcycle when it was below freezing. The same thick hair on my arms and fingers that scares small children away protected my babysoft skin from the cold. I did it again this year, and once again having more hair on my face than on the top of my skull did wonders against wintery drafts.

However, now that the weather is heating up, my skin has been getting more and more irritated. This is going to sound gross (and really, beards are borderline nastified even if you take care of them religiously like I do), but low-level sweat gets trapped in my facial hair and then my pores get clogged up. Right now I have three ingrown hairs on and along my jawline.

It’s time for Chewbacca to trim down a little bit.
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So, I ran out of hand lotion last week. This may not seem like a big deal to you. However, when you have poor circulation to the extremities like I do, work on computers all day with your hands outstretched and elbows bent, and putz around behind the counter of a coffee shop in your spare time, your hands can get jacked in a hurry. The webbing between my fingers can get particularly dry, as well as my fingertips. It’s always disconcerting to look down and see a crevasse opened up on my index finger … and then type on it for about fourteen hours a day.
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It’s official: using the Epislim on the tops of my feet and toes really hurts. I managed to rip a few patches of skin off on my right foot — this reminds me of waxing! On a “positive” note, the hair on my fingers has decided to take some time off. It isn’t growing back as fast, and I don’t think I’ve run the Epislim over my fingers but once since I wrote my review.

I’m still pleased with the Epislim’s effectiveness, but I’m not looking forward to letting the Demon Claws go after my feet again.

In my ongoing, hopeless war against my body hair, I often turn to … unconventional contraptions and procedures. At least, unconventional for a guy. Especially a straight one. That isn’t in porn or professional fighting. Rip my nose hairs out by hand if I couldn’t find a trimmer? Ayup. Own a grooming device with multiple attachments? Right here, buddy. Wax my back? Yeah, done it a few times. Nair? Yes, yes I have done Nair. It didn’t work very well and left a chemical burn on me for a few days.

So, when Stomper gave Lady Jaye an Emjoi Epislim awhile ago, I was intrigued. The Epislim is basically a device made by Satan. There’s a whirling set of … devil claws? Fuck if I know what they are really called, that rip your hair out. It is very similar to the Epilady, except the Epislim is smaller. The devil claws only cover about an inch-wide area. Instead of legs and underarms (or the “bikini area,” as I was told), I was after the hairs that grew along the tops of my fingers. I don’t know really why I wanted them gone. Maybe it’s because chimps have hairy fingers, and I am trying to avoid the primate comparison as much as possible. I might be a hairy bastard, but I’m going to be a hairy bastard on my own terms.

I fired up the Epislim, which is powered by two AA batteries. The power switch made me a little nervous. There is a safety nipple that has to be depressed in order to flip up the power switch. That’s right, this bitch has a safety. The second thing that made me pause was the incredible roar that came from such a small device. It was as if a giant demon had been smooshed down into a tiny plastic housing. I shrugged and ran the Epislim over the top of my thumb.

It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t really that bad, either. Certainly not as bad as getting my back waxed. I did wince a few times, and possibly said “Ow.” I found that different parts of different fingers were more sensitive than others. The worst parts were the fingertips of my index and pinky fingers. My middle fingers were the least sensitive. I guess flipping the bird so often toughed them up.

About two weeks ago I decided to try the Epislim out on my toes. That hurt. No idea what the big deal was, but I tried again a few days later and didn’t even finish my first toe. I was tempted to try “other areas” just for the sake of this review but I don’t want my manhood ripped off by the devil claws. Maybe for another post.

Regrowth on my fingers started in about a day or two. I waited three more days and I went after my hands again with the Epislim. The devil claws whirred to life and snatched off all my hairs. I’ve done this about four or five times. Either my hair is finally giving up or I’m fooling myself, but I think it’s taking more time to grow back. Either way, I’m pleased with the Epislim. It does what it says, seems durable, and was inexpensive ($18 before shipping at Amazon.com or similar vendors).

Emjoi Epislim AP9LC Epilator, I rip out
Five out of five STFU mugs!