Putting P90X3 to the Test (#P90X3Dads)

Whew! The last 21 days have been crazy. On April 4, my wife gave birth to our second son, Gabriel Luke DiCaro, who weighed in at 7 lbs, 14 ounces and 21-¼ inches long. We are of course overjoyed (and tired) about the birth of our angel Gabriel… Hey, that has a nice ring to it!

Thanks to my fatherhood-oriented employer (ahem), I was able to take two weeks of paternity leave from April 7^th through the 18^th. This time was extremely helpful in allowing me to help my wife, bond with my new son, and, importantly, make sure my first son, 4-year-old Vinny, was getting the love and attention he needs, too. The wonders of paternity leave… more on that in another blog post. 

But a slight curve ball was thrown at all of this last Thursday (the 17^th) when I started experiencing horrible pains in my stomach. These were not routine stomach ache pains, but brutal, stabbing pains that I never had before. Thankfully, my parents were visiting and my dad was able to take me to the emergency room while my mom stayed home with my wife and kids. 

Five hours and a morphine drip later, I was sent home from the hospital with a diagnosis of acute gastritis, likely caused by my zealous consumption of milk, my lack of sleep, and the fact that I was taking flu medicine to deal with some annoying symptoms the night before (coughing, headaches, runny nose, etc).

I tell you all of this because I am supposed to be in the middle of one of the most intense workout routines on the planet, P90X3. As we’ve blogged about several times, Ryan Sanders and I, along with our friends at Dads Matter and Life of Dad, have taken on the challenge of P90X3 to show that busy dads can find the time to workout and transform their bodies and their health. We’ve called it our #P90X3Dads campaign. 

So, the real question is, “Has P90X3 passed some serious, real world tests?” The answer is mostly “yes.” 

For the first 13 days of my son’s life, I only missed 4 workouts, and made up for one of those by skipping my “rest” day and moving right on to the next week’s workouts. To me, this is amazing. They’ve been able to design a routine that you are inspired to do, even when you have so little time, and, in my case, so little sleep. Again, it is the magic of the fact that each workout is only 30 minutes long (2% of your day!). You have the idea in your head that it’s going to be over so quickly, so I may as well just do it! And it works!

Unfortunately, the gastritis situation was a bit too much to handle, and I did miss 4 straight days of working out (Thursday through Easter Sunday). But I am right back on it, having worked out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And I have a plan to completely catch up and actually finish the entire program in the 90 days that it was designed to be completed in. I am supposed to start a “transition week” on Friday; it is an “easier” week designed to ease you into the next block of intense workouts. I’m going to skip the transition week. I think I’ve had enough rest over the last week having missed 4 workouts, so I'm going to jump into the next block on Friday. That will put me right back on schedule.

I am truly excited about this, because the gains I was seeing (loss of body fat, increased strength and endurance) were really getting me excited, and I am eager to get back on track so that my day 60 photos will be as impressive as possible.

So, long story short (too late!), if a dad like me, with a newborn and a shaky stomach, can still find time to workout, so can you!