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In high school, I was a gymnast, specializing in Still Rings. I knew what it meant to work out hard and I knew what it meant to be fit and I never had any problem with my weight. After college, I moved around a bit, living in Colorado, Florida and now Maryland outside Washington, D.C. After I got married and especially after we had children, it seemed there was less and less time to exercise, to be fit and healthy. I always had great intentions and would do a little workout whenever I could, but I didn't do anything consistently and I was frustrated by not being able to exercise on a regular basis.

At the beginning of 2009, I weighed about 170 pounds, which was the most I'd ever weighed. At that point, I decided to do something for myself and to begin to take care of myself again. I started doing some exercises at home and then, saw an ad for P90X online and decided to take the plunge and give it a try. I didn't know what I was in for and I didn't know if I could do it, but I thought I'd try and would do my best.

When I got the DVDs and started doing them, I was encouraged to find that I could do the exercises - there's no doubt they were difficult and challenging, but at least I could do them. When I first started, I took a lot of breaks, paused the DVD quite often and felt sore in different parts of my body just about every day - but it was always a good sore - the kind of sore I remembered from when I was a gymnast and when I used to go to the gym on a regular basis. After a while, I really experienced progress. And while I was expecting to get stronger along the way, a few other things started happening that I didn't expect: clothes started fitting differently (better), I felt more awake, alert and alive, I slept really, really well and my overall attitude and outlook on life greatly improved. These things didn't happen right away, but the more I did P90X and the more consistent I was with doing the exercises every day, the more I noticed these changes in the way I looked and felt. It's been truly amazing.

In February 2010, I had an accident and damaged my right rotator cuff (ok, I was sledding on a saucer, hit a jump and landed full force on my shoulder - couldn't move my arm when I got up). In March, I had shoulder surgery and my surgeon later told me, mine was "one of the more impressive tears" he'd seen. Great. Big tear, big surgery, unknown outcome. After a month in a sling, about 5 months of physical therapy, I was able to start back (slowly) with P90X in September 2010, about 6 months after my surgery. Now that I'm back into it, I appreciate the programs, the progress, the way I feel when I workout even more than I did before. As of today, I've only been back into it for about a month and a half, but already, am seeing and feeling results I had seen and felt the first time I went through P90X.

I started this journey hoping to lose some weight and get fit again. What I didn't expect is that I truly enjoy the way the workouts make me feel and I want to share that experience with others. For some, the changes may happen more slowly or faster than they did for me, but if you stick with the program, keep pushing play and continue to do the workouts, you will feel and see the changes, just as I have.