P90X: "Did I Really Finish??" Day 90 of 90

I will do the last of this week’s Coaching blog tomorrow.  I need to take a moment here to collect myself.

Wow. 

Ninety days of P90X.  For those of you following my work, you know I added two more weeks due to some transition issues to Classic and some vacation.  Still though, ninety days is the program milestone.  When I do the Kempo X tonight, that will really be the end of the Program as we know it.  I will be doing my 90 day shots on Saturday (today is Thursday) but I also will be doing some 104 day shots just for kicks.

If you are considering doing P90X, a few things you should know. 

First, ninety days seems like a lot when you are considering this.  In actuality, the time flew by.  You spend each week doing 6 different routines so that no one routine is typically done in the same week.  It went so fast at times that, when I was doing certain routines, it actually felt like I had done them a day or two ago, not a whole week.

The next thing you should know is that the program works.  I have seen significant improvement in my 

physical performance and in my measurements.  While I was not overweight when I started, I was not as sculpted as I am ninety days later.  In fact, I have never been this sculpted in my life.  I went on vacation to the mountains of Utah and hiked uphill for hours on end at the ripe old age of fifty.

When I started this on Day 1 and into the first week, it was almost comical.  I go back and reread some of my blog entries and there were times I was so sore I couldn’t type properly.  I thought I was in good shape!

P90X Day One

P90X Day Two

For some of the routines, this went on for weeks.  I had bouts where I tweaked something because I pushed too hard and needed to come up with an alternative solution to that particular exercise in a given daily routine.  Some of the routines still stand out.  In Core Synergistics that first week, I couldn’t lift my legs off the floor at the midpoint of the routine.  I burned myself out on pushups so badly in some routines that I could barely push myself to my feet.  I couldn’t do ANY of the exercises in Ab Ripper X completely for about 7 weeks.  I now do it three times a week and do the hardest forms in each routine.  All of the weight work that I did (because I wrote it all down as Tony instructed) improved to about 2X the weight I started with.  If I started with 10 lb dumbbells, I ended with 20.  If I started with 15, I ended with 30.  Very significant improvement was seen in every phase of the workouts. 

You should also know that this is not a diet plan.  There are many diet plans out there if your goal is to lose weight.  Pick a safe one.  P90X is not a diet plan.  Does it come with nutrition suggestions and guidelines?  Absolutely.  If you are overweight right now, will you lose weight?  Probably, but it depends how overweight you truly are.  If you are overweight (a BMI of over 25%) and follow the exercise and nutrition guidelines, you should lose weight.  If you are one of those people that obsess about your weight when you are really only about 10 percent above the normal weight for a person your height and age (like a 132 pound woman who should ideally be 120) the results may vary.  It depends how much weight work you do and how rigid you are with the nutrition.

I weighed in the low 220’s when I started and I weigh about 212 now.  I lost about ten pounds.  That is less than 5% of the weight I started at.  I have weighed less than that in the past four years, at one point being about 198.  I remember it because I had not been ‘sub 200’ in over twenty years.  So, I didn’t lose so much weight that I am ‘lighter than ever.’  I have dropped a complete pants waist size going from 36 to 34.  I have dropped a shirt size from Large to Medium.  I can see my abs and my physical look has never been this muscular.  While I am not “lighter than ever”, I am certainly “leaner than ever.”  That is really the goal of this program.  Fitness.  Runway models are stick thin.  They also have a high incidence of anorexia and bulimia.  That is not health.  It’s skinny, but it’s not healthy.

FIT people make the right food choices, exercise often, are more likely to choose a physical option than a comfortable one, and possess much less body fat than the ‘average’ person.  I say ‘average’ because we live in a nation with close to a 60% rate of being overweight and a 30% rate of obesity.  Think about it this way…the goal is to have less fat.  If there is no fat on a muscular frame, you have achieved your goal.  The scale may not say it…but the scale is not the right yardstick.  That’s why P90X asks you to measure yourself and take photos.  There is more than one way that you need to measure improvement in this program.

I recommend this program to everyone and anyone.  The only watchword I will give is that you should do this with some help and guidance.  Make sure you have a coach.  Someone who has done this and has seen results.  Don’t just go get the DVD’s and stick them in and do this alone.  I used many resources along the way but nothing replaces my Coach Lisa Barker, our team nutritionist Melissa Binkley and my Chiropractor (who also does P90X).  They really steadied me through this.

So if you are interested in markedly improving your health and fitness, while challenging yourself like never before…get a damn coach, get off the couch, and GO FOR IT.

 Thanks!!