P90X3: Eye on the Prize. 3 Days to Go.

Saturday's the day.  For almost all of the group I am doing this with, Monday, January 6th is the P90X3 start date and all will be doing it in unison.  I have done this before, and my optimal start DAY is Saturday.  I like Saturday's because Day 7 in the program is the rest day and I like my rest day to be Friday...so I will be starting on Saturday, January 4th.

Over the next couple of days, I will do a few things to finish my prep.

I need to break out my mat, my weights, my pushup grips (optional, but very effective) my pullup bar and my bands.  Finish watching the DVDs for the first cycle.

Eating right.  This is important.  Write down the shell of an eating plan.  Don't make it so restrictive that you can't follow it.  Just outline your approach to eating.  Read the P90X3 guide for suggestions, but use that to set yourself up for success.  If you do not change your diet one iota, you will change.  You will be burning calories that you normally don't burn and that will have results...but not the results you want.  You have to eat better and you have to eat healthier if you are going to take your body on this 90 day journey.

There is also one thing that people often skip.  Measure yourself with the scale and the tape measure, to include the visual measurement...the photos.

There are a lot of reasons people don't do this.  For many people, this is uncomfortable.  How much do I weigh?  How large am I around the waistline?  Is this what I really look like?  Oh...my...god.  Facing this brings about a lot of thoughts and feelings.  Self loathing is one.  You can't believe you did this to yourself.  Everything you have been telling yourself to fool yourself into thinking you look fine, rationalizing, will go right out the door because the numbers don't lie.  You will hate them.  But, ninety days from now, if you commit, YOU WILL LOVE THEM.  Why?  Because they don't lie...and they will be saying, "Wow...you kicked ass."

And, if you have never done a program like this, without an idea of what you will look like 90 days from now...it can be very DE-motivating.  But, 90 days from now, if you commit, you will change.  YOU WILL CHANGE.  That's why you have to do the measurements and photos.

There will come a time in this program, around week 3, when you realize you are getting better at the routines.  And, you will notice that the pants you have been wearing will have more room in them.  I was in good physical shape when I started P90X but I still got asked by my closest friends, "What are you doing?  Are you losing more weight or something?"  Your first set of program pictures, at 30 days, will look better, but maybe not great.  I was already in pretty good shape, so I didn't see a lot of change...at least not what I was expecting to see.  But the change was there.  Everyone else noticed it.

At the 60 day mark, I was really pushing hard because I felt like a million bucks and was starting to see it in the pictures.  By 90 days, I didn't want it to end.

Do all the measurements before you start.  Learn to love the numbers because, when you are done, they are the evidence of your success.  When you can't visually SEE all the results you want, the numbers will reflect progress.

One last thing.  If you have never done this before, fix an image of yourself in your mind...a realistic one...of what you would like to look like 90 days from now.  Think about that image every time you are working out.  SEE yourself looking just like that.  Your body will deliver what your mind conceives.  In 90 days, if you don't look exactly like that, don't be discouraged.  Acknowledge how far you have come, and then keep going.  It's about the journey...so plan another routine (Insanity, T25, Les Mills, etc.) but, keep going.

I start on Saturday.  If you haven't done this before, I can tell you this much.  It's not a commercial, and it's not some joke with fake pictures and professionally managed results.  It works.  It works on regular people.  It works at home.  It's going to work on you.  My pictures are attached today of my P90X experience.  I am psyched to get back to this photo because, I am not there right now and, more importantly, THAT's how I see myself in my mind's eye.  Eye on the prize.  I will be here for the whole ride with you!