First you eat then you get hungry

Read any P90x blog and you will eventually find a post about the how hard it is to eat all the food. So here is my token entry, but there's a twist.

That first breakfast is a real killer. For Level II your eating an 8 egg white omelet with 3 oz of cheese and 12 oz of cottage cheese with 1 cup of berries. It's almost painful eating that much. Especially since most people doing P90x have trained themselves for low calorie diets. That first week you feel like a 300 pound fat guy at an all you can eat buffet. My coworkers eyes went wide when they saw my shrimp stir fry because it looked like a meal for three. I was definitely anxious those first 2 weeks. I was right in between Level I and Level II and was wondering if I made a mistake going with Level II.

The key thing here is what your eating in the meal plan. It's a huge amount of veggies and protein and almost no carbs and low fat. So yes you are eating a ton of food but that doesn't necessarily translate to a ton of calories. The calories you are eating are all good calories from protein and vegetables and whole grains. Remember that calories are just a measure of how much energy something contains. You're bodies ability to convert a food into something useful depends on what it is (Protein/Carbs/Fat/Alchohol). Basically, to build muscle, Protein is what you want and stay far away from the alcohol which is basically converted to fat. This is why you can't just buy a bottle of vodka and be good for a week.

Well I'm almost through week three and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The first two weeks my body was definitely panicking a bit. I felt over full the whole time and was worried that I was putting on fat. Now I think my body has figured it out. I'm hungry when I should be now and eating the meals is easier. My body fat is also down about 1%. I'm also happy that my weight is slightly up, 2 lbs, which means I'm gaining muscle as well.

So my advice to you is don't sweat the first coupe of weeks. It'll be a pain but by end of the first month you should see the results. My promise to myself was to stay on Level II unless I gained over 5 lbs and had higher body fat%.

Human Pretzel

Having been through all of the Phase 1 workouts for the second time now I'm starting to settle in. My 2 greatest challenges right now are flexibility and balance. I'd say those 2 things are what is really kicking my ass in most of the workouts (Although Chin-ups and Ab ripper X just kick my ass period). Unlike P90 many of the exercises rely on your balance (Kenpo/Yoga etc..). Ah just mentioned Yoga. I'd advise you to be cautious with the Yoga X. I definitely see the potential to injure your self pretty easily here. I'm taking it easy with the Yoga X and will be signing up for a group yoga class when I get the chance. I haven't done Yoga before and can definitely see the need for an expert critique on my forms and technique.

I faught the kitchen and the kitchen won

Wow, I was so excited about the P90x diet plan. different levels for different people. Phases depending where you are in the program, all awesome stuff. I figured I'd go extreme and do the extreme meal plan. I had no idea what I was in for. Cooking till 2am trying to keep up. Ouch!

I mean really: 5 different sauces, 6 different soups, 5 different salads, 15 other recipes on one week!! I guess if you're unemployed you can pull that off but then you wouldn't have the money to buy all the ingredients. That's another thing, these aren't "combine 4 ingredients and cook" recipes either (A feature of the P90 meal plan). Some recipes have as many as 14 ingredients and 5 steps and stuff like dicing shallots and doing stock reductions.

I still like the idea of the meal plan but it's way to much effort. My current scheme is to make a bit of a hybrid between the meal plan and the portion approach. Oh and since I mentioned the portion approach I'll mention why I'm not doing that instead. Honestly I'm a little too anal for it. I would go crazy guessing at portion sizes and trying to figure out what counts as what. Does a chicken sandwich with cheese count as a fat/protein/carb and the guide only lists fats that in oil form so I have no idea what a portion of cheese would be.

So here is my current plan of attack:

• Prep 3 different types of soups (prepared on the weekend and frozen)
• Prep 3 different types of sauces (prepared on the weekend and frozen)
• Have 2-3 different fruits
• Have 2-3 different vegetables
  
• Prep 4 cups of wild rice on the weekend
• Combine several vegetables in one meal into a larger portion of 1 vegetable
  

These steps greatly reduce the effort in the meal plan. The soups, sauces, fruits and vegetables are pretty interchangeable. Most soups count as 1 Vegetable portion, most sauces count as 1.5 condiments etc... The other menu items are a little more complex and hard to change without affecting the portion balance. Also an added benefit of restricting the variety a bit is that you won't go broke eating partial portions of things and watching the rest spoil in your fridge I.E. 1/4 of a grapefruit once a week. Sorry but the rest O that grapefruit isn't going to hang around for a month waiting for you to finish it. I suppose this is probably the conclusion they expect people to reach but could they just say "Lunch, Day 1, one Soup from the recipes" etc. This would have made it obvious from the start. Also having 1 Cup of Quinoa (That's a vegetable I can't even find) and 1 Cup of Snap peas for one dinner. Come on just tell me to eat 2 cups of Snap peas.

P90 Extreme, Lets go!

So I started P90x last Monday. And here's the first evidence of the time commitment. Didn't have time to blog about it untill now. But before I digress here are my starting stats.

Here are my starting measurements:

Body Fat% 13.7 (Using Caliper)
Weight: 151 Lbs
Hips: 32 1/2"
Right Thigh: 20 1/2"
Left Thigh: 20 1/2"
Right Arm: 12 3/8"
Left Arm: 12 3/8"

Here are the results of my initial fit test:

Resting Heart Rate: 59 bps
Pull-Ups: 3 (I really suck at Pull-Ups and this is something that P90 misses)
Toe Touch: 0" (Yup I can touch my toes ... barely)
Wall Squat: 3:30
Bicep Curls: 15 at 22.5lbs
Abs: In & Outs: 40

I'm a smidge flabbier than I was after finishing the P90 program. I learned an important lesson about reaching your goal: Always have another one to take it's place. Otherwise it's really hard to resist that extra helping around thanks giving.