P90 It's been fun

So I'm done with the power 90 challenge. It definitely gave me the results I was looking for. I'm in the best shave I've ever been in.

The major critique I would have about P90 is the diet plan. The program is designed for weight loss while maintaining fitness and providing definition. The diet held me back in terms of my fitness goals. In the end I was doubling every meal (portion wise to maintain a decent caloric intake). 2X cereal/2x Lunch Sandwich/2x dinner to give me about 2500 calories. The plan stresses a calorie deficit but the default calorie deficit is way too extreme for most people 1300 – 1500 calories is a crash diet. Granted I'm pretty active in addition to the exercise I'm getting as part of this plan. Still if you're an adult and weight over 140 lbs 1500 calories is not enough. Because if all the adjusting I had to do for the diet it made it very hard to stick to it. I fell off the wagon a couple of times, especially near the end.

Here are my final measurements:

• Body Fat: 14.5%
• Weight: 149.8 pounds
• Chest: 38 1/2"
• Waist: 30 3/4"
• Hips: 32 1/2"
• Right Mid-Thigh: 20 1/2"
• Left Mid-Thigh: 20 1/2"
• Right Upper Arm: 12 3/4"
• Left Upper Arm: 12 3/4"
• Blood Pressure: 124/60
• Resting Heart Rate: 64 beats per minute.

I have already received my Power 90 Extreme and will probably be starting that program in a week or 2. While reviewing the P90x you really see the short comings of P90. For example in P90x they do a good job of splitting your diet among Proteins, Carbs and Fats and they stress that you should eat all the recipes in the plan. This is important to maintain a balanced diet. The P90 program states that you can eat the recipies you like. While all the recipies in P90 are pretty good I don't think that eating the toast, hamburgers and fries and Chicken Marinara every day for 90 days would be a great idea.

The best part of the P90 is of course the workouts. If you stick with it and eat a balanced diet you will get in shape. Now again here is a difference I noticed when looking at the P90x workouts and charts. I notice they stress that you record the weights and reps. Tony stresses that you should set goals and push your self. You see in the P90x routines where his companions are setting goals and pusing them selves with real weights. In contrast all the exercises in P90 are demonstrated with almost no weight. The girls are just using the 5lbs bars them selves. Now once I had mastered the Level 3/4 of P90 I stated to push my self by keeping track of weights and increasing them for the various exercises. Here is where you run into a major annoyance. Since they are demoing the exercises and not changing weights you have about 5 seconds inbetween exercises. Heck 5 seconds was barely enought time to stop the exercise and hit the pause button. Let alone figure out your weight, set the adjustable dumb bells and get ready. I was constantly pausing and rewinding.

Now if I had it to do over again would I go straing to P90x? The answer is no. P90 served the exact purpose I intended it to. It slowly brought me to a level where I can now transition to P90x. In P90x the workouts are 1hr or more. That really intensive if you've been a couch potato for a couple of years. So my advice would be to start with P90 but to keep my critiques in mind. Definitely do some research and be prepared to modify the diet.

Stay tuned for P90x which I will be starting in a couple of weeks.