FWIW, I’m 21, and outside of my job - which is physically intensive - I’ve been living a relatively sedentary life for the past three years or so, when I moved into a new place and had to ditch my workout routine. Now, even though I was in pretty good shape in my high school years, I never was quite able to get to where I wanted to be. For me, honestly, the biggest obstacle has always been the dieting component - not limiting portion sizes or shit like that, but rather just finding out what the Hell I’m supposed to eat and when.
Which is why I’m glad P90X comes with a nutrition guide.
The obvious admiration of user name and post combo …
Basic standard advice which you may already know -
Get in some protein and carbs in the hour window after the work out. Dairy products work if you are not lactose intolerant but something, ideal about 20 grams of protein.
Most experts advise some complex carbs a bit more than an hour beforehand to fuel the work out.
Have breakfast every day.
Lots of vegetables, moderate fruit, decent amounts of high quality protein (ideally including fish and seafood … if you are measuring roughly 25 to 30% of your calories from protein), low refined carbs/sugars. I’m a big believer in nuts and seeds (unsalted) as part of the nutrition plan.
No soda, only a little juice. A glass of beer or wine a day won’t kill you but not too much more.
Real food, not food-like substances.
Probably nothing you have not heard before but you asked.
Yeah, I would say, don’t try to start P90X, start with the lesser P90 instead. That is the routine that was created to get people off the couch and on the road to fitness. There’s even another one called P90 Masters that is the bridge between the two.
When people tell me they’re doing P90X, I always ask “So how many pull-ups can you do in one set?” That line of questioning usually gets them to admit that they do about 20% of the routine, and often can’t do a whole session.
P90X is for people who are already fit and want to get even more fit.
P90 is for people who are on the couch, and want to start the road to fitness. It’s really pretty simple, it consists of two different sets of routines, one is weights, the other cardio/abs. You alternate these for six days each week. After you get through the first 45 days, you switch to a harder pair of workouts. They only take about 30 minutes, and all you’ll need is some dumbells.
I’m currently on week 5, but I’ll probably wait a little longer before I switch over.
If you need some inspiration, this is my son’s before and after (and completely unretouched) photo. He’s still doing the program after several years, and at age 42 is in better shape than I ever was.
Out of curiosity, were those before/after photos taken after he underwent a single round of P90X, or did he go through it a couple times? I’m just curious because, while I’ve seen some pretty extensive transformations on P90X, the REALLY extensive results tend to come only after somebody has gone through the program two or three times.
I very well might wind up doing it a few times, but I want to keep my expectations at least somewhat reasonable for round one.
Scooby is approachable and supportive.
Forums also will have people who live it day in and day out, with no marketing ads or companies pushing their supplement agendas.
jmwatts pretty much covered it, but I’d even suggest just getting yourself on a daily exercise regimen of 4-5 days a week, doing simple stuff. Crunches, pushups, pullups, tricep dips, squats, burpees- things that don’t even require any weights. The important thing is to establish a baseline level of physical fitness to the point that working out becomes part of your daily routine. Work in a couple days a week of cardio. You don’t have to buy any equipment for any of this.
After you’ve done that for 30-60 days, then start one of the P90 programs. Otherwise, you run the risk of biting off more than you can chew, getting discouraged, and quitting. And you won’t likely go back to it because you’ll think “P90X sucks”.
Don’t be intimidated. I started it 3 or 4 years ago having never worked out a day in my life beforehand. I wasn’t really obese to start with, but I had no muscle tone at all after 5 years in a desk job. I jumped in gung-ho and somehow survived. That first day, I thought I was going to die, and was incredibly sore for the first two weeks. But before long I was able to get through the whole routine and I’ve been sticking with it ever since (I stopped seeing improvements after 3 90-day rotations).
So for advise, I’d recommend you start when you don’t have any activities planned for the first two weeks, because you WILL be sore. Get a good pull-up bar because you really will be missing critical elements without one. If you don’t already have weights, I recommend the Bowflex adjustable dumbells. They’re tough, compact, and tons of options up to 50 pounds. There is one rest day a week, I recommend you plan ahead what day of the week you’d prefer to have off and start on the next day.
It’s good to be reasonable about your expected results. I don’t doubt for a second that the before/after shots they advertise are real, but to get that ripped you’ll really have to drastically change your diet. I basically still eat whatever I want, but in moderation, and even after years of P90X I don’t have the washboard abs. Still though, absolutely everyone I know noticed the results. Some even said I got too skinny because my cheeks now have that gaunt look.
I’ve done a round of Insanity too. It’s different in that you need NO equipment at all to do it (no weights, no pullups bars). I found it to be too gruelling to stick with. You’re sucking wind non-stop every day with Insanity. It’s probably better for burning fat, but for someone like me who stuggles to maintain muscle, I found P90X much more effective and easier to stick with because it’s so much more varied. I do swap in an Insanity workout for a P90 cardio day sometimes for a change of pace.
Good luck, and stick with it once you start. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.
If you don’t like working out at home, see if there are any group classes taught in your area. I’m much more motivated working out in a group setting than working out at home. You may be able to find an instructor-led P90X class in your area.
For another group option, consider BodyPump. It’s a group class which incorporates weights. You’ll get similar results as P90X. Boot-camp type classes are also good.
If you want to try group classes, checkout the websites of the gyms in your area. Often they will offer a multi-day guest pass.
I’m a former and current P90Xer. While I never got the results like those on TV, I did manage to lose a lot of weight and feel much better. I just have trouble with the diet, I love weird foods and weird combinations too much so I couldn’t stick to a nutritional guide
Be prepared to sweat, this was and is the toughest thing I’ve done in my whole life. If you are motivated though, you will get healthier, no question. There’s no way you can exercise an hour a day and not get healthier. Even if you don’t lose as much weight as you want, you will be stronger, be able to keep up longer, and get winded less. Good luck!
I find each individual Insanity workout to be a lot harder than each P90X workout, but because they are a bit shorter, somehow Insanity seems easier on the whole to stick with. With Insanity, no matter how good shape you are in, you will not be able to do all the exercises in any workout for the entire allotted time. The people on the DVD are in great shape, and none of them are doing everything.
At one point in the Insanity DVDs, one of the women declares that she wants to leave, and the workout leader (Shaun T) is in utter disbelief at her. It appears to be an entirely unscripted moment from an exhausted woman.
My two suggestions.
1)They give you the option of skipping StretchX. I believe if you download the calendar, that day is marked as “StretchX or Rest”. Personally, I liked the Stretch DVD so I always did that one and skipped Kenpo.
2)Do the StretchX DVD on Day 0. That is, do it the day before you start. You really do jump right in and it’ll help if you’re at least a little bit limbered up.
I don’t exercise at all, but I’ve done P90X a few times and those are what I’ve always found to help.
I’m sure it couldn’t have been just one round. He and his wife are Beachbody coaches and have gone through pretty much all of the P90 series several times by now. I don’t recall how much time elapsed between the before and after, but he’s pretty obsessive about things, so likely went for broke.
You and 99% of all the other people that buy into this, have the exact same results. You don’t look like the pictures, but you got a little ‘healthier.’
With all due respect does no one think for themselves? Have we not learned anything from weight loss and body building claims - infomercials in all their glory?
These programs are so common sense, it’s almost laughable that it makes money.
Anyone can learn/make a fitness program. The hard part (diet as well) is keeping it.
Do research, speak to some genuinely helpful people and within weeks you can learn enough to not only cover your workout routine, but also your diet.
Actually for me, I had to commit to something. I have tried for years to self-motivate. It never worked and I was growing more and more unhealthy. I needed to change things up. Getting that program was a step in the right direction. I actually had the opportunity to download/copy the DVDs for free, but I felt that if I spent the money and forced myself to commit to it, it would result in better motivation. That was proven correct. I don’t have any regrets about buying it. If I didn’t have those DVDs and spent the money, I don’t think I would have gotten a month into the workout
Anyone can work out. Anyone can change their diets. It doesn’t take a specific regime to get healthy and eat right, you just have to do it. Hell, just do 500 push-ups a day, in a month you’ll be stronger than you’ve ever been! But who can do that without motivation? I think the best thing that Tony Horton, the P90X guy was selling is not the workouts or the routine, but the motivation. He gets you kind of excited to exercise and I am grateful for that.
Meh - everyone gets all wrapped around the axle because “It’s so hardcore” but it’s all scalable - so if you can only do five push-ups, then push hard and do ten, if you can do thirty, then you may push hard and do forty.
It’s the same as any other HIIT exercise - you’re going to work, it’s going to suck and you’ll be sore.
Well, thanks. My wife and I did think for ourselves, and in a deliberative fashion, started P90X. I didn’t follow the nutrition guide, which was pretty much a carbs restricting diet. I just did straight calorie reduction and tracked that using SparkPeople or whatever that calorie tracking weight loss app is.
We were pretty much from the couch to P90X people, and had success with it. It’s tough at first, but with work comes success.
I lost 40 pounds. Two years later, we are going through the third round of P90X. We did a round of P90X2 in the middle, but we didn’t like that as much.
Taking several months off was pretty costly - I did put 10 pounds back on and lost a good bit of strength, but I am back to my best muscle and strength levels after this past three months.
One thing that we started doing was switching the Ab Ripper component over to the cardio days, since it makes for a longer workout when tacked on to the program elements as packaged.
