P90X For Everyone – Diamonds of Gold

Hello friends and family! Susan and I have just completed our first round of P90X. The results are absolutely amazing. I honestly went from the worst shape of my life to the best in just 90 days. I was out of shape and now I am fit and healthy. Susan went from thin and healthy, to super fit. With a 7 month old baby, she is in the best shape of her life. We really gave it our all, never missed a workout, and stuck to the nutrition plan. We are both so happy with the results.

As happy as I am with my current level of fitness, I really want to do another round of P90X to take everything to another level. I’m inviting everyone to join me. I’m starting my second round of P90X on Saturday April 14^th. If you’re at all interested please let me know and I’ll be glad to help you get started. I can share all of my weekly menus with you, share my biggest challenges, tell you my favorite protein bars, and help encourage you throughout. You can start the same day I do, before me, after me or whenever. If you start with me, you’ll be done mid July with plenty of summer left to show off the goods.

Susan and I really enjoyed every step of this program. Yes P90X is very difficult, but the results cannot be denied. After 90 days, there are still several exercises I can’t do or can only do a few times. You can modify and work your way to meet your goals. Susan started by doing all of her push-ups on her knees, but she doesn’t need to do that anymore. I started doing most of my pull-ups while standing on a chair. On the last back workout I did 105 pull-ups/chin-ups in an hour workout without even thinking about using a chair.  P90X is not a gimmick or filled with empty promises. P90X is a great exercise program and a very healthy nutrition plan.   This is not a weight loss plan or a plan for body builders. It is a plan for fitness.  If you would like to start P90X please let me know. You can join my group that I unofficially call “Diamonds of Gold” which is a name you’ll only understand after day 3 of your workouts.

The Workouts: The part of P90X most people think about first are the workouts. These are pretty intense workouts at a pretty good pace. Each day you do something different. Three days a week you have resistance training, once a week you do yoga, once a week you do Kenpo (cardio kickboxing), one day a week you do plyometrics (the mother of all that is P90X), and on the seventh day you can rest or do X Stretch. I always did X Stretch to make sure I was going the extra mile. Yes you do a lot of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and jumping.  If you’re thinking “I can’t do push-ups or pull-ups” then you can modify. Remember I went from 8 pull-ups to over 100 in an hour. Modify, Modify, Modify. Tony will show you easier and harder versions of just about every exercise. Watch the infomercial, a guy was 370 pounds when he started. Do you think he was knocking out 15 pull-ups per set?

The menu: Our P90x week was Saturday-Friday. Every Friday I would set up the menu for the following weeks. Every day for 13 weeks, nearly 100% of the food I ate was accounted for in my own preplanned nutrition plan. P90X supplies two nutrition plan options. It will provide a meal plan covering each and every meal each and every day. Each meal has a recipe and instructions and an accurate count of your daily nutrition requirements. If you do not have a job, love to cook for hours a day, and have a rather large food budget, by all means get to cooking Tony Horton style. The other option is a little bit more manageable in my opinion. The website will give you a list of the nutritional needs you should meet each and every day. For example, Phase One (the first part) Level 2 (depending on your current weight) eats 7 servings of protein and 4 servings of vegetables per day (plus other requirements). The website also provides a list of samples to meet these needs, for example 3oz of chicken counts as a serving of protein. I have created my own menu following these requirements as closely as I can. I’m sure you would want to make adjustments for you taste and convenience, but it’s not a bad start.

Commitment: More important than the workouts or the nutrition, is your commitment. P90X is not promising anything new. Exercise and diet. Well, extreme workouts and strict diet. The difference in success and lack of success all lies in your commitment. If you want to maximize your results you have to give it 100%. Susan and I did our workouts at 6am before Reagan would wake up, or during a nap, or even starting a workout at 9, 10, or 11 at night. I would pass on desserts, a cold beer, and even stayed on diet at my own Super Bowl party.  The mental commitment is by far the hardest part.

What you’ll need:

P90X

Pull-up bar – you can find at any Big 5 or other sporting goods store

Resistance Bands – We use a set of three from Target for $29.99. The only problem is you have switch the handles all the time.

Yoga mat – Any Target or sporting goods store

You may also want:

Push-up Stands

Weights

Yoga Block

Yoga Strap

The menus I created

P90X is awesome. We feel great, have tons of energy, and can’t wait to push ourselves through Round II.