I completed my first round of P90X in Oct 09. By the end of the program I had lost a total of 41 pounds, been taken off two blood pressure medications, and lowered my overall cholesterol and was literally in the best shape of my life. The “X” in P90X stands for extreme. In other words, this is not a beginner program. It can be used by beginners but you really have to be committed to the program and modify the workouts heavily to prevent injury and get through the whole 12 weeks. Even though this program will work for anyone who can gut it out for the whole 90 days, it may not be the best program for those who have never worked out, or haven't worked out for a long period of time.
Our society has become more sedentary and we don’t get the physical activity we did only a few decades ago when we still had industry and agriculture in our country. Now, everything is outsourced to poorer countries that will do the labor for less money leaving people here without much need to be physically active outside of a few games of touch football in the summer, or an occasional swim in the community pool. Other than that, we pretty much sit in front of a computer all day or the TV at night. We are slowly turning to mush and the Centers for Disease Control has been sounding the alarm for many years, but no one is listening.
In Dec 08, I had a doctor’s appointment and my doctor told me I was pre-diabetic and I had a choice. I could either start exercising regularly and eating better, or I could be placed on diabetes medication for the rest of my life. I was already on two blood pressure medications and at the heaviest I'd ever been at 234 pounds. After 2 heart attacks in my early 40s and a stent already in my chest, I knew I had to make a change in my life if I wanted to live. I had to do something to stop and reverse the downward spiral I was in. I felt I had to take responsibility for my own health and fitness. What the doctors were doing, wasn’t working.
I had abused my body for so long, I really didn’t know where to turn.
In the past, I had tried all the gimmicks, like diet pills, fad diets, Ab crunch machines, that electric abdominal cruncher belt, and so forth. I don’t know how much money I wasted over the years trying to find an “easy” fix to my weight and health problem. Some of it worked in the short term, but nothing lasted. All the while, I was staying up late at night watching the infomercials, including P90X while I lay on the couch stuffing my face with potato chips, popcorn and ice cream. I had lost all my strength and energy and was too lazy to do anything about it. I had too many excuses. I had heart attacks, I had bad knees and feet, I was too heavy to do anything strenuous, and on and on. But when my doctor told me I was going to be put on the diabetes medication, I had to do something about it.
I knew I needed to do something drastic. Since I had seen P90X so many times, I decided to do some research on-line to find out more about it. I figured it was just another sales pitch like all the other things I had tried in the past and it cost $120 plus shipping so I didn’t want to waste even more money. As I researched the program, I found the PDF file for the Fit Test you can take to see if you are a good candidate for the program. I downloaded it and promptly failed the test. The web site I was on recommended I NOT buy P90X as my workout program!! I was so unhealthy; the company didn’t want to sell me their product. That really sucked. However, the website recommended I start with a “foundation” program to build my basic fitness level before attempting to do something as extreme ad P90X.
The programs that were recommended were Power 90 (P90) by Tony Horton; Turbo Jam by Chelene Johnson, Hip Hop Abs by Shaun Thompson, or Slim in 6 by Debbie Siebers as the basic programs to use to start my journey back to health and fitness. I had never heard of any of these programs but I am glad I didn’t waste my money starting with P90X. I don’t think I would have been able to complete that program as unhealthy as I was at the time. Since I really wanted to do P90X, I decided to give P90 a try because Tony Horton created both programs. Also, the foundation programs are about $60 instead of $120 for the advanced programs so I stood to lose less money if I didn’t like the program. As it turns out, all of Beachbody’s programs give you a 30 or 90 day money back guarantee and I have found they honor their commitment to the public with their guarantees. So the risk was reduced to nothing but my shipping costs if I decided to send it back. What did I have to lose? Nothing but a few pounds as it turned out.
So I ordered P90 and pushed play for the first time on 5 Jan 09, the day I received the program in the mail. The first workout was called Sweat 1 and 2. It was about 30 minutes long and in hind sight, was a very basic program. But by the time I finished the workout, I was laying on the floor in a puddle of sweat thinking I was going to die at any minute! LOL! Needless to say, I survived that first workout and the next day did a workout called Sculpt 1 and 2. It was hard too but I managed to get through that one also. I remember thinking about the cliché that “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” and I was determined to make it through at least the first week, which was basically just repeating the Sweat routine then the Sculpt routine for 6 days and then you get to have a rest day on day 7. Then you just repeat the workouts every week until you feel you are able to keep up, then you move on to Sweat and Sculpt 3 and 4 which increased the time to about 35 or 40 minutes.
I committed myself to this workout program for the whole 90 days and ended up losing 18 pounds of body fat and increasing my lean muscle mass just using my body weight and a couple of dumbbells. I could have lost more weight, but I didn’t follow the nutrition guide, I just kept eating fast food and drinking Pepsi like I had over the years and still got good results. I was totally pleased with my results and felt better than I had since before my first heart attack ten years earlier. I figured if I lost 18 pounds in 12 weeks, I could lose 30 pounds in a year, so I set that as my personal goal for the year. I also decided to get a copy of the P90 Master Series tapes to keep challenging myself, which ultimately turned out to be a perfect transition program for me between P90 and P90X.
The master series workouts are about 40-50 minutes each and introduce new exercises to keep your body guessing and improving. By the time I finished that round, I had started cleaning up my diet and had lost a total of 28 pounds in only 24 weeks. I was also confident that I was ready for the extreme challenge of P90X, so I finally ordered it and made up my mind that I was going to do my very best for the 12 weeks and then I would know that the program either works, or is just a bunch of hype. I have to say, it is a very demanding fitness program. I was sore all over the first week and the workouts are about 60 minutes each except for Yoga X, which is 90 minutes long. Everyone of the workouts kicked my butt and I had to modify many of the exercises but the program shows you how to modify and still get results.
By the time I finished my first round of P90X in Oct of 2009, I had lost 41 pounds, come off both blood pressure medications, was low risk for type 2 diabetes, and lowered my cholesterol to an overall 82! My doctor couldn’t believe how well I had done in such a short period of time. Along the way, I also won $1,000 dollars in the Beachbody Million Dollar Body Game for my transformation story. You can check it out HERE. I hadn't even finished the round of P90X when I won. Overall, I have exceeded every goal I set for myself and have managed to keep the weight off for over 2 years now. I have tried a lot of the workout programs and each one of them work to improve your health and overall fitness level if you just follow the program as designed and do the nutrition plan. You will get great results, or your money back, it is as simple as that.
I believe Beachbody has the ultimate solution to the obesity epidemic in our country. They use a three-pronged approach that is proven by science to be the best way to regain your health and sustain it over time. Beachbody produces the best workout programs in the industry today, period. Each program has a specific nutrition guide designed for that program. Then you get a FREE coach assigned to you to help you succeed and get the maximum results from your program. These three things combined give you the best chance to achieve your goals and get into the best shape of your life. It has worked for millions of people, and it will work for you if you decide you want to live a better lifestyle, commit do one of the programs, you will succeed in getting healthy and fit. Now, it's up to you! What are you going to do about it?
If you want to find out more about our fitness programs, the Beachbody community, or the coaching opportunity, just check out my website HERE.
To your health and fitness,
jw
No comments:
Post a Comment