So today marks the official ninetieth day of of my P90X journey, so I’m done right? Well, not quite…
I’ll say first and foremost that I expect that if you follow the system completely and don’t waver, you’ll probably get better results than I did. Not that I’m complaining; I may have cut some corners here and there, but I’m still pretty happy with how I turned out. It’s no surprise to me that I didn’t end up looking like Tony Horton at the end of 90 days.
So what didn’t I do, and why? First off, I would say a major factor was that I started this trek while I was still looking for work, and took advantage of the fact that if I woke up and didn’t feel like working out right away, I could almost always find the motivation in the middle of the day. Midway I started my new job at Xbox, which meant, as I mentioned on Day 60, there were some weeks where I missed a workout or two. Sometimes it was because I was too exhausted from work, but a lot of the time it was because I couldn’t dedicate that 1-1.5 hours in the morning before work to exercising.
I would get distracted, usually doing the things I was too tired to do the night before, and then I’d look at the clock, calculate that I didn’t have the time, and resolve myself that I would do it when I got home. Then after work, usually I’d be too busy or tired to do follow up. It’s a vicious cycle.
The other thing I didn’t follow at all (didn’t even read the material) was the diet / nutrition guide. That wasn’t such big deal when I was unemployed, because I rarely keep any junk food around the house, and I was good at drinking protein shakes all the time. But now that the big chunk of my day is spent at work, I find myself visiting the vending machine for a chip fix.
Overall, I skipped the workouts that were less in line with my goals, but due to my OCD at having empty chart entries, I did every workout that had spots for recording weights/reps. To that end, I can see (counting today) precisely 14 workouts that I missed, almost all of them in Phase III.
So what’s next? At this point I think the hour plus workouts a day are too demanding on my schedule, as my overall priorities are shifting a lot toward my other goals, such as my career growth. But I don’t want to drop it all completely, and while I may have missed more of the “cardio” options in those 14 skipped sessions, on many occasions during those three months I felt the desire to just go on a run. I had just done another round of Couch to 5k (which I also highly recommend) before starting P90X, and I missed the sheer simplicity of just running for a half-hour (instead of jumping up and down like a madman).
I’m exploring several potential options at the moment, but right now I have a few possibilities:
- Go to the gym . (I get a free membership from work to a nice gym, it’s just that I’m not too big on exercising around a bunch of other people)
- Do P90X again, but this time follow the “lean” option and actually follow the diet plan. (Least likely to happen, but it’s crossed my mind more than once)
- Do a custom routine of my own, probably using Beachbody’s 10 Minute Trainer series (the copies I have are interesting) along with regular runs.
For the immediate future, I’m considering “making up” those 14 workouts I missed, and then take a week or so break, explore my options, then kick things back into high gear.
/jon
P.S. It may be a bit of a biased judgment, but my girlfriend is appreciative of the end results.
Jon Thysell 