Waist of Space's P90X Journal

[WaistofSpace]

I am starting P90X tonight. I work all day from 7-7, so I will be working out at night after i get home. I debate working out in the morning, but i would have to get up about 5am in order to be ready for work on time. As i have a wife who likes to stay up late, it is hard for me to get up that early. A little about me, I work in NYC, have been married for 3 years and thus have been slowly getting myself out of shape for 3 years. Overall I am just an average guy, 6'2 about 205lbs. I play basketball once a week, but other than that I do nothing. My wife is small and in shape naturally, so she eats what she wants and stays thin. She does the cooking (or more often ordering) of the food, so I eat whatever is made and call it a day. I have now decided to stop this ridiculousness and get back into shape. My brother did P90X and had mixed results. He liked the workouts, but didnt change his diet and drinks like a fish. I am going to do the best job I can of keeping my diet in check and following the program (i am doing this journal to hopefully help). I am not following the P90X diet, but instead going with more of a 40/40/20 diet. Well anyway, thanks if you took the time to read.

[WaistofSpace]

I will post how the workout went tomorrow morning, but my diet for today is as follows:
6:45am - Glass of milk with multi vitamin, fish oil, vitamin c
8:45am - 1 hard boiled Egg
10am - Banana
12pm - Oatmeal
1pm - turkey with cheese and a little light may on whole wheat
3:30pm - same as 1pm
4:30 - 100 calorie pack of almonds
dinner (prob around 7) - chicken fajitas (chicken, lettuce, tomato, light sour cream, cheese, franks hot sauce, wrap)
totals for the day from fit day - 2100 Calories
fat - 36%
Protein - 36%
carbs 28%
Looks like i need to lower my fat a little more (although some is from the nuts and egg, which i think are healthy fats). Maybe cut out some cheese and some sour cream on fajitas?

[WaistofSpace]

Day 2 - Dinner went as planned (after my workout), although i accidentally bought fat free sour cream instead of light. I guess that cut some of the fat out of my ratio's, but that ish tastes nasty. Anyway, the workout was chest & back. I think i held up ok. basically it was just different forms of push ups and pullups. no way did i keep up with any of the people in the video, but i pushed myself pretty hard and by the end i was collapsing after each last (good form) rep. I think the video did a pretty good job of setting it up time wise and instructions. i dont think this video was ground breaking or anything, just your push and pull exercises while doing it along with the instructors. a lot of the things said were lame (with all their let's go and wohoos), but i enjoyed the workout. the only issue i really had was on the divebomber pushups my hips were clicking i think from my legs being too spread out? I was pulling every ounce of strength i had so it ay be from the full body push on the last rep or two? i'll figure it out. up tonight is plyometrics. i'm looking forward to jumping around. my diet will be the same as yesterday, with less cheese and one more hard boiled egg.

[WaistofSpace]

Day3 - OK, so I went through the plyometrics cd last night and it was a pretty good workout. basically it is a lot of jumping along with squats, very high impact stuff. the only problems i incurred were as follows: 1) the ceiling in my basement is only 7ft, so on my jumps i couldnt outstretch my hands fully (me being 6'2). it wasnt that big of a deal because i would just fold up my arms and essentially put my forarms to the ceiling when jumping. i hope this workout doent increase my vertical jump too much, otherwise i'll be introuble, haha. 2) in the begining my legs were cramping up a bit after the warm up lunges i did. when i had to perform the first squat exercises my back hamstrings twinged and were super tight. i paused the video and just did some more stretching and eventually worked it out. i hit play and didnt have a problem after that. 3) i was still pretty sore from the previous night's chest and back routine, but that was ok after i got warmed up. 4) i am workiong out barefoot on concrete and all the jumping was hurting my feet a little by the end. I am debating wearing shoes for that exercise next time (although my ignorant man brain is telling me to suck it up and eventually your feet will be tougher and it wont be an issue). we'll see which side of me wins out.
that's basically the only issues, i consider them minor, but thought i'd point it out to anyone who reads this. the cd went pretty fast and i actually enjoyed it. it gave me a semi feeling of being competitive again. the people on the cd are not in the room, but i wanted to keep up with them at all costs. i never hit pause during the workout, but was slowing down at the end (specifically during the hotfoot exercise). i will not be commenting on my diet unless something changes in it (yesterday i decreased cheese and added an egg if that means anything to you) because i will be eating the same thing everyday. i am one of those people who can do that, i guess i'm lucky? tonight i sshoulders and arms. my only worry is i am still pretty sore in my triceps, lats and chest (a little sore in my legs too, but most likey wont be using them). if this was a regular workout week going to the gym i would probably just do a light run on a treadmill so i didnt overtrain. however this is the program, so i am going to stick with it. hopefully by 7pm tonight i feel better because i will be doing it either way. see you tomorrow.

[WaistofSpace]

i reread all my posts and just wanted to comment on my typos, spelling errors (some are real bad haha) and overall rambling. I went to college, have a pretty good job in NYC and consider myself to not be an idiot as much as my wife disagrees haha. English has never been my thing and there is no spellcheck here, so i dont care. if it bothers you, i am sure there is 7 million better journals out there to read. thanks.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 4 - Performed the shoulder and arms cd last night and it went pretty quickly. i was still pretty sore from chest and back day (mainly in my triceps), so i needed to pause the video and stretch out a little more during the warm up to try and loosen it up a little more. the video was basically a shoulder workout followed by a bicep curl and then a tricep workout. The only issue with this workout for me was the weights. swithcing the weights on the dumbells was annoying, but not the end of the world. I would jsut hit pause change the weight and move on. it is no different than if i was working out in a gym, it takes a couple seconds to switch dumbells too. my other issue again was ceiling height. with the overhead dumbell press moves i couldnt fully extend, so i had to basically do them in a squat position. not bad, just some extra work for me while performing the move (although my legs were a little sore form leg day). I am a little sore again today, but not bad. overall i am feeling pretty good about what i've done so far and am looking forward to next week because now i have a round of it in me, i know what to expect and can really push myself. tonight is yoga, which i am not too exicted about because i have zero flexibility and my abs (somewhere hiding under my gut) are weak as hell. i am sure i will be a mess doing this and have a lot of trouble, but i am committed and will gut it out. see what i did there? anyway, diet is the same except the boss wants to take me out to lunch today so we'll see what happens, although it's seafood so i should be able to find a healthy choice. i might not get on to post during the weekend (i'll try though), my computer at home just sucks and i find it annoying, but if i dont i will fully update on monday. the one issue i see this weekend is i started the program on tuesday and i want to start on Monday. what i am thinking i will do is on sunday do the scheduled kenpo in the morning and consider the rest/stretch option as my evening. i will be doing the stretch video since i am so horrible in terms of flexibility. this should put me in position to start fresh monday with chest and back.

[WaistofSpace]

oh also, before i start typing i have every intention of keeping these short and to the point so it isnt so annoying to read for anyone out there who might be, but then i remember i'm really doing this for me to keep motivated and be held responsible for what i'm doing so i type on.

[Joeycamaro]

Good luck man I just finished my first round and I learned one major thing: if your diet is not perfect you are wasting your time. I'm dead serious! As soon as I got my diet fixed the fat disappeared!

[WaistofSpace]

Good luck man I just finished my first round and I learned one major thing: if your diet is not perfect you are wasting your time. I'm dead serious! As soon as I got my diet fixed the fat disappeared!

did you follow the p90x diet or put together your own? i have gone low carb before, but when i was done and even after easing back into a normal balanced diet the weight came back. not just the water weight either, which i knew would come back with some carbs, true weight. i wasnt fat and was better than before the diet for sure, but it didnt feel right. months later i destroyed myself by eating/drinking anyway, but before then i noticed.

[WaistofSpace]

I didnt get to my posts this weekend, but here is a quick catchup. Day 4 - Yoga. I am an utter embarrassment at yoga. I am not flexible by any means and struggled mightily at this portion. I wanted to shut it off several times out of frustraion, but kept at it best i could. My main problem is I can't come anywhere near touching my toes (even when i was in shape playing Div III soccer). Along with this, I can't straighten my leg out and reach on a lot of the moves. It wasn't the balance factor that was an issue, but the reaching parts. I dont know what person can do these moves that isnt already in great shape and hgihly flexible. Either way for me, it was brutal.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 5 - Back and Legs. Not much to say here, it was a good hard workout. I love doing legs, and i need the work on pull ups, so it felt good to get through it. My diet was harder to follow on Sat than during the week, because i cant be as strick in terms of ok 2pm go eat this or ok 4pm go eat that. The weekends are more free flowing for me, but i did still eat healthy and if anything i ate under my calorie count i try to eat during the week. I did eat clean though.

[Angel_21]

good luck.. I am starting this today aswell so ill keep an eye on your updates.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 6 -Kenpo. Kenpo was a good workout to get your heart rate up and burn some calories. No, it does not teach you anythign about fighting. it is a lot of kicks and punches strung together to get you moving. I liked it. the workout went pretty fast and was not too difficult. the hardest part here is making sur eyou work as hard as possible. this is a cd where you can slack easily because you're just moving for a certain amount of time. I want to do this workout begining on mondays, so i actually did the kenpo in the morning and did "Day 7" later at night. on Day 7 you are just supposed to do the stretch tape or rest. After kenpo i pulled out tree stumps in my yard all day, so was pretty wiped later and took the rest. I will move tonight to the back and chest again. so basically i didnt take a rest day, but i should be fine tonight. i am no longer sore anywhere and should have a good workout, hopefully i can improve on my numbers from last week. I am debating on not counting last week because i was learning and goign through everything, but then again everyone does it, so maybe i should count it so i can really say only 90 days at the end? We'll see how this week goes and then i'll decide.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 7 - Chest and back. I confused myself this mornign with my days, so just to clear it up i am summarizing the day before's workout (today is acutally day 8, but i workout at night, so i am commenting about day 7). Hope that makes sense. Anyway, i did the workout again and improved on some of my numbers. when i saw what i did the first time, i tried to beat it by at least 1 rep. The second time around i didnt struggle on any exercises in terms of movements, but near the end it was rough pumping out those pushups, in a good way. the video didnt feel old or stale yet with Tony's commentary throughout, so i am still good there (although in the begining there seems to be an option to turn off the commentary and/or the music, incase you get annoyed by him). I dont feel sore today, but instead that slow muscle feeling. i cant really explain it better than that, but it just feels like my muscles were worked hard and when i reach for something or turn my body, it feels tired (again in a i know i worked it hard good way). tonight is plyo again and i am looking forward to the workout and pushing myself hard. since i am not sore i should be able to better crank this out than last week. diet is the same today and hasnt changed. i need to go get some protein powder, but it will likely have to wait until the weekend (it will help my macros and give me more protein).

[MugaMushin]

hey just a note I did p90x in my basement and with a concrete floor, shoes are an absolute necessity unless you want to destroy your arches and never be able to walk right again. Don't do plyo X without shoes man. Good luck with p90x. Make sure you are getting the calories you need to recover. I noticed that p90x made me overtrain and even though I lost 45lbs I also lost 2 inches off my arms and similar proportions of my chest and stuff. But I could jump a hell of a lot higher lol I hit my head regularly on the top of my basement during plyo.

[WaistofSpace]

shoe advice noted, haha. I think it is going to be a game time decision. You are right about the calories, i think i need to eat more, i just need ot figure out where to stick them in my diet (you'd think it'd be easy). I just want to make sure they're clean, so i think once i get my pretein powder i'll be able to throw in another 200+ calories majority being preotein. I just read through your P90x journal, did you finish through it? What did you think overall? Either way, your complete transformation is awesome man. Keep up the great work.

Oh and repped for throwing in your 2 cents.

[WaistofSpace]

Oh I forgot

Repped

Good luck man I just finished my first round and I learned one major thing: if your diet is not perfect you are wasting your time. I'm dead serious! As soon as I got my diet fixed the fat disappeared!

and Repped

good luck.. I am starting this today aswell so ill keep an eye on your updates.

Thanks for checking out the journal and throwing in your thoughts.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 8 - Plyometrics. Ok, I actually brought my sneakers with me downstairs, but choose to keep them off again. I don't know why i did it, but i did. everything ended up fine. the only issue was afterward my left big toe hurt (minor pain) in the sense of it was getting a blister. a couple more times and i should have no issues. Back to the workout, i really went after it this time. I knew what to expect and crushed it out. it wa sbetter time 2 because knowing what we were doing helped me be more aggressive. there was maybe 1 or 2 times that on the last two or 3 reps i couldnt squat as low as i did the others.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 9 - Arms and back. I went through the dvd last night and it was another good set. i really tried to get more reps done and work even harder than the first time. I felt great afterwards and again, i'm not sore today, but i feel the work i put in today. tonight is yoga (i am not looking forward to it) but will do it because it's part of the program and i want to do this right. the only curveball i have is i also play men's league basketball on thurs nights, so i might be pretty drained when i get home, either way i will push through it.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 10 Yoga. All I am going to say is rough again. One day i will be able to straighten my legs and touch my toes and do all that crazy ish, but it wasnt last night. I also went and played basketball for 2 1/2 hours, so i really got it in last night. i think i need to up my calories a little bit more because mid way through basketball i was soo hungry even though i ate about 1 1/2 hours before. I need to figure out something with a high calorie, low fat, low carb content. Assuming it has all those features, it most likely will be low cal, but i'll find something. i need to go get my whey this weekend, so that should be a good start (probably be able to add 300 calories right there if i drink 2 a day with skim milk). i tweaked my left ankle a little last night, so it may factor in tonight during my leg and back cd, but i'll push through (although i may have to put sneakers on this time, damn). I am more concerned about kenpo sat morning, but should be fine by then. Again, i prob wont be updating my page this weekend, but i will catch up on monday.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 11. back and legs. My legs were pretty tired form yoga and basketball the day before, but i got through this workout and was dead tired after. all of the squat work and lunges destroyed me. my knees were hurting afterwards too, but i was overall fine.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 12. Kenpo. Another fun workout that didnt feel like it lasted very long. i did the kicks and punches and next thing i knew it was cool down time. this is a fun worout that anyone can do, you would just do more or less depending on fitness level. i actually almost had my wife doing it with me, but she had to do something for work and i didnt feel like waiting.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 13. Stretch/rest. i again wanted to do the stretch routine, but got tickets to the Giant game and didnt feel like getting up early on sunday because we were leaving to go to thegame at 8am. my bigger issue here was diet. I didnt eat too bad at the game, we smoked a 50 lbs pig, had venicen (deer), scallops, shrimp, steak, chicken and chilli. the problem was the 4 or 5 beers i drank. i dont think it's the end of the world, but i feel bad about it today and will work even harder tonigth to undo some of the damage. chest and back tonight, wohoo.

[WaistofSpace]

oh, i also went out and picked up a 5lb tub of potein powder at the local GNC. I was going to order some from here, but i went in to GNC, just to get an idea of price and there was a sale on the GNC brand, so i just bought it. I went with cookies and cream, hopefully i didnt make a mistake because i was heavily debating chocolate. my first drink will be otngiht after my workout. i plan on having at least 1 serving a day, but may drink one right when i wake up in the morning too. it will depend on my macros.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 14. Chest and Back. I was super tired from the weekend and highly unmotivated to work out, but i did it anyway and am happy i did. i was putting max effort in to try and erase some of the damage i did this week at the Giants game this weekend. The bloating i was feeling yesterday was gone this morning, so i am back on track. after plyo tonight i should be back into full gear. the workout went great (eventually i'll be able to kick out a couple unassisted pull ups), but for now i just have to keep grinding it out and putting out my best effort. In the shower afterwards my arms were dead when i was washing my hair, so i know i did work. i drank my protein drink with milk after and it was pretty good. i love how htey put fake choc chips in it to make it look more like cookies and cream haha (i guess they could be real, but highly unlikely). anyway, i can feel the work i did in my chest this morning and look forward to going nuts with plyo tonight.

[Angel_21]

Seems like you've been doing great. Kenpo really does fly I was surprised by how quick it went. Yoga i gotta say I hate lol i need to be more flexable im like an old man.. well keep it up. Im a week behind you

[WaistofSpace]

thanks man, yeah i am not flexible at all. even when i was in my best shape (college soccer) i was still terrible. Hoepefully if i keep at it, it will get easier. Keep up the good work man, when we get to the end it should all be worth it.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 15 Plyo. I really like this workout. I went into this figuring to really hurt myself (in a good way) and did. I was continually trying to go extra ow and jump extra high. I was truly wiped at the end. it felt great to get through everything without a break and put max effort in. i still have the short ceiling problem, but i am not worried about that right now. Tonight is arms and shoulder, should be good.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 16. arms and shoulders. i can really feel the shoulder work i put in last night this morning. it feels good ot not be sore the next day, but feel like you worked out a certain part of your body. the first two weeks i felt sore on the days after (especially chest day), but now i just get that worked feeling. In each exercise i try to go for one more rep or put up a heavier wieght, but couldnt do it on all the moves. i guess you can't expect to increase everythign in 1 week's time, but i feel stronger and better each time i go through it. tonight is yoga (boo) and i also have basketball, so i am in for a long night.

[WaistofSpace]

Day 17. Yoga. Yup, still hate it and i think i am getting progressively worse. hopefulyl i will become limber enough soon to pull this off. it is pretty frustrating, but oh well. it's in the package and i will do my best. at least i had basketball after, so i got out my frustrations and had a good time there. One thign i know for sure is i feel myself getting hungrier and hngrier each day that passes. i guess this means i am burning more and more calories making me need more fuel. Tonight is legs and back, to which my legs are kind of tired from ball, but again, i will do my best.