X2 weekly update, recovery week number 1

Hey everyone. Today was the first day of recovery week 1 for me. I did the recovery and mobility workout for the first time, and I love it. I can't wait until I can start doing it twice a week regularly. I am a total cheerleader for foam rolling now. I has a foam roller for a while even before getting X2, but I had never really learned how to use it. If you have read through these posts you know before I started X2 I was having lower back and hip pain. Just from the 2-3 min of foam rolling in the regular workouts that has all but gone away. The 20 min sequence in the recovery and mobility DVD is golden. It is probably a beginning type of sequence, but the great thing is he basically says here we are going to do 20 min of foam rolling do what you need to do. I urge you if you are doing X2 without a foam roller or thinking of doing X2, invest in one. You just cannot get the same results from stretching.

Here are my updated stats:

Weight 175.8
Waist 37.8"
Hips 38.5"
Chest 40.5"
Thighs 22"
Arms 12"

As always, my body is holing on to my abdominal fat for dear life. I am still losing quite a bit in my hips and my chest though. I had set a goal to be down to 175 my mid May, and I should hit that mark. I am sure my weight will go back up a little. I am going to post a pic of a chart of how my weight as fluctuated from diet power.   I weigh myself every day so the program can track my metabolism.  I am honestly not sure what my overall scale weight is going to end up after X2. The lowest I have been in my adult life has been about 167 or so.I really do not care as long as I end up looking the way I want.  Anyway, thanks for reading and I will check in with an update next week,

Week 4 of P90x2

Hey everyone, today is the beginning of week 4 of P90x2.  I had a pretty good week.  I did take some liberties with my diet this week.  There were a couple days where I was super hungry, so instead of eating total junk, I increased the portions of the healthy food, so I took in more calories on a couple days than I normally would have, but they were clean.  Here are the updated stats.
Weight 177.2
Waist   37.8"
Hips    39"
Chest   41.5"
Right and left thighs 22"
Right and left arm about 12"

Start of Week 3 and updated stats

I started week 3 of P90x2 today. I did the X2 core workout again. Really nothing new to report on that one. I am still making progress with the moves. I am far from perfect on some of them, but getting better on all of them. Here are my weekly stats.

Weight 177,
Waist 38" (down another .8",
Hips 39", chest 41.5",
Right thigh 22",
Left thigh 23",
Right and left arms about 12".

I definitely have a lot less aches and pains because of the core moves and foam rolling. Considering I have not done the recovery and mobility DVD because of my class, that is pretty good. After the semester ends in May, when I switch from phase 2 to phase 3 I am going to work that into the rotation. I am also going to do it during the recovery week between phases 1 and 2. The low-back issues I was having before X2 have almost all gone away. I think it is a combination of all the core work in phase 1 of X2 and my new bed. Anyway, I have posted a weekly progress pic on the team beachbody message board of you are so inclined to go look. I will put my before and after pics on the blog when I am all done with the program in June. Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions or leave (non-spam) comments. If you want to be able to e-mail me just click the link on the left to have me coach you for free, then I will see your messages faster.

Week 1 of P90x2 is in the books

Hey everyone. I just started on week 2 of P90x. I did X2 core for the second time today. I am getting better at the moves and am definitely able to do more and better reps. I managed to burn around 400 calories today, which is great considering how slow and controlled most of the moves in that workout are. Here are my stats after 1 week. waist 38.8" (loss of .7") Hips 39" (loss of 1") chest 42.5" (loss of .5")weight 178.4 (loss of .4 lbs). Remember what I said about scale weight? If not, go read my post from earlier this month. I ate cleanly from Sun to Friday. I did have a couple cheat meals last Saturday. Here is a screenshot from Diet Power showing my numbers for the week.

If you want to see my progress pics you can check out my beachbody message board thread here Again thanks for reading! I will try to post a short update tomorrow after plyocide.

You Can't Always Trust Your Scale

One thing that invariably happens when people start a workout program is that they focus in like a laser on their weight and see that as the only indicator of success. That is the downside of using testimonials. They show that the workouts and nutrition plans work, but they also provide a yardstick for weight loss. Then people think well this person lost x number of pounds, I have not so it does not work for me. Then they quit. Remember what the scale is measuring is NOT JUST FAT. Your weight is a combination of fat, muscle, tissue, bone and water. Now your tissue and bone are not likely to change dramatically when working out but your muscle, fat and water retention will.

You always hear people say muscle weighs more than fat. That is not true. A pound of muscle weighs exactly the same as a pound of fat. Much like a pound of cotton weighs the same as a one pound brick. The difference is the brick takes up much less space than the cotton. The same principle applies to fat and muscle. Muscle takes up less space than fat. It is more dense. When you start working out you are going to be burning fat, but you are also going to put on lean muscle. The fat does not magically transform into muscle though, so it is not likely to be a one-to-one replacement, or even a two-to-one replacement. Meaning you are not guaranteed to drop 2 lbs of fat to every pound of muscle gained. Say for example you take off 15 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle. Well assuming your water level stays the same the net scale change is going to be a five pound loss. But you are going to look (and feel) a lot different with that 5 lb change than you did before. But if you look at nothing but the number you are going to feel like a failure if you wanted to lose 20 lbs.

When you are working out scale weight is a factor, but keep in mind you cannot always trust it. You need to take into account other things like body fat levels, how your clothes are fitting and how you look. That is why taking progress pictures are important. You are not going to be able to see day to day changes looking in the mirror, but if you see a picture of yourself 30 days apart, you will. Lets say however you get 30 days into a program and you do not see any significant change. Your clothes are still tight, and you do not see any definition in your 30 day pictures. Well then it goes back to nutrition. What are you eating and are you eating at a caloric deficit. Everyone's body has a number of calories it can take in to maintain the current weight. Your body is always trying to find that balance. If you eat less than that number (as long as you are eating healthy, balanced meals) you will lose weight. If you eat at or above that number you will not. As you exercise that number is probably going to change. which is why, if you want to see the best results you are probably going to have to track what you eat. There are programs like Diet Power and web sites that will do that and make those calculations for you. Then you just have to make sure you are eating the right number of calories. If however your clothes are getting more and more loose, you see changes in your body in your progress pictures, and feel better, then keep doing what you are doing and don't worry about the scale.

Finally, remember if you are overweight you did not gain all your weight in 60 or 90 days and you may not lose it all in 90 days. Especially if you are very overweight. As you get closer and closer to your ideal weight and ideal level of fitness you are going to lose less on the scale. You may remember Tommy from the one of the P90x infomercials. He went from being obese to ripped, but it took him 5 rounds of P90x to do so. That amounts to 15 months. I don't know him personally, but chances are his weight leveled off at some point and if he had given up he would not have ended up with the results he did. As always if you have questions or comments you can contact me by posting a comment here or through my Beachbody page. Good luck and stay fit.