You might remember my first post about P90X3. So, I survived. And it wasn’t actually all that awful. Below a real person’s (not a paid actor’s) assessment, if you’re interested.
First off, and most importantly: If you are looking to get off the couch and start working out, THIS IS NOT THE PROGRAM FOR YOU. At least not now. I was running 5Ks every other day before I began P90X–and it still kicked my butt. If you need to get yourself off the couch, be realistic and pick something that won’t kill you. Something you might actually stick with. (I speak from experience here. Three years ago I couldn’t run a quarter mile.)
Moving on to the question I’m sure everyone would want answered when assessing a work out routine: did you lose any weight?
Answer: No, not a single pound.
Now, I’m not at all disappointed by this, because I lost over 25 pounds last year**. (Yes, I am disgustingly proud of myself. Feel free to hate me.) That journey taught me other lessons. Things like:
- Eating tortilla chips dipped in hummus as my meal was consuming my entire day’s worth of calories for lunch. (Ouch!)
- Chocolate cake is not a vegetable. (Ouch again.)
- I lied to myself–A LOT–about how much I used to “cheat.” Reality Check: You can’t call it cheating when cheating is your norm. (#&*#!)
- Exercise alone doesn’t make you lose weight. Especially not when you go for a run and think that means you “earned” a third piece of chocolate cake. (#%$& #%$^ #&$*# !!!!!)
- Habitually eating reasonable portions of healthy food was the only way I was going to lose weight and keep it off. (Can someone find a way around this? Please?)
But enough of that depressing truth and back to P90X3:
Pros of P90X3:
- It’s a 30 minute program that requires no planning, just shoving in a DVD.
- It gets results. I can do push ups now. A lot of them. (Oh my gosh, you guys, I have great tank top arms! And my muffin top is almost GONE!)
- Tony & co. did their research–if you follow the schedule, you work muscles and then give them enough time to recover before you have to shred them again–and I was never so sore I couldn’t move the next day.
- If you’re motivated by other people’s pretty bodies, those ripped women doing the workouts are a great motivation–especially because most of them are 30+.
Cons of P90X3:
- The program is every stinking day. Seriously, I couldn’t wait to take a day off. I know some days are yoga, pilates, etc., but I occasionally want a day where my entire work out is walking my dogs. (Side note: I may try P90X3 again, doing it every other day, but I don’t know if that will allow me to keep my new, svelte arms or not.)
- There are inevitably some work outs you will HATE…and they keep coming back around.
Can we talk about how much I hate any exercise that involves the word “plank?”
- It takes a while to remember all the exercises well enough to be able to mute Tony, and he is SO ANNOYING. (To be fair, I think most people who are passionate about exercise and fitness are annoying, because it’s not my thing. My entire work out goal is to earn more calories to eat. The tank top arms are sweet, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve never been my goal.)
So there you have it. I made it through P90X3. If I were a different person, I’d take a picture of myself in a sports bra so you could see my new muscles. But I’m not. So you can look at her, and we can both pretend I now look like this (and live near a beach and have 20 seconds when I’m not answering a 6yo’s questions):
*My college roommate has seen me in enough embarrassing situations to last both of us a lifetime, and I’d only met her new husband twice before my visit. There was no way I was going to do any of those work outs in front of them.
**I am NOT trying to suggest that anyone reading this needs to lose weight. If you’re happy with your body, I’m happy with it, too. I also know losing weight is much more of a struggle for many people than it was for me. My attempts at humor are not meant as anything other than making fun of myself.
