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The best unforeseen consequence of punishing myself with P90X, a project inspired by fitness fiend Paul Ryan, is the return of an appetite I haven’t felt since pimples were an adolescent reality. My metabolism is now perpetually elevated, sucking up calories in a desperate effort to replenish the energy I ert every morning while squatting and curling and jumping in synch with P90X leader Tony Horton and his crew. When I sit down to a meal, I’m insatiable. Yes, I will have a side of fries with that, and maybe an appetizer or two. Malted shakes, you say? Might as well—I haven’t been able to drink one with a clear conscience for years.
My diet should consist of 50% protein (preferably lean), 20% fat and 30% carbs, as per the P90X Nutrition Plan. Can you keep a secret? I haven’t exactly been following the guidelines. In fact, I’ve ignored them altogether. Apple fritter for breakfast, Ben Jerry’s at night...I burn it all up with the speed of a steam engine and am ready to gorge again within hours.
But this high-volume consumption is working against me—eating fatty, carb-y foods is bad, no matter how much you run, lift, swim, or twirl ribbons. My feeding habits are in an all-out war with my fitness goals. Only time (and my degree of self-discipline) will tell which side wins out. Maybe I’ll leave the malt off my next order. But for now, here are some of the other pros and cons of my P90X lifestyle.
**Pros:
**More in tune with my body. The P90X mentality—combined thoughts on strength, endurance, and my body’s limits—does not end when I shut the DVDs off. It sticks with me throughout the day in a sort of feedback loop of positive reinforcement. This has a lot to do with how all-consuming the program is (see Cons below), but also that I’m enduring discomfort and ertion in ways that I never have before. I feel like a pile of mashed potatoes at the end of some days—after Back Chest and Core Synergistics, in particular—but I love to have finished. And I know that I’m capable of doing it all over again tomorrow. (Ryan’s intellectual hero Ayn Rand would be so proud of my rational egoism.)
Flexibility. Prior to beginning P90X, I had one goal in mind each time I stepped into the gym: get out as quickly as possible. Stretching was the first sacrifice—I rarely warmed up my muscles before diving into pull-ups and dead lifts, and I paid the price with an endless string of aches and pains. Stretching beginsevery P90X workout, and entire days each week are devoted to stretching andyoga. The result? I can now touch my toes (I heard that Ryan can do the Firefly Pose). More than that, my whole body feels more limber, even while it’s building muscle mass.
The satisfaction of getting stronger. The program is split into three month-long sections in each of which your workouts are like training in the ninth circle of hell for three weeks, followed by one week of relatively ease (yoga, core workouts, stretching). You keep track of the number of repetitions you do on the hardest days, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the reps go up with each week that passes. Positive proof of self-betterment! Day to day I don’t feel that way, but the fact is that I am gaining strength.
My girlfriend now says "You’re SO muscular!" on a regular basis. Maybe they are just words of encouragement (she said it three days in), but it’s working. External motivation, be it from your significant other or a friend who you work out with, provides the oomph to go on when you’re at your lowest, please-let-me-quit-NOW state. Which brings us to the:
**Cons:
**P90X consumes your life. Ninety days is a long time. Three months. A quarter of a year. 0.3% of the average American lifespan. And during that time, your schedule becomes defined by the workouts. I won’t be finished until mid-November—we may have a new president-elect by then! (Just kidding, there’s no way in hell.) If you do the program, get ready to text your friends with messages similar to: "Sorry Dale, I can’t make it to Kim and Kanye’s intimate dinner party tonight. I need to be up at the ass crack of dawn to hop around like a fool in front of my television."
Maintaining motivation is hard. Sure, the individual workouts can be a painful slog. But none of the tough ones are more than an hour. At first, that’s easy: sixty minutes out of your day is nothin’, especially when all you need to do is roll out of bed and turn on the boob tube to begin. But then your body falls into a state where it’s either recovering from the last workout or amping up for the next, and the question begins to simmer: what if I just sleep in and take one day off? Who would know? I’ve so far resisted the urge, but the thought pops into my head as soon as I turn off my alarm each morning. Were it not for my stunt-journalistic obligations, I’m not sure that I’d continue for the full ninety days.
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The glacial pace of body transformation. You take photos of yourself in various poses at day 0, day 30, day 60, and day 90. I just took my day 30 photos—one third of the way there!—and eagerly pulled them up on my desktop side by side with the day 0 pics. And the changes are...drum roll please...minimal at best. My biceps appear slightly larger, my silhouette a bit more streamlined. But that could be lighting as much as anything. I really haven’t transformed into the bullet-deflecting strongman that I’m gunning for.
It’s only been thirty days, after all. And I have that excessive eating issue to deal with. But even without noticeable alterations to my physique, I feel different. More attuned to my body. Stronger. I can tell that my body is changing, even if I can’t see it yet. And beyond the obligation to publish a post on GQ.com each week, that intangible sensation is what keeps me going. I’m doing honest by the program, not lying through my teeth like one Mr. Ryan (a marathon in under three hours? Climbing forty of Colorado’s "Fourteneers" peaks? Both claimed, neither true). Which reminds me: is it November yet? Let’s be done with this already.
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