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Is P90X2 better than P90X? First impressions

I started P90X2 a few weeks ago, so I am still in Phase 1. So far, so great, so let me answer some common questions about the program.

  1. Does P90X2 replace P90X?
    NO! P90X is still for sale, because it is still a great workout program. It’s the workout program that saved my life, in fact, as I struggled with weight and fitness. P90X set me on the path to good nutrition and exercise.
  2. Is P90X2 harder than P90X?
    That’s a tricky one, and I am tempted to say yes, because P90X2 involves a lot of balancing. We work out a lot with a stability ball, for example, doing one-handed chest presses with my back balanced on the ball, pelvis up, feet on the floor. That requires a lot of extra balance and muscular coordination than doing a simple press from a bench. Also, pushup-to-one-arm-balance with hands on medicine balls is quite challenging…. Okay, screw it, YES, P90X2 is harder!
  3. Should I do P90X first, then do P90X2?
    Well, I just said P90X2 is harder, so you might think it makes more sense to do P90X first, but I don’t think it really matters much. Would you do better during X2 if you did The X first? Sure. And vice versa.
  4. Is the structure of P90X2 different than P90X?
    • It is a bit different, but not really too much. With P90X2 you only need to press play 5 days a week. You can either do the “Recovery & Mobility” workout or simply rest on Days 3 and 7.
    • X2 is not as rigid as The X is, with X’s 3-weeks-on-one-week-recovery formula. X2 is divided into 3 phases — Phase 1: Core, Phase 2: Strength, and Phase 3: Performance. You can make Phases 1 and 2 anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks, and Phase 3 should last 3 to 4 weeks. There is a Recovery Week that you can “do whenever you want”. You can do it between phases, in the middle of phases, or just skip it altogether. I wouldn’t recommend that, though. Just listen to your body.
    • If you did The X, you know we worked that “Ab Ripper” workout 3 days a week. In X2, it’s only that often during Phase 2. Ab Ripper is only 1 day during Phase 1 and it’s not in Phase 3 at all.
    • The workouts are still about an hour long, and Ab Ripper is still about 15 minutes. Yoga is about an hour (not 90 minutes as it was in P90X). Remember, I am only a week in, so  we’ll have to see about the later workouts.
    • Oh, also, if you buy anything but the basic package, you will get some additional workouts on DVD that you can substitute in to ease boredom and add muscle confusion.
  5. Do you need to be in shape to do X2? How is the Fit Test different from P90X’s Fit Test?
    The Fit Test for P90X2 is the same one as for P90X. However, I started P90X a few years ago without passing the pullups part of the Fit Test, and I know others who have started it without passing much of the Fit Test at all. Those people understood that they needed to take the exercise very slowly and eat right to build up to the point where they could do the workouts properly. If you take it easy and don’t hurt yourself, couch potatoes can start one of these programs, but a program like Power 90 might be the way to start, then go for one of the more advanced ones.
  6. Is there a vegan nutrition guide for P90X2?
    Yes, there is! X2 comes with several nutrition paths, including vegan.
  7. If I’ve done P90X, do I really need to do P90X2?
    If you are happy with P90X and the results you continue to get from it, then you can stick with it. But if you are looking for a new challenge — and aren’t we all? — you should definitely give P90X2 a try.

I really like P90X2 so far. I enjoy the difficulty of balancing on balls to do moves that previously seemed pretty easy. Better than P90X? You will think this is a cop out, but it’s true: They are both great, but different.

If you would like to order P90X2, please click any of the links on this page. If you have questions, contact me at for more information. Take control of your fitness!

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The Ultimate Reset – Tips

Once you order and receive The Ultimate Reset, you may be overwhelmed by the complexity of some of the menus. I know I was.

Now that I’ve gone through it, though, I have learned some helpful things that I thought I’d pass along.

  1. Join the Facebook groups. There is a lot of help and support in them, and Beachbody reps, as well as Reset veterans, are there to answer questions. You will need to be added to the group by an administrator.
  2. Watch the videos with Carl & Isabelle Daikeler. They are extremely informative and provide a lot of information you won’t find anywhere else. You can find links to them under the FILES tab at the top of the page in the Facebook groups.
  3. Check out the other stuff under the FILES tab at the top of the Facebook group pages, as well, because there are tips, recipes, all kinds of useful information.
  4. Vegan Shakeology was added to the Reset after Reset was developed, because people really wanted it. While people on the Reset have reported great results using more than what you see below, currently the official line is that you can have Shakeology:
    • In place of breakfast during Phase 1, with a full scoop (using approved recipes)
    • In place of breakfast during Phase 2, with half a scoop (using approved recipes)
    • As a snack during Phase 3, with half a scoop (using approved recipes)
  5. The booklet that came with the Reset is very good, but there are some errors. Two of the biggest ones are:
    • Mentioning green tea as an okay thing to drink. It’s not, because it has caffeine. Only one cup of caffeine-free (not decaf) herbal tea is allowed per day (officially).
    • Including black pepper in one of the recipes. Black pepper is specifically excluded because it tends to contain microtoxins and can mess with your digestion.
  6. Because there are errors in the booklet, be sure to check the Facebook groups for the latest information.
  7.  The Ultimate Reset website has all the recipes, including vegan substitutions and nutritional information. It is not as up-to-date with information, though, as the Facebook groups.
  8. Unless you are curious and just want to try them, don’t worry about the millet or farina, and skip the ground flaxseed. They were hard to find for me, and as it turns out, millet is optional, oatmeal can be substituted for farnia (hot rice cereal), and the flaxseed was only used once, so now I’m stuck with the rest of the $6 bag. On the other hand, when I did find and try Bob’s Red Mill Brown Rice Farina, I really liked it, and I still eat it now.
  9. I shopped around and found a lot of the less common items for The Reset reasonably priced at Vitacost.com.
  10. Don’t be afraid to play around with the recipes. I did this routinely, using the basic ingredients that I was presented with and preparing them the way I wanted to. Just don’t add things that don’t belong, like mushrooms, which were specifically excluded because of their fungal nature.
  11. Beets, the red ones, can make colors appear in your toilet that may cause you to worry. Don’t worry — it’s just the beet juice!
  12. Mixing the Alkalinize packet in a shaker cup is a lot easier than trying to stir it into a glass of water.
  13. Also for Alkalinize, use a large amount of water, like 16 or 20 ounces. That dilutes it enough to make it taste okay. That worked for me. Others recommended doing it as a shot and following up by sucking on a lemon wedge.
  14. Oxygenize can cause headaches. I put my drops into water and was fine. Others report that putting the drops directly on their tongues stopped the headaches. Try both methods, see which works for you. I think it’s easier to count the drops, though, when you put them into a glass of water.
  15. Don’t worry that much about portion size. If you are really trying to lose weight, maybe you should watch it, but I was trying to simply detoxify my body, so I didn’t fret much if the recipe said 1/3 cup and I used 1/2 cup. These are all pretty lean and low-calorie items, so I figured that, for example, an extra 1/4 cup of blueberries was not going to kill me.
  16. Speaking of trying to lose weight on the Reset, remember, as with any short-term weight loss, once the short-term behavior is changed back to normal behavior, you will gain the weight back. I know some people just have this thing about reaching a certain weight and will starve themselves to get there. But don’t be disappointed when you gain it right back, zallimsayin….
  17. Oh, and also, about your weight, don’t weigh yourself every day! I do, but I understand that my weight can fluctuate by +/- 2 pounds depending on how hydrated I am, so don’t get wrapped around what the scale says. Weigh yourself once at the beginning and once at the end, at the same time of day.
  18. The Mineralize ingredient is simply Himilayan sea salt, so if you run out, use that.
  19. Also, a “pinch” of Mineralize = 12 shakes from the Mineralize container.
  20. You may feel really terrible at times. The book said Days 3 to 5 would be bad. I only felt terrible on Day 1. It was so bad, with a huge headache, that I felt like quitting. I did not. On Day 4, I woke up with a really bad sore throat that was caused by post-nasal drip. The sore throat abated after a few days, but the drip stayed with me, diminishing daily, until the end of the Reset.
  21. Wean yourself off caffeine before embarking on The Ultimate Reset, especially if you are a heavy coffee drinker. I only ingest a moderate amount of caffeine (about 125mg daily), but I had a really bad withdrawal headache the first day. Try moving to half-caf, then decaf before you start the Reset.
  22. Eat the allowed snacks only if you have to. I never did, but, as I said above, I probably had a bit more food than the program called for during the regular meals. The snacks are supposed to be for emergencies only, although I see a lot of people eating them routinely.
  23. My experience with kale was that it tastes like spinach, but is a lot tougher — I did not care for it. I saw baby kale at the market, perhaps I should have bought that. However, I just used spinach wherever kale was mentioned.
  24. Tempeh isn’t good. You can substitute black or pinto beans, if you like. Fwiw, I am determined to figure out a way to like it, because it’s an excellent source of plant protein.
  25. Remember, it’s your Reset, so feel free to adapt it as you need to. You have to be able to fit The Ultimate Reset into your life. Stick with the primary principles, but if you need to drink a cup of coffee every so often, or have a snack at night, well, then, do it.

Have a great Reset!

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Switching from Low-Carb Eating to Vegetarianism. Why?

As you may or may not know, I have been a low-carb eater for more than 2 years now. That means I ate very few grains, a lot of meat, and some fruit and vegetables.

I’m changing that, doing almost a 180, in fact. For at least the next year, I’ll be eating a modified vegetarian diet, which means I’ll eat only plant-based foods, but also include whey protein, eggs, and fish. Some call that “pescetarian” or “pescatarian”, but, really, fish will be a very small part of my diet, as will eggs.

Why?

Low-carb was great for me for weight loss, because I could feel satisfied on the low-carb, high-fat/protein regimen. The problem is that I’ve been stuck for more than 2 years. I cannot seem to budge below the 170-175 range.

Or I should say that I could not budge below that range. I have now busted through with the help of a detoxification cleanse, a 21-day detoxification process that attempts to rid your body of contaminants through a vegan diet and reset it to zero so you can, essentially, start over. And that’s what I’m doing. Starting over.

Not only that, but I am starting over 11 pounds lighter. That’s right, in 21 days I lost 11 pounds and 2 inches off my waist. That’s significant, because I had struggled to lose that gut fat, and now it’s shrinking.

In light of that, then, I decided I should take a closer look at plant-based nutrition.

The first thing I noticed is that while most eating plans focus on the fact that you can lose fat on them, and, thereby receive all the health benefits of a leaner body, vegan eating also has been shown to reverse diseases like heart disease and cancer. Reverse them.

The second thing I noticed is that when I looked at vegan recipes, often the nutritional breakdown was missing, so there was no listing of macronutrients like fat, carb, protein grams. Why? Because who cares, that’s why. You can’t get too many calories on an plant-based diet. Okay, that’s not really true, but if you stay away from processed foods of all kinds, like flours, oils, sugars, you’ll be okay. Yeah, you gotta watch your protein, and my sample size is probably too small to determine that this is a trend, but I found it interesting.

The third thing I noticed is that I’ve never been talking to a fat person about nutrition and had him tell me, “I’m a vegan.” That’s not to mention that the vegetarians I do know are all thin.

By the way, I should caveat this with the fact that I do believe that heredity definitely impacts all of our body compositions. Some people are naturally thin, some are naturally fat, some in-between. That’s why some have to work harder at staying thin than others. I do not use “fat” as a pejorative term here. Fat is fat, same as thin is thin.

Finally, and most importantly, is that it seems to work for me. I lost that gut fat that had hung on for so long. And my eyes have stopped burning! They used to burn so often, and I often blamed it on allergies or staring too much at the computer screen. I’m sure my doctor would have diagnosed it as dry-eye syndrome, if I’d told her about it. But here on this vegan diet, no burning eyes, and that is a huge mood changer for me.

With all that in mind, I’m going to give a modified vegetarian lifestyle — maybe merging into a vegan lifestyle — a shot for at least a year and see how it treats me, make sure this isn’t just a short term fluke.

[UPDATE ON OCTOBER 25, 2012] After further research, I have decided to drop all animal products from my diet and eat vegan at least through October, 2013. I figured, what the hell, might as well go all in, right?

I’m pretty excited about it, because it’s something new to learn, and I love learning. Drop me a line if you want to join me or just have something to say about it, because I’m all ears!

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The Ultimate Reset – Week 3 Recap

I made it all the way through the 3 weeks of The Ultimate Reset. Yeah!

It wasn’t that hard, to be honest with you. This was something I really wanted to do, and that took a lot of the difficulty out of it, especially because I felt that I was doing something good for my body.

Let me make this clear. The Ultimate Reset was not only about dropping some fat pounds for me. Sure, it worked that way, but it was quite nice to clean out my body and challenge myself with a new way of eating.

I mean, let’s face it, I was eating lots of meat, lots of fat, only a few veggies, not too much fruit at all, and I just didn’t feel 100%. I felt good, but not as good as I thought I should feel for my level of overall fitness. I have mentioned before that my eyes burn a lot — that was a big driver for me. Burning eyes are really annoying and mood-altering. Actually, I don’t know if my moods changed because of the burning eyes, or if the burning eyes were caused by whatever made my mood change, but I didn’t like it.

That’s really why I went on The Ultimate Reset.

For the record, I had a couple days during The Ultimate Reset where my eyes were burning, but nothing like before. I am eager to see how I feel in the next few weeks.

Okay, I know you really just want to know the results, so I’ll skip the Week 3 food report, except to say the food was good, but pretty much the same as Week 2.

FINAL RESULTS

I’ll have blood work done sometime very soon, but here are the final results of the other stuff I measured.

  • Weight: down 11.6 pounds
  • Waist: down 2 inches
  • Body Fat %: down 3.7 points
  • Visceral Fat %: down 2 points
  • Body Age: down 6 years

Body Age? What’s that? Honestly, I don’t know how it’s derived, but it’s one of the numbers on my Omron Scale. I dig that scale, which I’ve had for about 6 months, but didn’t start using until The Ultimate Reset, because it does give me those other numbers besides weight. (Well, not waist. I did that with a tape measure.)

How accurate is it? I don’t know, but I think it’s consistent, so if I weigh/measure myself at the same time of day, under the same conditions, I should get an consistent set of numbers to compare, and that is key. As for accuracy, I have a pinch test caliper, and the body fat percentage from that and the Omron are right on each other, so perhaps it is fairly accurate.

With consistency in mind, I stepped onto the Omron scale prior to The Ultimate Reset, and then at the end of each week of the Reset, about a half-hour after waking up, after having had a pint of water. Not, perhaps, the optimal time to check body fat percentage, because I’m still pretty dehydrated from overnight, but that was the best time to measure, i.e. when I would not forget.

What do I think of my results? Pretty good!

I am at a weight — 160 — that I have been trying to hit for years. In fact, when I first entered my information into the Beachbody website back in February 2010, I entered 165 as my goal weight. I have been struggling to reach that weight, stuck around 170-175, ever since. Now I am 5 pounds below that original goal, and, as it turns out, I still have a few pounds to lose. I can see them around my waist.

So, yeah, hitting that weight makes me happy, but what really makes me happy is my body fat percentage. I took 3.7 points off that number, and 2 points off my Visceral Fat number. What’s visceral fat? It’s the internal fat that surrounds your organs, bogging them down, making them work harder, so keeping that number low is good.

Even with all my hard work, however, my body fat is still higher than I want it to be. I’d like to dump another 2 or 3 points. How can I do that?

I already know that adding more exercise isn’t the way. Remember, you cannot out-exercise a bad diet, because it’s way too easy to eat more calories than you can possibly burn.

That’s not to say my diet is bad. It’s controlled. But I think it’s time for a change.

I feel so good on this vegan diet The Ultimate Reset put me on, that I’m going to switch my nutrition plan from meat-based primal eating to modified vegetarianism. That means my primary food sources will be plants, but I’ll also eat eggs, whey protein, and fish.

I am excited by this new direction! No, I won’t be adding sugar back into my eating plan. Sugar is poison, and I am glad my years of low-carb living have broken my sugar habit. I will, however, be eating a lot more fruit, which is naturally sweet, and I’ll have bread to eat again. And pasta. I hadn’t really missed those foods, but I do enjoy them, so it’ll be nice to have them back in the rotation.

And, yes, I’ll be eating only whole grains, no white flour. In addition, I am going to try to stay away from wheat, for a while, anyway, so I’ll be trying out pasta made with alternative grains. After a bit, I’ll add some wheat back in, see how that affects me.

All in all, The Ultimate Reset was a great experience. I lost pounds I had been struggling to lose. I learned about new foods. And I found a new way to eat.

I had not considered vegetarianism before The Ultimate Reset. Sure, I’d eaten like that for a few years back in the 80s, but that was just to break my fast food habit. (It worked, by the way.) I had not really thought I could eat like that again.

Why? Because I was not a fan of fruit or veggies. I eat them, but I don’t like them very much.

Oddly, during The Ultimate Reset, I learned to fully enjoy my fruit and vegetables. Not tolerate them, but enjoy them. So, here goes nothing.

I’ll give this modified vegetarianism a good year, so I can assess how it’s treating my body. That’ll give me a chance to do a lot of reading and research on the topic of plant-based nutrition. I am really looking forward to it, and I’ll keep you filled in every step of the way!

I REACHED ANOTHER GOAL

At the beginning of the year, I set what I thought was a modest goal of losing 10 pounds by June 30th. At the time I set the goal, I weighed 175, up a bit from my normal 170, so I really thought it would be a cakewalk — pardon the sugary metaphor — to get to 165. It wasn’t. The Ultimate Reset was my last hope of hitting that number, and here I am at 160. If I am still there on June 30th, I’m down 15 pounds! Pretty cool. Thanks, Ultimate Reset — Beachbody comes through for me again.

Beachbody came through for me again. Is it any wonder I don’t mind selling this stuff? These products are nothing short of great, well worth the premium you pay over others. Beachbody puts a good deal of time and effort into research and development, so their products stand out in the marketplace. They are literally lifechangers, at least they have been for me.

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The Ultimate Reset – Week 2 Recap

I’m 2/3 of the way done with The Ultimate Reset. Today was a little bit of a challenge, because it was Father’s Day, so that meant dinner, which meant 3:00. Usually I eat dinner between 5:00 and 5:30.

So I ate breakfast early, then lunch early, then dinner early — 3:00 — and here it is 5 hours later, and, yup, I’m hungry. I should grab an apple, but it’s my Week 2 graduation, so ….

(Yes, I say “graduation” with tongue in cheek. I think it’s quite annoying how everything is a graduation. Kindergarten? Graduated! 6th grade? Graduated! Okay, fine, if calling everything a “graduation” makes you feel better about yourself, do it, but don’t expect a gift from me until you do something noteworthy, and that does not include graduation from high school either!)

So, anyway, this being my last day of this phase, I will just have some more water and a cup of herbal tea.

But, let me tell you, the portion sizes on The Ultimate Reset really came into play this week. For dinner this evening I made at least double what the recipe called for, and my plate was still too sparsely populated.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. People go into The Ultimate Reset expecting to lose weight, so I understand why the creators wanted to keep portions small. But when I see people posting on Facebook that they are passing out, wondering if this is normal, I just want to shake them and say, “EAT MORE FOOD!” For the record, unless you are being prepped for surgery with an anesthesiologist standing by, passing out is not normal!

Week 2 was the Release week, but I had no real climactic moment or anything like that. In fact, I felt my bodily functions remained fairly normal during Week 2.

For all the complaints I heard from people about the Detox supplement, I have to say, I enjoyed it. It tastes pretty good, like an earthy tea with citrus overtones. It’s a bit chunky, but not problematically so.

WEIGHT LOSS

I am down another 5 pounds this week, for a total of 10.6 pounds on the Reset. All I can say is that I must have had a lot of toxins in me that needed to come out!

THE MEALS

The meals were pretty good again this week. I had a fruit plate for breakfast every day except one, when I had a mashed garbanzo concoction. The fruits have been green apples, cantaloupe, blueberries, honeydew melon, and nectarines. You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that I am not a fruit person, but I really enjoyed the fruit plates. Probably because they were quite plentiful.

Some of the best meals this week were:

  • Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Pepper Bisque — You probably need to really like sweet potatoes to like this. Fortunately I do. I’ll be making this post-Reset.
  • Quinoa-Lentil Pilaf — Probably my favorite of the week, because it combines two foods I really enjoy.
  • Hearty Vegetable Miso Soup — Better the next day, of course, which is cool, because it was dinner one night and lunch the next day.
  • Mediterranean Roasted Beets — I have no idea why this recipe called for olive oil instead of coconut oil, so I used coconut oil, and it was a great flavor mix.
  • Roasted Acorn Squash with Tahini — The recipe called for kabocha squash, and I still have no idea what that is, so I used acorn squash. I made my own tahini, too. It’s just toasted sesame seeds whirred up with olive oil. I should have added more salt to the squash as it cooked, but this was a really good meal.
  • Acorn Squash and Coconut Milk Soup — I also added the tahini and some cayenne pepper. Tasty.
I read quite a few complaints about the food this week not being as filling as Week 1. I didn’t feel that way, because I just made bigger meals. Makes sense to me. I don’t like to measure stuff anyway when I’m cooking.

HOW I FEEL

My cold-like symptoms are diminishing, slowly. This is supposed to be my body detoxing — maybe it is — but I remain skeptical about such things. Still, it does make a bit of sense.

I have not felt a loss of strength. I did Rodney Yee’s Flexibility yoga routine Monday through Saturday, felt good all through that, but I am really looking forward to regular workouts in a couple weeks.

Does my body feel transformed? I can’t say it does, but I’ll reserve judgment for the end of the program. The end, by the way, is not at Day 21. It’ll be around Day 42, as I work my way back to a normal diet.

Let me say, also, that my normal diet is changing. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll be moving from ultra-low-carb carnivorous eating to modified vegetarianism. Quite a change, but my body has been craving a change.

Okay, I’m off to Week 3. Wish me luck!

Oh, and, by the way, if you are interested in The Ultimate Reset, be sure to click the links on this site, or shoot me an email me at if you have any questions. One of the nice things about Beachbody products is the huge support system of people to help you succeed!