THE MOST DELICIOUS TIME OF THE DAY

You have always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you probably thought, "I don't think that's necessarily true". Well if you have thought that, you're wrong, my friend. There are a few very important reasons why breakfast truly is the most necessary meal of the day. The main reason that breakfast is the best meal of the day is that breakfast food is simply the tastiest food ever! I mean, breakfast contains bacon, cereal, eggs, french toast, COFFEE, etc... I mean honestly I am sorry for you if you don't like breakfast foods. But if you don't like breakfast foods, hopefully I can give you some reasons below to get you to at least consider it!

REASON 1:

Breakfast gets your metabolism going. Your metabolism is essentially the rate at which your body burns calories. Your metabolism is a complex set of hormones that will determine how fast you turn food into fuel and the efficiency at which you burn that fuel. Your age, weight, and sex are three big genetic factors for how fast your metabolism will be effected. Besides your genetics you can increase your metabolism by exercising, having more muscle mass (1 pound of muscle will burn 35 calories a day while 1 pound of fat will only burn 2 calories per day), and by eating more frequently. When you are sleeping your body slows down almost every chemical, hormonal, and physical process of your body which means that your metabolism will slow down because you are not needing to convert food into that fuel for energy.

Breakfast is truly a break from your fast. Think about it, you ate last at 7pm the night before and are just now getting food at 7am this morning for breakfast. Try to imagine going from 7am to 7pm without food! Since, you have not eaten in twelve hours and you have been sleeping your metabolism is extremely slow. In order to jump-start that metabolism you need to eat something to get your metabolism back into high gear. Studies have shown that by eating more frequent meals (not more total calories) will help keep your metabolism high and help keep your body burning calories more efficiently (aka gain less weight after eating). Getting breakfast in the morning (even if it isn't a lot) is very important to help your body wake up and start to burn calories!

REASON 2:

After a meal your body's metabolism is kicking into high gear and your body is going to start using that food for fuel. What you don't want to happen is to eat breakfast and then immediately feel hungry again. One reason that this could happen is because of the food choices we make. If we choose foods that are low in fiber, low in protein, high in sugar, and low nutritionally we will eat and then once again feel hungry. If we eat a bowl of sugary cereal with a Diet Coke for breakfast, we will not feel full and will want to eat again very soon. This is because when we eat simple sugars our bodies blood sugar will spike and then we will burn those calories very quickly and feel the crash feeling afterward. This is shown by the graph below.

By eating a breakfast that contains complex sugars such as fruit, complex carbohydrates such as whole grain bread, protein such as eggs, and fiber such as high fiber cereal you can reduce this peak and crash cycle. This type of breakfast helps make you feel full and will allow to not overeat at subsequent meals throughout the day. This allows you to crave less throughout the day and also help you make smarter eating choices as well. This is because if you are feeling more full during the day you won't feel the craving to go to the break-room at work and get one of the donuts sitting there.

A study done by Janet Warren et al. for the Journal of Pediatrics tested whether eating foods for breakfast that were lower on the Glycemic Index scale versus those higher on the scale would reduce the amount of food consumed at lunch. The study had four groups of preadolescent children where one group ate low GI foods, one group ate low GI foods with 10% added sucrose, a group that ate high GI foods, and a control group. These kids ate these specialized breakfast's and then ate whatever they want for lunch but while being monitored. The low GI  and low GI plus 10% sucrose ate around 200 calories less than the other two groups at lunch time. This shows that by eating foods that take longer to digest (which are usually more healthy) will help reduce the feeling to eat more, later. Now eating based off of the glycemic index is not always the healthiest or best way to go but remembering to eat foods that are high in fiber, high in vitamins and minerals, has some protein, and high in complex carbohydrates will help you reduce the desire to eat more throughout the day. (Article)

REASON 3:

Eating breakfast in the morning will give your muscles, heart, and brain the energy to keep going throughout the day. Breakfastfirst is an organization in California that works to provide children with a healthy breakfast every single day at school. This organization is striving to make breakfast available to everyone. Research has shown by an analysis of 1,400 schools in California found that eating breakfast was associated with higher school-wide test scores. The students that ate breakfast also experienced, "improved cognitive performance, visual perception, and short-term memory compared to students who did not eat breakfast". (http://www.breakfastfirst.org/benefits/brainpower.shtml)

Eating breakfast has been shown to increase test scores and mental capacity. When going without breakfast you are putting your brain power and mental abilities in Jeopardy. Now of course, this doesn't mean you will turn into Andy (see video) by not eating, but by getting those calories in the morning your brain will have more energy to draw from. When you are doing something very mentally taxing, your brain will actually be working hard and will get fatigued, which is why your head might hurt from thinking too hard. So essentially, by providing your brain with fuel it can work harder and longer. This is exact same principle as working out (you must take in energy to counteract the energy you are spending working out). Eating breakfast will help keep your mind sharp and brain energy high.


REASON 4:

Enough said.

REASON 5:

The last reason that eating breakfast is important is similar to reason number 2 and 3. When you eat a lot of calories for breakfast instead of a huge dinner, it gives your body time to burn off these calories.  If you decide to not eat breakfast and then only eat a sandwich and some chips for lunch you will be starving for dinner. Then you eat EVERYTHING for dinner, watch some TV, and go to sleep. Do you remember what I said above? When you go to sleep all of your body processes, especially your metabolism slows down. So when you go to bed with a very full stomach your metabolism has less ability to work through those calories and try to convert them to energy. So since you are asleep you store these extra calories from your large dinner because your body cannot burn them for energy since you don't need the energy while sleeping. These calories will then probably be stored as fat. One saying that I like to tell people is to "Eat like a king for breakfast, queen for lunch, and prince for dinner". This helps get a larger number of calories earlier in the day which gives your body time to burn them off, especially if you exercise during that day.

SUMMARY

So the last thing I will give you guys is what I usually eat for breakfast. I LOVE breakfast food and could eat it for basically every meal of the day. But what I shoot for, is the MY PLATE guidelines on ChooseMyPlate.gov. I usually eat 2 scrambled eggs with spinach (and sometimes turkey) mixed in, a piece of wheat toast with crunchy peanut butter, yogurt (or blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries), coffee, and water. If I don't have as much time I usually will put some fruit (like those ^) in a healthy cereal like SmartStart, or Great Grains (the cinnamon hazelnut kind is awesome!). These breakfasts will give me lean protein, whole grains, fruit, a little vegetables, healthy fats, and a good amount of fiber. There are always healthier things I could go for, but if you enjoy breakfast don't be afraid to eat it!

So overall, there are quite a few benefits to eating breakfast. My final advice would be to make sure you are eating something every morning before work, school, or starting your day. I think that even if you don't sit down and eat as much as I do that is totally okay, but I would say that you need to eat something even if it is as small as a granola bar or a piece of fruit. By getting a healthy and nutritious breakfast in you each morning, you will have more energy sooner and will not be quite as hungry throughout the day which can help reduce the snacking or craving unhealthy foods. Eating more in the morning also helps you jump-start that metabolism to help you burn more calories throughout the day then not having anything to eat. Go out there and enjoy your breakfast!

RECIPE OF THE DAY:

Healthy Banana Bread- found on chocolatecoveredkatie.com

I personally have made it multiple times and it is super delicious! I recommend going higher on the banana amount (you will need 3-4 to begin with) and I liked the strawberry version better than the blueberry because it was more moist. Also I added more cinnamon because I love cinnamon. So get baking and this is great for a quick breakfast!

Below is recipe found online: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/10/10/fat-free-banana-bread/

(Makes 10-12 slices)

• 2 c spelt flour (or white, or Arrowhead Mills, whole wheat, etc)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 c milk of choice (or oil)
• 1 and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup agave or maple syrup (Or, here's a Sugar Free Version)
• 1 and 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 stevia packet (or 1 tbsp more agave or other sweetener)
• 1 and 2/3 c tightly packed, mashed banana (measured after mashing)
• 1/3 cup berries of choice, or more banana (I actually used 1 full cup of sliced strawberries. The resulting bread was extremely gooey, but I loved it that way!)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients, and mix well. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients and mix into dry. (Mix by hand and don't overmix.) Pour into a greased loaf pan and cook for 35-50 minutes, depending on how gooey you want it. (Tip: If the top is cooked but the inside is still gooey, put tin foil over the top and continue to cook.)

After removing from the oven, let cool for ten minutes before slicing. After the first day, this bread is best stored in the fridge. or cut into slices and freeze for later.

YUMMMMMMMM

NEXT WEEK: HOW TO GET OVER THE PLATEAU

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

First off, sorry again for the delay in getting back to this. I have been busy with work, being gone, being sick, and trying to find an apartment these past couple of weeks. So hopefully I will back on track and ready to bring it. SO here goes.

There has been a recent push in commercials, products, and apps that help improve your brain. Now these may not always be the best products out there to help keep your brain in shape but they do finally get us thinking about the importance of our brain. Our brain controls every single facet of our being. You can't imagine living without your heart, but at the same time, the brain is even more important because it controls the function of the heart. Our brain is extremely important so why don't we focus on our brain health near as much as out muscle physique? This post will hopefully give you an appreciation for the importance of the brain and a few ideas on how to keep it working well.

ANATOMY

So the first step is understanding how the brain works, its' main properties, and what it regulates.

The brain's main functions are to process and regulate nerve stimuli from around the body, to control and regulate autonomic body functions, and to control our emotions and intellect. Needless to say, the brain does it all.The brain is the organ that contributes to homeostasis by receiving sensory input, integrating new and stored information, making decisions, and executing responses through motor activities (Tortora, G. J., & Derrickson, B. (2009). Principles of anatomy and physiology (12th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley.).

The brain is made up of around 100 billion neurons and over 10 trillion neuoglia. Neurons are the nerve cells and the neuroglia are cells that support the activities of neurons. Neurons are the most basic building blocks for the brain and you can think of them as electric cables to transmit signals from one site to another. One basic example of how neurons work is say you put your hand on a hot stove. Your nerve endings in fingers will recognize that the stove is hot and you send a signal to the brain to inform it of the hot stove. The brain then sends signals through the neuron from the dendrites, through the axon, and to the axon endings that then submit the signal to the next neuron and then to the next neuron and so on. Once the signal to remove the hand gets through the neurons to the muscles, the hand will move. This whole process is called an action-potential.

The grey line is the signal going to the brain
from the skin while the red is the signal
 coming from the brain to the muscle which
causes a movement.

These neurons come together to form the extremely complicated and important brain areas that help us do everything. These trilions of neurons and neuroglia have a mass of around 1300g (or about 3 pounds). On average each neuron forms 1000 synapses (a space where one neuron can communicate with another) with other neurons which makes the total number of synapses, around a thousand trillion, which is more than the number of the stars in our galaxy!! (Tortora, G. J., & Derrickson, B. (2009). Principles of anatomy and physiology (12th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley.) This shows the incredible amount of connections the brain has and the amount of nerve stimuli regulated by the brain.

All of these nerves are bundled together to form four principal parts of the brain which are the brain stem, the cerebellum, diencephalon, and cerbrum. The brain stem has three different parts which are the medulla oblongata, pons, and midbrain. These three parts regulate heartbeat, blood vessel diameter, normal breathing rate, voluntary movements of the limbs and trunks, controls reflexes for vomiting, swallowing, sneezing, coughing, and hiccups, plays a key role in coordinating and maximizing the efficiency of voluntary motor output in the body, and the midbrain especially control the reflexes of the eye, eye muscles, head and trunk muscles in response to a startle response such as a loud noise. This is a very brief breakdown of what the brain does and I could go into an entire post about just one of these areas.

The cerebellum's primary function is to evaluate how well movements initiated by motor areas in the cerebrum are actually being carried out. This means that the cerebellum is essentially an error corrector that checks whether the motor movements are being performed correctly. If not, the cerebellum will correct the mistakes, smooth the movements, and coordinate the correct complex sequences of muscular contractions. The cerebellum also controls posture and balance. Essentially, this area of the brain makes things such as catching a baseball, dancing, and picking your nose possible.

The diencephalon is broken down into two parts; the thalamus and the hypothalamus. The thalamus is the major relay station for most sensory impulses that reach the primary sensory areas of the cerebral cortex from the spinal cord and brain stem. The thalamus also plays a role in the maintenance of consciousness. The hypothalamus is one of the most important areas for maintaining homeostasis (the body is constant, normal, and even). The hypothalmus controls the ANS (autonomic nervous system) which regulates contraction of smooth muscle (what organs are made of), controls the production of hormones, regulates emotional and behavioral patterns, regulates the desire to eat and drink, controls body temperature, and finally, regulates circadian rhythms and states of consciousness.

The cerebrum, the largest area of the brain, has four lobes: the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes. These lobes are also broken into right and left hemispheres by the longitudinal fissure which is the crease in the middle of the brain that breaks it into left and right halves. The main function of the cerebrum is described by it's nickname; "the seat of intelligence". The cerebrum provides us with the ability to read, write, speak, make calculations, compose music, remember the past, plan for the future, and imagine new things.

Within these four lobes there are sensory, motor, and association areas. The sensory areas receive sensory information from the body and other parts of the brain, the motor area control the execution of movements, and the association areas deal more with complex integrative functions such as memory, emotions, will, reasoning, judgement, personality, and intelligence. All three of these areas work together to process information and react to it. Damage to each area can effect the brain in different ways. Damage to the primary visual area would cause the person to have blindness while damage to a visual association area might mean that the person could see the object but not tell you what it was.

All of these areas in brain from the brainstem, diencephalon, cerebellum, and cerebrum all work together to process and interpret stimuli from around the body, provide the body with necessary homeostatic control, and allow us to be respond with emotion and personal thought. The brain is truly an amazing organ! (Tortora, G. J., & Derrickson, B. (2009). Principles of anatomy and physiology (12th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley.)

So now that we understand or at least can see how important our brain is, the question now is how do we keep it in tip-top shape.

FITNESS

This whole process may sound like it takes a good amount of time but the whole process of an action potential can travel at over 100 meters/second (david myers, psych)! This speed can speed up or slow down depending on the myelination of the neuron. The electrical signal is typically transmitted through a constant wave down the neuron through the axon and into the next neuron. When there is myelination on the axon, however, the process speeds up because the electrical signal can jump over each myelin sheath. So basically, instead of having to pass through the entire axon, it can jump quickly down the axon. This speed is extremely important to making quick decisions and being able to react to the stimuli around us.

The very basic diagram of the nerve impulse (or stimuli) jumping
 over each myelin sheath which speeds up the signal.

So one way to keep our brain quick and thinking fast is make sure our neurons are myelinated. As we grow and mature from an embryo to adulthood our neurons are growing myelin and will continue to myelinate as we grow. So once we reach adulthood, we can't add anymore myelin to our neurons to speed up the nerve signal process. So it is important to keep the myelin healthy and damage free so that our brain can send processes extremely quick. There are some diseases that can cause demyelination such as multiple sclerosis also just known as MS. When there is damage to the myelin our nerve processes are slowed and there can be slurred speech, double vision, coordination issues, weakness in limbs, and fatigue. So we want to keep the myelin as healthy as we can.

To do this naturally you should focus on a few different things such as eating all of your vitamins and minerals while specifically focusing on D3 and B12. This can be done by eating a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. Another step to protect your myelin is to stay away from heavy metals and chemicals in food. So keeping away from extremely processed foods, foods high in chemicals and potential toxins such as food coloring, additives, MSG, and even artificial sweeteners. Eat essential fatty acids such as Omega 3 because the myelin sheath is made up of fatty tissue. So by eating healthy fats found in avocados, almonds and nuts, fish/fish oil, and olive oil you can get the healthy fats to protect the myelin sheath. Lastly, toxins and chemicals (like above) can also damage the myelin sheath, so smoking or ingesting too many toxins from alcohol can also damage the myelin sheath. So it appears there are a few pretty basic ways to keep the myelin sheath healthy: eat natural foods, get all of your vitamins and minerals from whole foods ideally, get plenty of exercise, and stay away from toxins such as those found in cigarettes. (http://www.nationalmssociety.org/)

Another way to keep the brain healthy is to test it. According to the Alzheimer association (www.alz.org) there are some simple tips to keep your brain healthy. The first is to stay physically active because this helps circulate blood flow to the brain and also helps stimulate new brain cell growth. The exercise does not even have to be str
enuous or difficult but by being active at least 30 minutes each day you encourage oxygen and blood flow to the brain. The next step was one thing I listed above, which was to eat a brain healthy diet full of fruits, vegetables (especially dark leafy vegetables), healthy fats, and lean protein. Next, maintain social activities such as being apart of a work team, volunteering, or having a small group of friends.

One last way to keep the brain healthy is by mental activities. Mental decline is usually caused by a reduction of the brain connections and decline in brain cell usage. By constantly testing your brain and participating in brain "exercise" you can help maintain those brain connections and even regenerate new brain cells. Such "exercise" can be taking classes, working on a crossword puzzle, reading and writing, and playing games that require strategy and planning. These things can help you use each aspect of your intelligence and keeps the whole brain active and constantly growing. A study of 147 twins discordant for dementia (one twin had it, one twin didn't) found that those that combined physical activity, mental activity, and social activities during their midlife were less likely to develop dementia later in life. These are very simple ways to keep the brain sharp and prevent dementia, Alzheimers, and mental sluggishness. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673771/).

SUMMARY

Our brain is the most important organ in the body and we need to keep it healthy with diet and exercise just like the rest of our body. We train our muscles to being able to work hard and grow but sometimes we forget about the brain. Our brain is in charge of every intelligent thought, physical movement, thought-out plan, and sensory impulse we have. We need to keep our brain healthy by eating well, exercising, enjoying social activities, and testing our brain with mental activities. Each area of the brain is made up of neurons and neuroglia that transmit signals to and from other parts of the brain and body. The myelination of the neurons can help speed up these processes to allow for quicker reactions and faster thoughts. By losing that myelin sheath, we slow down the action-potentials that are responsible for movement and thoughts. As well as the myelin sheath on the neurons, the connections between neurons provide the speed for each electrical stimuli. By eating healthily, exercising, and focusing on mental activities we can encourage the building and strengthening the nerve connections in the brain.

WORKOUT:

So finally the weather has gotten pretty outside, at least in Ohio. So in order to take advantage of the weather, while still getting in a workout, here is one you can try that is very easy to do in a park, your backyard, or the beach.

Do 1-3 times through!

50 Jumping Jacks
25 Lunge Steps
25 High Knees
25 Mountain Climbers
15 Pushups
20 Squats
20 Box Jumps (use a curb, a bench, a porch step, a fallen log, or anything you can jump onto)
100 yard sprint

Do this at the park, in between tanning sessions, after playing in the ocean. Enjoy the outdoors and get some Vitamin D!

I hope you guys all remember this theme song... If you don't then I am sorry and you must not have learned how to read. Such a pity.

NEXT WEEK: THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKFAST

AB RIPPER X

So this week I am going to talk about P90X and some the claims it makes and whether it truly works. So first lets see what P90X actually claims it can do for you.

P90X Creator: Tony Horton

The main claim of P90X is that you will get ripped in 90 days. It markets itself as a fat burning exercise program that will melt the fat right off of you and get you ripped. P90X states that it uses the main science of muscle confusion to keep your body guessing in order to prevent the plateau effect like normal workout programs. Every 30 days the workouts will change up and so each 30 days it is like starting a brand new workout program. It also includes a meal plan that is designed to help lose fat, boost energy, and maximize your endurance. The P90X program includes twelve different workouts that are designed to shock your body and keep it guessing.

So those are the main claims that P90X makes. Now the question is that are those claims legitimate or are they just wild claims that other workout fads make?

THE MAIN PROMISE

Will you really get ripped and lose all of your fat? Well let's look at this logically. If you weigh 180 pounds and are 33% fat then you can say you have 60 pounds of fat on your body. The recommended safe and healthy weight loss is around 1-2 pounds per week. That means that over 90 days (13 weeks roughly) you would could safely and healthily lose up to 26 pounds. So if you weigh 180 pounds and have 60 pounds of fat but only lose 26 pounds of excess fat you will still have 34 pounds of fat mass. That brings you down from 33% fat to around 22% fat. Most people would not consider 22% body fat to be "ripped". Now it is a great improvement but I wouldn't say you will go from the guy on the left to the guy on the right in 90 days.

Now let's look at someone that is 180 pounds but only 10% body fat. Imagine that over the 90 days they lose 5 pounds of fat. They will go from 10% body fat to 7.4% body fat. Now if you asked most people who is closer to getting ripped the person with 33% fat or the person with 10% fat, everyone will say the second person. That means that if you are starting at a level that is far from "ripped" then the claims that you will get ripped in 90 days might be a bit unrealistic. Now if you are already in decent shape or used to be in great shape but lost some of it, then the 90 day claim is very doable. So you need to be realistic with your expectations going into it and expect to get in better shape, lose fat, and feel healthier but not necessarily get "ripped".

From skinny to the "ripped" look.

WORKOUT STRATEGY

The P90X workout strategy as I stated earlier is it's patented "muscle confusion". This focuses on the fact that most people when they workout on their own in the gym get into a routine of the same exercises over and over. The human body is an amazing machine and can self regulate and can actually get used to things stresses that you put on it. So, going into the gym and walking on the treadmill used to help you lose 2 pounds per week but now you stopped seeing results? That is because your body starts to expect it and can actually just adjust for the 30 minutes you are going to walk and then go right back to normal. It doesn't need to change or adapt because it knows it can easily get through the workout. This a pretty awesome adaptation that the body has, but not so awesome if you want results.

P90X combats this plateau by constantly changing up the workout you are going to do with the twelve that I listed below. To get your body out of that plateau you need to get it out of your comfort zone and try something new. This is something that is very easy to do that most people don't like to do on their own. People love their comfort zones and staying in it is safe and won't be difficult. This is another reason people will see massive results because it takes you away from the typical bench press and makes you use more muscles and keeps the variety high.

1. Chest and Back
2. Plyometrics
3. Shoulders and Arms
4. Yoga X
5. Legs and Back
6. Kenpo X
7. X Stretch
8. Core Synergistics
9. Chest, Shoulder, and Triceps
10. Back and Biceps
11. Cardio X
12. Ab Ripper X

NUTRITION PLAN

There are 3 phases to the P90X nutrition plan. The first stage, The Fat Shredder, is a high protein stage that helps reduce the amount of food you eat by eating more of the filling protein. I can see why the makers of P90X chose this type of meal plan. The first phase has been shown through various studies to provide results. One study done by Donald Layman et al. showed that between four groups (high protein, high protein plus exercise, high carbs, and high carbs plus exercise) the high protein group and the high protein plus exercise groups lost more overall weight, lost more fat mass , and lost less lean body mass (good body mass) than the high carbohydrate groups. The study kept all four groups eating a diet of 1,700 calories while replacing carbohydrates with natural protein such as nuts, eggs, and dairy for the higher protein groups. The reasons that this study gives as why this result happened is that the higher protein diet helped keep lean body mass high, protein is less efficient in metabolism so you feel full longer, and there is a lower insulin response due to the lowered carbohydrate diet. Needless to say, studies have shown that a higher protein diet will help you reduce fat mass, like P90X claims.
Layman et al. (2005)

The next stage, Energy Booster, focuses on a more balanced diet of carbs and proteins with a reduced amount of fat. These extra carbs will help give you more energy to work harder during the workouts and to stay energized even after a workout. The last phase, The Endurance Maximizer, gets you closer a normal athletic diet that focuses on whole grain carbohydrates and lean protein. This diet plan is designed to help burn a lot of fat and keep the lean muscle loss low in the first month, in the second month it is designed to allow you to work hard and build muscle while still reducing fat mass, and in the last month it is designed to get you closer to a diet you should keep every day with lean meats and whole grains.



P90X RESULTS

So why do you see all of these pictures and testimonies of people claiming that they lost 40 pounds in 3 months due to P90X? Well, there are a couple reasons why P90X can work as well as it claims. The first is that it provides a large variety of workouts. The workouts themselves are good and definitely push you hard but the key is in the "muscle confusion" they claim. Keeping a large variety of workouts and routines is honestly a great way to push you over that stagnant feeling you have while you are at the gym. Almost every single person that goes to the gym by themselves will get to a point where you run out of exercises and start to just repeat the same routine every couple of days. This is how people get bored with exercising and fed up because they aren't seeing results. This is the key for P90X for keeping people on their workout program. There is always a large turnover rate for people starting a new workout program because they will get bored and decide to stop the program. With P90X, you get a large variety of workouts so you don't get bored and are more likely to stay in it for the whole 90 days.

The next reason why P90X can be very effective is the 90 day meal plan. When you start a workout program or just start going to the gym for the first time, how often do you completely overhaul your diet at the same time? Almost never. Usually, you try to make one small change, like walking 20 minutes a day, then work your way up to working out, and then to making large changes to your diet. All of these steps are compounded into one 3 month period. So if you actually stick with the meal plan and reduce the amount of cheating then it is possible to drop a lot of weight like P90X claims.

VERDICT

P90X is a great workout program that gives a large variety of workouts to keep you motivated and excited, provides a meal plan designed to reduce fat but keep lean muscle, and it gives you a plan to keep you focused on your goal. So in my opinion, it IS a workout program that can get you very good results if you are motivated and focused on your goal.  The best part about P90X is that it is as easy as eating what they give you and doing the workout they give you each day. It takes the thinking out of eating healthy and making your own workout plans. This is what most people need; someone telling them what to do and eat each day.

BUT, P90X is nothing more than a workout plan that keeps you muscled shocked, a diet that helps reduce your fat intake, and a plan to keep you on track each day. There is nothing special about the P90X plan that is extremely new or ingenious to the exercising world. People that are very overweight that start P90X will see a lot of results but mainly because they are exercising for the first time in a while, not purely the P90X system. Also, the results that you see in the commercials, as I said above, usually come from people that are in decent shape before hand or have been working on losing weight for a while and then with the P90X aid, saw the cut look they were wanting.

It took him 18 months (not 90 days) but he still got there!

SO, yes P90X can work and can provide you with a more lean, fat reduced body but I wouldn't expect miracle results with it. If you have been sedentary for the last 10 years don't expect to lose all of your fat and weight in 90 days. It might take years but a system like P90X is a great way to lose that excess fat, get cut, and get in better shape. I give P90X a stamp of approval but also know that the system P90X is using is something that you can devise on your own for a much smaller price tag. This is the case with most other workout programs such as T25, Tai Bo, BeachBody, Insanity, or any other workout plan.

By eating healthily and focusing on a large variety of exercises and workouts you can achieve similar results as what the P90X plan promises.

EXTRA POINTS

Another thing I wanted to show you is how some companies make these drastic fat to fit pictures. Sometimes the heads are photo-shopped but sometimes it is actually the same person. This video shows you how they sometimes make these images happen.

WORKOUT OF THE WEEK

Warmup (Jog in place, slow jumping jacks, ballistic stretches, etc)

Set 1: (20 of each)

Crunches
Flutter Kicks
Donkey Kicks (10 each leg)
Fire Hydrants (10 each leg)
Back Bows

Set 2: (20 each)

Situps
Knee Tuck Jumps (Example)
Jacknife Crunches
Jumping Lunges (Example)
Plank (1 min)

Set 3:

Run 4 quarter mile intervals. (Run a quarter mile as fast as you can, rest for 2 minutes, repeat for all 4. Also, try to beat your previous time each interval)

Set 4:

Repeat Set 1

Set 5: (20 Each)

Jumping Jacks
Burpees
Russian Twists (Example)
Plank Oblique Crunches (10 each side) (Example)
Squat Jacks
Glute Bridges (Example)
Mountain Climbers
Jumping Jacks

Cooldown (Jog and stretch)

Or you can always go to a spinning class, but you might run into this:

NEXT WEEK: HOW TO KEEP YOUR BRAIN IN SHAPE