Enter Beachbody's Tony Horton and P90

So there I was at the beginning of 2009. I had my treadmill workstation but my weight wasn't moving - I wasn't eating right or doing any real fitness conditioning. I began a serious diet - one of the shake + 1 real meal diets called the New Lifestyle Diet.

The diet isn't sustainable for life or even really low-carb (their products have more sugar than I'd like). But the diet represented a commitment to change my habits. And their food is tasty; enough so that my wife who has never dieted before and hates most of my diet food, liked it enough to give it a g0. She has been having great success with the diet and working out with Wii Fit but is growing weary of mostly sweet meal replacements.

Toward the end of January my wieght had started to drop but I still needed a fitness routine. One morning while bringing my grandma breakfast I caught an informertial for P90X. "Just another infomertial for some cheap fitness gimmic" I thought. But as I caught more of it I noticed that the exercises were using bodyweight, dumbells, resistance bands, and a pullup bar. So they weren't selling some gizmo and it did look serious. Time for some research.

I combed the internet looking for information on P90x. I found the companies site (of course) along with blogs and facebook accounts. It looked real serious and founded on some solid principles. But, given my fitness level at the time it looked like a bit much for me. So I purchased their P90 non-Xtreme workout. I already had some powerbands but also got some powerblocks for dumbells after the first week because I like the feel of free weights better.

P90 is a 30-45 min workout 6 days a week with alternating cardio and strength training days (although to be honest I get just as much cardio out of the strength days). The program has phase 1-2 which is shorter and introduces you to the program and phase 3-4 which is longer and adds a few new things. Their is a diet described in P90, but I continued on with the New Lifestyle Diet until this last week where I started moving toward the diet for P90X since I had started feeling a little tired and light headed due to (I suspect) just not getting enough fuel for my body.

I did phase 1-2 for three weeks then phase 3-4 for 8 weeks; not 90 days I know but I'm eager to move on to P90X. The program definitely works, see below:
Here are some stats from 2/1/2009 to 4/11/2009:

Measurement	Before	After
Body Fat (scale/navy method)	23%/22.9%	17%/14.4%
Weight	193	172
Neck	15"	15.25"
Chest	43"	40.5"
Waist/Abdoment	37"	32.75"
Hips	43"	37.5"
Right Mid-Thigh	24"	21.5"
Left Mid-Thigh	24"	21.5"
Right Upper-Arm	14"	14"
Left Upper Arm	14"	14"
Cholesterol	128 (1/24/2009; was 162 5/10/2008 and 147 9/27/2008)	(will have to wait until I donate in May)
Blood Pressure	112/64	(I'll go to the store and measure tonight)
Resting Heart Rate	66	68

So far so good. Strange my arms are exactly the same size but I've gone from lifting 20 lb dumbells to 30 - must just be more compact muscle.