For my 40th birthday, I wanted to look good as well as get my haircut like Hawkeye (aka Ronin) from Avengers Endgame. I timed it so I’d do a 6 day a week bodybuilding workout for 3 months, then 1 week of a stage diet, and then take pictures 1 day after my birthday. The next week I’d be ready for Avengers.

What Is Body Beast?

Body Beast is a bodybuilding workout by Beachbody, the cats behind P90X, 21 Day Fix, Insanity, etc. There is a lean version if you’re more interested in losing weight than making gains. The stage diet is where you spend a week slowly reducing your calories, changing your macros to more and more protein, excluding 1 carb day where you do cardio. You start with high sodium and water intake, and slowly reduce it the day before you go on stage. This is supposed to ensure your muscle is retaining water, but the outside is not and you look defined (can easily see muscles) and striated (veins are popping out).

Diet Now vs 5 Years Ago

I have done Body Beast 5 years ago and strictly followed the calories and macro portion of the diet, including no soy, nor alcohol. This time around, I wasn’t too strict with tracking calories, although I was a bit more strict on macros. I did strict intermittent fasting for the last month. I was extremely strict the stage week diet, though. Anyway, my lack of discipline and not abstaining from alcohol this go around is why I had 6 abs in those pictures from 5 years ago vs. the 2 in this one, heh!

Injuries

I’ve been into Powerlifting for about 5 years; focusing on compound lifts vs. isolation like Bodybuilding. Specifically the Squat, Bench, and Deadlift. However, I suffered a knee injury doing a PR that just never got better. Despite modifying form, and trying various things, my knee just kept hurting once I got up to my heavier squats. I took 3 months off for a break, started again, and pulled my shoulder while too excited doing overhead Press. Basically I can’t hang from a pull up bar, which subsequently hampered my Parkour fun. My knee hurting really depressed me, and the shoulder was super frustrating. I basically just stopped working out, and focused briefly on Parkour, although both hurt there too and I basically just stopped exercising altogether.

What typically happens with me is I’ll get angry and that gets me my motivation back. I remembered with bodybuilding that I could do exercises on parts that didn’t hurt. For example, in the Squat, if my calves hurt from running, or my back was sore, or my wrists ached… my Squat suffered. It’s a compound movement requiring everyone to work as a team. Bodybuilding, however, I can do curls and really don’t care about the rest of the body.

I found both my shoulder and knee pains could be worked around. In fact, both continued to feel better despite the 6 days a week of increasingly heavy workouts which further emboldened me to keep going.

Gains

Despite being focused on weight loss, I was still eating a ton of calories month 1 and 2. The dumbbells I had used 5 years ago I supplemented by buying many smaller ones as well as some larger ones. Last time I had to make due, and my gains suffered because it was either too heavy resulting in bad form or low reps, or too light and thus not progressing. Also nice that dumbbells basically last forever.

I’m happy that FINALLY my curl related exercises finally started increasing in weight and chest slightly so. While I didn’t take many strict measurements, my biceps, tri’s, lats, and even my never-growing pecs actually made slight gains. The weights told an even more positive story and went way up this time. It’s nice to know at my age I can still make n00b gains, and that is inspiring.

Conclusions

I miss Powerlifting. I miss lifting super heavy things and slowly but surely getting stronger. I miss the see food diet: see food, eat it. I miss the 3 days a week 1 hour workouts. I miss doing Parkour at the local parkour gym. However, it’s nice to know I have an option with bodybuilding to look good even on a not-so-awesome diet, and still make gains despite injuries. I’m debating if I just say heck with it, and do another not-so-strict round this summer, and only focus on the calories and ignore macros to get better. I was so happy to see the weights kept getting heavier and that was motivating. Since taking a break to do Powerlifting and slowly I stopped focusing on diet, I was pretty out of practice tracking calories, macros, meal prepping and cooking. I don’t really have the passion for it anymore beyond just ensuring I’m getting enough calories (or limiting them), and occasionally tracking macros. That said, it was nice to try again and get acquainted with all of it again. As usual, the workouts are hard but I managed to show up everyday, including with the flu. The diet part is nigh impossible, lol!

As you can see from the charts I lost a ton of fat and weight through P90X, but P90X2 really pushed me to the lowest body fat and weight I’ve ever been since in my teen years (I’m 34).

Sadly, the caloric deficit, which consists of eating 500 to 300 calories less per day then you need was devastating to my muscle growth. The math isn’t perfect, since measuring body fat by averaging what the body fat scale and the fat calipers isn’t an exact science. That said, you can see on the spreadsheet I basically lost all the muscle in 3 months that took me 10 months to build by basically starving myself. So while the chart makes it look like a victory, 60% of the 15 lb weight loss was muscle vs. fat. It took me 6 hard months to slowly earn it back.

So, while I like the way a vegetarian diet made me feel, I don’t think I want to go back to a caloric deficit as my body is quite sensitive to get into a catabolic state (burning muscle vs. fat).

Halfway through P90X2, during a 4 hour Minecraft session I damaged a nerve in my foot by sitting on it on a wooden chair. I got drop foot; basically I could press my right foot down on the ground, but not lift it up. This means I walked like a zombie by either dragging my foot or throwing my knee, but at least I could jump in PAP Lower… just landing became insanely dangerous. I head to wear a leg brace so I could walk. This lasted for 4 months and just magically got better one day. This forced me to do P90X2 using 1 foot. Erik Stolhanske of P90X1 Plyometrics and Broken Lizard fame, who completed P90X with 1 leg, gave me inspiration to go on.

Now that I saw how low I could go, I decided to go the other way and see how big I could get through body building.

Body Beast just wore me out. I couldn’t do my own cardio or yoga on the side; my entire energy was devoted to just doing my best the entire 30 to 50 minutes. They have many high rep progressive sets, and even her majesty could see the physical change in just my face on the 1 week I rested. It clearly exhausted me, but I DID manage to gain almost 6 pounds of muscle so that was awesome. I also learned better form for a lot of moves I sucked at.

However, everything I read said lower reps, compound movements, and more rest. So I built a custom routine, borrowing some moves from Body Beast, some from P90X1 and 2, some from pictures/blogs/YouTube videos I found online, and some in the books I read. I did my own build, bulk, and cut phases over the course of 90 days. I ate till I was about to puke during the bulk phase. The 2 weeks I tracked it on myfitnesspal.com I was getting nearly 3,700 calories a day.

Doing my own cut phase was rough. I didn’t really plan for a reduced routine with increased cardio so basically just worked out for 1 hour and 30 minutes 3 days of the week, and then 1 hour for the rest of the shorter routines. I managed to shed some fat while maintaining my weight which was awesome, but challenging. I failed to do the 50% protein diet merely because I just don’t know enough recipes and got bored eating chicken, beans, brown rice, quinoa, salmon, and yogurt all the time.

Muscle wise, though, I came out on top, undoing the damage my caloric deficit created. I hope to try intermittent fasting and a heavy protein diet this year to see what they do.

Exercise and diet are just like programming: Tons to learn, tons to try and experiment with, and the more I do it the easier it gets to learn more. I’m happy with my results. Breaking my chest plateau this year proved I can break my bicep plateau as well if I just work hard.

I’m happy with the results of my hard work. I hope you reach your diet and fitness goals for 2014. Happy New Year, y’all!

It’s been 1 year since I was sick & tired of being sick & tired and decided to make a change. I also completed P90X2 which is the 2nd version of P90X (sort of). I wanted to share the challenges I had (only 1 of my feet worked), the changes in my life, and what I’ve learned as well as visual progress.

Before & After

First, the before and after shot’s from 1 year ago, after completing my 1st round of P90X, my second round, and my first round of P90X2; a transformation consisting of 365 days of hard work. I’ve lost 28 pounds, stabilized at 140 pounds, my cholesterol is like 58, and blood pressure is 110.

P90X2

I have a short attention span and get bored easily. I wanted to try something new. A friend on Google+ suggested I try P90X because they focus on more core work and it could help me with my running goals. One of my running goals is to significantly reduce my running times, beyond improving my horrible stride, and 2 of the ways to do that are variety in fitness and losing weight. P90X2 provides the variety, and the stricter version 2 diet combined with the exercise provides the extra weight loss.

Overall it was really fun and I’m glad I purchased the DVD’s. I plan to do a hybrid version of it + P90X once I find a combination that others can already vouch for.

Cons

There are a few things I didn’t like about P90X2.

Not Enough Lifting

There are arm, back, leg, and bicep focusing exercises as well as total body that involve them, but nothing like amount v1 had. For someone who struggled with pull ups and push ups to really bulk up the lats and pec muscles, this was a downer for me. There seemed to be a level of expectations that I clearly wasn’t meeting for some of the chest & back exercises. Phase 2’s focus on arms, shoulders, and biceps was barely enough focus.

Phase 1 Confusion

Maybe this was intentional, but I really felt confused in Phase 1 on “what we’re doing here”. Every day seemed just like a different variation of core. Maybe it wasn’t and I was just feeling the muscle confusion early. In P90X1, you do Core 6 times in the entire 9 days. In P90X2, it felt like I was doing a variation of it everyday for a month. Maybe it was structured and I’m just not knowledgeable about fitness to get it.

D.I.Y. Stretching

Upon getting injured a few times running, 2 different Ortho’s I saw criticized me for being extremely inflexible, and that being the main cause for my multiple running related injuries. I felt really bad suddenly for skipping all those X Stretch Sunday’s in P90X1, so started not skipping them. I also ensured I’d stretch more if I needed to before/after working out.

P90X2 doesn’t have a designated stretch DVD; it’s now foam rolling. That DOES reduce the pain, but does not increase your flexibility. You then have to supplement with your own stretching. I wasn’t prepared for having to find the extra time to stretch. Obviously I have to, and again, it’s clear P90X2 is for those who have “graduated”. Being flexible, and knowing how to maintain it, are a requirement of that graduation.

Pros

There are a variety of things I liked and loved about P90X2.

PAP Upper and Lower

PAP Lower basically justifies your DVD’s purchase. That 1 routine of hell alone basically erased any negativity and frustrations I had with P90X2. I was pretty convinced my 2nd round I wouldn’t be doing P90X2 again and would return to v1, but PAP Lower changed my mind… I found out what it was all leading up to.

Same feelings about PAP Upper, although, Lower’s still my fave because it’s the worst.

Shoulders & Arms with Jason Scheff

For a more challenging version of the first, I loved it. Jason is a goof ball and made Tony look like a serious gent, so this routine really helped distract you from the insanity you’re attempting by adding more weight each week and the pain that’s there. #TwentyPiePounds #BadgerlyWentToOrange #TurkeyBurger #HellInAHandBasket

Plyocide

I actually found the former harder, but I did struggle to keep the intensity up since Plyocide is harder and faster than Plyometrics so… different kind of challenge? Either way, it was fun to have a new version.

Phase 2 Overall

I struggled to see progress in Phase 1 because it’s hard to gauge progress with some of the exercises until you actually get good at them and know the form. Phase 2, however, was very familiar with additional challenges. I liked all the new versions or added modifications to make them harder. “Curls on 1 leg? Why not?”. Phase 2, I think, was a small part of what I envisioned P90X version 2 to be. It was nice to have something familiar since I was really confused in Phase 1.

Ab Ripper X2

Easier than version 1. Thank God. P90X2 really ups the intensity, so after a harder 1 hour workout, it’s nice to have to magically conjure more “bring it” for an extra insane 15 minutes.

Yoga

It’s 1 hour instead of 1 hour 30 minutes. w00t! And don’t give me that “67 minutes” crap. Tony talks for like 3 at the beginning, and if you skip the ending corpse pose and single Om, boom, 1 hour. The other cool thing is instead of Core Synergistics  you do it Yoga 3 times during recovery week. This allowed me to actually better gauge progress I was making at some of the moves. I know I’ve made progress over a year of doing, but even just being able to see progress in 3 days, WHILE recovering was awesome.

I also liked how they had Melissa doing the easy versions with Ted doing the insane things I can someday attempt. As others have noted the queues are a lot easier to follow as well. If I ever do P90X again, I’ll most definitely be using this version of Yoga moving forward instead of v1.

Diet Guide

It was… just way easier to follow. I know the first version had fast food options if you were in a hurry, but… well, I don’t think I was learned enough in general diet to even be able to handle both the diet changes in my lifestyle and P90X to even contemplate that. After going through P90X a few times while working on improving my diet, by the time I got to P90X2 I was ready, AND I did not need a fast food option which meant the P90X2 option just fit. More importantly, it had the Grain Free and Vegan options which I’ll talk about.

Challenges: Flu and Drop Foot

I had 2 horrible things happen during my first attempt P90X2. At the end of of my first week of Phase 2, I got the flu. I managed to power through my 2nd week, but it was very clear my performance was being adversely affected by being sick. So, I took 1 week off. I ended up extending Phase 2 to 6 weeks to compensate because I did notice week to week improvement in form and amount of weight.

During the 1 week off, we had my nephews over and had a Minecraft LAN party. My downstairs table has wooden chairs. I must of sat with my right food under my right leg for a couple of hours with those kids + my kids on Saturday, all day. It caused me to have drop foot the next day. I later found out was caused by a compressed nerve. It took 2 1/2 months before I could dorsiflex my right foot again.

What this meant was, I could “jump” for example in Plyocide, but I had insane balance issues. I had to use step modifications a lot. I couldn’t heel walk in PAP Upper and Lower. In Shoulders & Arms I struggled on the right foot balancing, but tried anyway. I tripped a lot, and had to be laser focused on ensuring I didn’t twist my ankle on certain movements.

Worse, my left leg would get really sore over time because I favored it to help compensate for the right. I did my best to ensure the right did his fair share within reason. I did NOT want to injure myself. I felt like it was extremely important that I complete P90X2 WITHOUT getting any injuries WITH an injury caused by playing video games basically sitting around doing nothing. This would really help me in arguments about “working out being dangerous” or people using my running injuries as ammo against me.

The 1 legged Erik Stolhanske of Broken Lizard fame from P90X1 who completed one of the most brutal workouts with a prosthetic leg was a major inspiration to me not giving up. If he could do it on 1 leg, I could do it with 1 working foot.

1 week after I completed P90X2, I started to be able to get 80% mobility back in my foot within a 3 day period. Nerves are strange… and heal waaaayyyy to slowly compared to muscles, ligaments, and bone.

Going Vegan

About 1 week into P90X2, I decided to try the Vegan diet. I’m not sure exactly what the catalyst was. I think the wording in the guide book that went something like “even if it’s not your thing, hey, it’s something new to try”. That struck a chord with me. It also sounded hard. That struck another positive chord with me. Some of the zealotry you read online makes you think Vegan makes you “feel” better… I knew Vegetarian made me feel better than I have in my entire life, so why not? Also “it’s near impossible for vegans to get fat” gave me hope that it’d help me lose more weight so I could decrease my running times.

I was actually really thinking about doing the Grain Free option first, mainly because I had read some literature about it. I even tried to do both for 1 week before I quickly realized that limited my diet way too much. The avenue of Vegan trying new types of food vs. Grain which is limiting a specific set of types of food just wasn’t as appealing, regardless of the possible weight loss and feeling better.

The validation I wanted to do it was the backlash from telling people on social networks I was trying it, and some of the negative reactions from my friends. At that point, I was going to survive without dairy, eggs, meat, chicken, pork, and fish for 3 months or die trying. Every comment about “you’re nuts” or “try X diet instead” just fueled my motivation to stick with it.

For the record, it had nothing to do with ethical/moral issues around animal treatment.

Naturally I became obsessed with protein. Apparently Vegan’s have “problems” getting enough protein. You no problems if you know what to eat, although, there are health ramifications for some people who get too much soy. That, and it doesn’t absorb as fast as whey. That said, it works and you can still get “enough”, even if you’re body building. I was getting, using shakes to help, my daily requirement of 1 gram per lb of body weight to double that; within that range, every day, eating + drinking nothing but plants.

Another thing I started to learn is TONS of food have dairy and/or eggs in it, even the gluten free, organic, and worse “vegatarian” options. I struggled many times to learn about what the contents of what I was ordering/making were and was insanely surprised.

I also learned most people don’t know the difference between vegetarian and vegan. A lot of vegetarian options still have chicken/fish/pork, or dairy/eggs in some capacity that I had to struggle to watch out for.

I made many mistakes in eating things I thought were vegan but weren’t.

The biggest mistake I made was not reading the entire paragraph in the diet book. It clearly stated you need to take supplements to compensate for the lack of nutrients you get from not eating meat & dairy. I was not calorie restricting myself in Phase 1, but did feel pretty tired and dizzy many times. I returned to some normalcy once I started getting on a daily routine of B12, D, Iodine, and Iron supplements.

After going back to a regular diet I can tell you with 100% assurance that supplements do NOT compare to the real thing with regards to feeling good.

That said, I’m only beginning to realize the life changes that going on that diet did to me (ex desiring a higher ratio of vegetables on my plate than whatever else, still liking tempeh related dishes, etc). I’ve fallen in love with Quinoa and Tempeh because of that diet, and a variety of other foods that have made it easier to have a broader set of choices… because I was forced to learn when I was starving and couldn’t eat the easy stuff.

If you want to ensure you “like vegetables” if you currently don’t, want to guarantee fat loss even if you don’t work out, and/or want to learn about additional diet choices I highly recommend it. It’s changed my life for the better. That said, talk to your Doctor first. Also, if you can hire a nutritionist, do so as they’ll be more qualified to give you proper dosage requirements for supplements. No, you cannot eat vegan and be healthy without supplements. Anyone who says otherwise thinks science is optional in life. Ensure you get a blood test beforehand to compare with the end. Guarantee your cholesterol flatlines.

Additional Notes on Supplements

For programmers, think about adding a Vitamin D supplement as most of never go outside, and hang in dark rooms for months on end. Once you quit dairy, your Vitamin D can plummet dangerously low.

Be aware when purchasing supplements most supplement makers know that the measurements they use are new to a lot of people, and especially for the multivitamins, they have a variety of dosages. Thus, they’ll sell you supplements that either have too little, or too much. Either way, it’s wasting your money all at the expense of your wallet and health. Not cool. Ensure before you go into one of those stores, like the Vitamin Shoppe or Whole Foods you document what you need ahead of time WITH the dosage requirements.

Also be wary of multivitamins or shakes. They’ll often put crap in there you don’t need, namely sugar or other chemicals that have little to no science. Some are fine and natural, some are not.

Vegan Smell

The downside to being vegan, beyond the supplements not helping me feel optimal as real iron/B12, is the “vegan smell”. Her majesty would always say while laying in bed together after the kids finally went to sleep, “you smell like vegetables”. I personally couldn’t tell, but she could. This hasn’t gone away since switching back to a vegetarian diet since I still err on the side of tons of vegetables and the same kind. I compensate with more showers and extra Old Spice deodorant.

Calorie Restriction & Macronutrients

In Phase 2, I started calorie restricting myself by 500 a day (so about 1700 a day). You can see the spreadsheet here. I was amazed at how little calories vegetables had, yet how much more nutrients they had. I bought a food weighing scale from Amazon to measure the amounts, and learned all about macronutrients (Protein, Carbs, and Fat), their default calorie amounts (4, 4, 9) which made the math a lot simpler. This knowledge, coupled with doing the measurements of different types of food, looking up their calorie amounts and comparing calories vs. nutrients vs. type of nutrients really taught me a lot.

It was interesting to attempt to balance my fat, carb, and protein needs with the capped calories. “What can I eat today that’ll give me enough protein, but not be the same thing I had yesterday?” It got even more complex when I tried to balance certain vitamins and minerals. It gave me a new appreciation for the diet guide’s food choices as I started to “get” the amount the work that went into it, and the further work that went into simplifying it into the serving point system.

Additionally, it was neat to learn that calorie restriction is the ONLY way to effectively lose weight once you’re already fit. It suddenly made a lot of fitness information utter lies used to prey upon ignorant consumers.

I’m continuing to read and learn.

Foam Roller

One of the 3 new gadgets P90X2 wants you to get, the foam roller, had 2 things I think it’s important for n00bs to know.

First off, using both on your neck is great. They don’t do that in the videos, I guess maybe because it’s not a major muscle group or perhaps its dangerous, but for me, it was awesome, especially with the Rumble Roller.

Secondly, you graduate to the Rumble Roller, you do not start with that mofo. Additionally, there are some days when you want to use the foam roller instead since things are just really tight or painful. It still works and isn’t as brutal as the Rumble Roller is. I’m not saying you should buy both, but I still use both; I don’t just favor the black cactus.

What if I want to work out?

You do NOT have dive headlong into something like P90X. If you like the guided methodology, though, combined with good ole’ hard work, Beach Body has a variety of programs targeted at a variety of demographics. You could start with 10 Minute Trainer, then Power 90, then P90X or Insanity. P90X2 actually has a hybrid of the 2 programs in the back of the manual that’s kind of cool looking.

Regarding diet, I get that it’s hard. Tony has a weekly food delivery service that, while not work out specific, is life changing for some folks. I’ve heard some have had success with Weight Watchers as well. Still others just cut out the processed foods, sugar, cut down or switch to wheat bread/pasta, and just keep their calories in check via My Fitness Pal.

Conclusions

As someone who’s completed P90X 2 times, I really liked P90X2. There is no denying my expectations colored my initial perception of it, and I struggled to keep an open mind. I’m glad I did for Phase 3 was really fun and challenging.

I’m looking forward to finding a hybrid program that blends P90X 1 and 2 exercises together in a 90 day program.

It’s crazy to look at pictures of myself from 2010 – 2012, especially my face. I could see the beer, lack of exercise, and stress about work & the industry piling up into un-healthly-ness in my face in the form of… well, fat face. I was 1% body fat away from overweight. For someone high strung like me, that was pretty irritating and made me angry. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. I like not having to wear white t-shirts under my t-shirts in the summer to “smooth out” my figure to cover my body. I like feeling lighter… and basically not like crap every day.

What’s next? Body Beast. Since my running goals were sabotaged by my non-working foot, I’ll get too bored running and doing maintenance exercises  so… time to gain some weight!

Once again, massive thanks to my business partner Brian Riley for getting me started last year to change my life for the better, and his wife Dee for getting me on the right nutrition & supplement track. And of course her majesty for supporting me. #tagTeamBackAgain