As I noted in my last post, I decided to repeat week 3 of P90X since I was on vacation and only ended up doing two workouts. I came back strong on week 3 and had a good workout and diet week. I ended up losing another 1.5 pounds which was great. I am also hopefully gaining muscle at the same time.

I fully intended to buy a recovery drink mix, but I ended up not getting one. I am not totally convinced of the merits of recovery drinks, not to mention that they are expensive. I looked at Accelerade at my local Vitamin Shoppe, but decided not to get it. I wish I could get some sample packs to try before I buy a huge tub to see if I like it. Obviously, one needs to eat or drink something after a workout but so far I think chocolate milk is working fine.

One thing I did differently this week was use a real pull-up bar. It definitely made a difference in the intensity of my workouts. I like it better than using the resistance band. I must admit that I am getting a little bit tired of P90X basically taking up 6 mornings a week, it’s a big time commitment but I’m happy with the results so far. I am looking forward to my recovery week where the workouts are a little less strenuous before ramping up for the second phase.

After a good start with week 1, week 2 went pretty well also. I lost another pound after my second week so I was happy for a total of 2.5 pounds lost. Week 3 threw me for a bit of a loop since we had a long weekend of vacation. I took my P90X DVD’s with me and had the best of intentions of working out while I was on vacation, but it just didn’t happen. I did however do a 7.5 mile hike and do a lot of walking so I guess that counts for something. I didn’t do too badly with my diet until the last day when we went to a Mr. Gatti’s all you can eat pizza buffet. Not the best place for  P90Xer but you win some you lose some… I think since I only managed to get in 2 workouts during week 3, I am just going to repeat it instead of starting the week 4 recovery. Then I will do the recovery week after my “second” week 3.

The diet is getting slightly easier. I did discover that I need to eat more carbs before the cardio workouts. I kept crashing during Kenpo and Plyometrics, I simply felt like I ran out of steam about halfway through. From now on I’m going to try eating a small piece of fruit before cardio as one of my Twitter friends suggested. I also bought some Clif Builder Protein Bars which are somewhat like the P90X protein bars, they have the same amount of protein (20g) but they are all natural and taste good and are cheaper than ordering P90X bars. I got a big box of them at Sam’s Club. I still haven’t gotten a “real” recovery drink and have been using chocolate milk. I am thinking about trying Accelerade because it has the same 4:1 carb to protein ratio that the P90X recovery drink does. I need to do a little more research on recovery drinks though.

One thing I have noticed about the workouts, is that I feel like the resistance bands aren’t challenging enough for the pull up exercises. I am going to work on rigging up a way to do pull ups so I can get the full effect. My husband and I have a small gym in our basement so we will figure something out. I think our weight rack and a bar secured to it might work, we are going to try it.

I have been posting about my P90X workouts on my Twitter account and have been amazed at the awesome support I’ve gotten. I have gained a few P90X followers and some of them have had some excellent advice. I have been using the P90X hashtag on posts (#P90X). Even though I’ve gotten off of the P90X path a bit, I am coming back strong and am determined to stay the course.