Stick a fork in me. I'm done! A few minutes ago, I just finished my first P90X workout, which happened to be a double header: Back & Chest and the supplemental Ab Ripper X.

I've found myself getting more and more sedentary my day-to-day life. Some of it was work, and some of it was my own personal laziness. There were a few times that I'd try to go for the occasional run, swim, or yoga session, but nothing was consistent enough to draw real results.

One morning, obscenely early one morning, I saw a commercial for P90X and was about to change the channel. The thing that caught my attention was that each of the before and after photos seemed 1. to be clearly the before and after of the same individual (e.g., not using a different model for the after picture), and 2. the results were impressive, but also believable.

That got me to watch a little more.  I mean things like the Ab Circle Pro and the Bender Ball seemed a little cheesy to me.  After all, aren't all these workout programs supposed to be the same?

Tony Horton, the designer or P90X explained in 30 seconds the problems I had in getting fit: the plateau effect.  Simply put: when you do the same thing to your muscles all the time, your body learns to adapt and your progress diminishes.  Ok, so I listened some more.

Then I noticed that the people on the DVDs were using a log during the workout to record reps and weight.  Hmmm. That sounded a lot like Division I weight training to me.  That way you knew what you did before and how far you'd progressed over the 90 days.  Genius, right?  Maybe the signs of a well-thought out program.

After much hemming and hawing, and the slow down in the pace of work, I took the plunge and ordered the system. The DVDs arrived last week, and I committed to start this week.  Today was both Day 0 and Day 1.

Before you can begin the program, you're supposed to take (and pass) a fitness test, with things like, pull ups, push ups, wall sit, flexibility, and heart rate.  On Day 0, you also do things like take your measurements and save them for comparison later.  The BMI put me at 25% body fat, though I believe that's a slight over estimation, but probably not too much.  Thank goodness that's one number that'll drop like a Russian hand grenade in this program.

One of the things they encourage you to do is to post before/after pictures to prove to yourself that you've changed.  I'm embarrassed to do this, but I'm doing it as my own little bit of encouragement to keep going.  I'll post these pictures online every 10 days or so.  Hopefully I won't need to do as much retouching in the future .  Though I'm usually very jovial by nature, I couldn't find a way to make myself look serious enough for the before and after picture.  Maybe, like the ones on P90X ad, I'll wait to the end to put the bronzer and smile on…

You can keep me encouraged to move through this work-out jungle by posting comments on the blog, though it has been over a year since my last posting and not many people read it before.  I'll be extra encouraged to see your comments!  Of course I'll also let you in on my progress (in relative terms) with postings of graphs and statistical analysis charts.  Maybe a few differential equations…

89 days left…. Almost done!

Tags: P90X