On one hand, I think that’s good advice in that, physically speaking, the first month IS the hardest and you certainly don’t want soreness to be the reason you quit a good program. I was sore as hell most of the time, and I was weak on most of the exercises. I still look back at the reps and weights of the resistance training from the first two weeks and I have to laugh. Wow, I was a complete wus! Now, I’m no Vin Diesal now, but I at least have some respect for my workout capacity these days.

Still. In some ways the first month was the easiest. I went into the program with a fire in my belly and a mind full of zeal and a few clear goals to boot — be able to do more than one pull-up, for instance. Plus, because I was so damn weak, I saw quick progress in obvious areas. “Wow, last week I was on my knees blowing on the ground trying to propel myself off since my noodle arms had long since failed and this week I wasn’t even blowing on the ground!” It’s hard to be a wus, but it’s even harder to stay that way when you start seeing rapid progress and a means to get stronger.

Fastforward two months, and THAT my friends is the hard part. It’s hard because you’ve already seen progress, you’ve already blown away a lot of the obvious weaknesses, but you still are having to work your ass off. There are still, like, four more weeks of this shanx, and you don’t know what the hell you’re going to do afterwards. More P90x? Pshaw, not likely! Maybe in a few months. But you’re in this weird limbo where you’ve made rapid progress but you still have a long ass way to go. Plus, although you probably won’t remotely plateau through most of the program, the progress is much more incremental, even subtle.

Happily, I only have two and a half weeks remaining this go round. My workouts have been slipping in a subtle way. I missed an Ab Ripper X routine completely, I’ve cut Yoga X short twice because of over-extending my weekend commitments;  my eating has been sloppy. And to all that I can somewhere hear an indignant Beachbody coach screaming at me for half-assing it.

But there’s another side to slipping and how it affects us. For some of us, slipping on routines or our eating means we’ve failed and we might as well not continue. For me, it just means maintaining my intensity has become difficult, and I have to wonder why. And the truth is that I accomplished my major fitness goals with P90X faster than I realized I would, and I’m already trying to figure out what next big thing is going to motivate me and drive me to self-improvement in such a rapid manner. It might be taking a self-defense class. Or Kettlebell training. Or going through Insanity. Or a combination thereof! I haven’t figured it out yet, but probably the biggest thing P90X has given me is the desire for variety and self-expansion.

So I’ll keep pushing play and muster up whatever energy I have to finish up the program. Heck, I may even go through it again sometime in the (probably distant) future. I’ll surely incorporate some of the workouts here and there as they are really good ones. But I’m not going to beat myself up for slipping here and there. In the end, this program is about setting and reaching for personal goals, and that’s what I’m keeping in mind as I head towards the grand finale.

That’s right, I hurled mid-Legs-and-Back on Sunday; this by virtue of the fact that I was up too late the night before drinking adult beverages. In P90X world, no slothful deed goes unpunished, and my Saturday night of excess was no exception. I was about halfway through my workout when an overwhelming nausea crept over me and was exacerbated by the smell of household cleaning products wafting in from the bathroom the missus was cleaning.

Ladies, if your hungover man is doing P90X, do NOT clean the toilets until AFTER he pukes into them. That’s just a courteous household tip that should spare the sanity of all involved.

Anyway, I did get through the workout (feeling like a dazed refugee), but I couldn’t do Abripper X, so that had to wait until tonight.

Tonight I finished Kenpo X and tacked on Ab Ripper… I almost kept up with the entire thing without pausing! I also tried pull-ups again afterwards for the heck of it and managed four! That’s up from one just three weeks ago.

I am now entering the rest week of P90X. That means mostly cardio training for the next week while my muscles rebuild from the three weeks of hardship I subjected them to. The cool thing is I get to do two new routines I haven’t tried yet — Cardio X and Core Synergistics X. The bad thing is I have to do Yoga X twice.

Wish me luck!

P90X is a lifestyle change, plain and simple. If you do the program the way you’re supposed to do the program, you’re not going to have many other hobbies outside of work until after the 90 days. I have read dozens and dozens of reviews about this program, and most center on how much of an investment in time and energy the actual workouts are; what I’ve found is the nutrition program takes as much if not more time.

I now have to think about every meal. Instead of skipping breakfast, I have to fix a nutritious one. I have to remember to pack snacks like peanuts (which I forgot today), fix big, hearty salads for lunch, and again, for dinner I have to prepare meats and veggies. TV Dinners are out. Box meals are out. Fast food is out. Whenever I have the opportunity to eat out and get a nice salad prepared FOR me, I now leap for joy. I’ve always eaten out for social reasons, laziness, or gluttony, now I enjoy eating out to get a salad I don’t have to fix myself. Almost sad, no?

The investment in time for both the workouts and the nutrition plan are nothing to sneeze at. Some people balk at the initial DVD costs of $120-$150. That expense is NOTHING. You’ll spend more on healthy food and setting aside time to go through the program than you’ll worry about how much money you paid for the DVDs, which in the end are a good value.

But yesterday forces beyond my control conspired against me, and I missed Kenpo X. Today was supposed to be my rest day, so I did Kenpo X today and I even ran a mile and a half afterwards. After that, I prepared some salmon, rice, and asparagus. And now it’s almost bed time. See what I mean? No time for hobbies, barely time for a blog update.

In an odd twist of irony, I can honestly say that Yoga X is the hardest routine, and Kenpo X is the easiest. Why is this? Whereas you might think Yoga X is all soulful, spiritual, contemplative, reflective, etc., it’s actually torturous; meanwhile whereas  you might think Kenpo X is all badass and aggressive, it’s actually quite fun and relaxing. The world works in odd and perplexing ways.

Today was a rest day. I could have either done stretches or just eat and drink beer, so I chose the latter. I hope you agree that I chose wisely.