Long story short: I stopped doing P90X. While it’s awesome if you’re looking for something to just pop in and follow for results, I do think a much simpler approach to get similar results is to do your power lifts, have plenty of rest days, do some basic calorie counting, and keep your diet as clean as you can.

Need a workout? Try Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. If you’re not squatting and deadlifting, you’re doing it wrong.

Round 2 is actually pretty relaxing. I know what to expect every time. I know all the moves, all the Tony Horton jokes, verbal cues, when I have a second to grab a drink of water, etc.  I’m still making great progress and my nutrition is pretty clean for the most part. I’ve been having sushi, Thai, and SanSai once a week, typically. I’ve also been ordering a pizza on most Sundays to reward myself for all that hard work while watching football. Aside from that, I eat extremely clean – a lot of egg whites, oats, protein shakes, whole wheat pasta, chili with lean ground beef, grilled chicken, brown rice, broccoli, natural peanut butter.

I’m still making great progress and sitting at around 12% body fat at the moment. I’d like to get to sub 10, and then possibly start bulking up a bit, but maybe not. I haven’t really thought about it too much.

For all you newer P90X’ers, just keep doing the workouts, and believe me, you’ll reach a point where you just kind of get up every day and do it without thinking twice, or having to force yourself to work out.

One small change, though. I replaced the 90 minute Yoga X with the 47′ish minute Tony Horton One on One Fountain of Youth video, which is basically a condensed version of Yoga X with a few new things thrown in. Now, I’m able to enjoy the balanced series of P90X workouts while not having to wake up 30 minutes early on Tuesdays.

Tony just released a new One on One video, Yoga: MC2, which is sort of a sneak peek version of the Yoga workout that will appear in P90X:MC2. I might give that one a try and use it instead. I’m definitely pumped about MC2. Hopefully it will be better than P90X+, which I hear is not so great.

All done! That was a fun ride, with a lot of struggle along the way, some minor injuries that I worked through, a lot of egg whites, and bucketfuls of blood, sweat, and tears. The result? I’m now in the best shape of my life, and feel like a million bucks. I’m not completely ripped now or anything like that, but I’m happy with the results. I also feel stronger, faster, better, etc.

I’m going to take a week off and finish up my plan of attack fitness-wise after that. In the meantime, I won’t just be laying on the couch eating Doritos. I plan on taking the P90X fitness test, the Insanity fitness test, throwing up after the Insanity fitness test, maybe going for a run and doing other things to test out my newfound athleticism.

P90X works, and it’s awesome. Go start it right now. Seriously.

So close. 90 minutes of Yoga is all that keeps me from completing this crazy program.

I really suck at lunges. Everytime I do them, I feel awkward and stumble around constantly. You would think after 89 days of P90X, I would be the king of the lunge sequence. But as Borat would say, “Not so much!”

1 day left!

I stretched for 57 minutes. P90X rocks, do it.

It did seem kind of strange effectively taking a rest day when there are only two days left. I kind of wish P90X finished strong, with Plyometrics, Core Synergistics, and then Yoga, or something. Oh well, I’ll be doing plenty more P90X soon enough.

2 days left!

Being that this was perhaps my last time ever doing Kenpo X, I decided to go all out, working through all of the breaks and instead hydrating in between exercises when there’s time to do so. I actually had a lot of fun with this workout this morning. Maybe I will pop it in every now and then for some cardio. It’s a lot more fun than sitting on an exercise bike for an hour.

3 days left!

I like Core Synergistics. Not only is it a really tough workout, but you’re encouraged to concentrate on engaging your core with every move, and to not just go through the movements. The part I don’t like is that even on day 86 of P90X, I still feel like a wuss when I do this workout and struggle like crazy to attempt Plank to Chaturanga Iso by the time you finally get there.

Kenpo, X Stretch, Core Synergistics, Yoga, and then I’m done.

4 days left!

Well, today was a big improvement over last week. I went back to using a trick I forgot about, which is concentrating on a single point on the wall or some kind of object during balance postures/poses. The TV can mess you up because there’s so much movement going on.

5 days left!

That concludes week 12 of P90X. The final week will make its debut tomorrow, starting with a little Saturday morning Yoga.

6 days left!