Steve Edwards 8-Week Transition Diet

The 8-Week Transition Diet

By Steve Edwards

The 6-Week Transition Diet was one of the first things I ever wrote for Beachbody^®, way back in 2001. It's remained popular ever since; in fact, in 2005, I gave it a facelift and increased it from 6 weeks to 8. Five years on, it's time to dust it off and spruce it up for the modern age. We've found over the years that this transitional eating plan is one of the easiest ways to change your eating habits for the better.
It's often said that no one diet works for every individual. While this is true, you may have noticed that all Beachbody eating plans target a similar goal: eating more natural whole foods and less junk. That's because there are no secrets to healthy eating. There are strategies that can lead to various performance benefits, but 99 percent of diet is cutting junk and eating real food. With this in mind, our Beachbody nutrition guides use various strategies, all designed to lead you to the same place.
While those nutrition guides tend to be detailed and filled with recipes, the 8-Week Transition Diet is for those of you who are less detail oriented. Conceptually based diets like this can be easier to follow, because they focus on providing you with a short list of "no-nos," leaving you with a fairly wide array of foods that you are allowed to eat. Of course, that isn't the approach you want to have for long-term success. Any diet, no matter how easy it seems, will take some willpower on your part if you want to see results. Your long-range goal should be to eat well, period. If you can accomplish this, your physical transformation will become a natural extension of your lifestyle, instead of something you need to pursue.
As healthy eating becomes a habit, you will find the other intangibles (weight loss, increased energy, etc.) falling into place. For many people, the easiest way to accomplish the healthy-eating habit is to make a gradual transition from food choices that hinder human performance to ones that help you perform better. By making this transition gradually, you'll find that it isn't as difficult as you expected.

Week 1

No junk. Eliminate junk food from your diet. That's it, just junk. Other than this, you can eat whatever and whenever you like. Now, how hard can that be? Guess this depends on what I mean by "junk." But all I'm concerned with this week is the obvious stuff like potato chips, candy, ice cream, cake, etc. You may be stricter if you'd like, but for Week 1, don't be too hard on yourself. For many of you, this step alone will reap huge benefits.

Cheat Days: 2

Since no one's perfect, you get 2 days to cheat. That's right, 2 days where you can eat anything you want! A trick on these days (and, yes, this means there will be more) is to listen to your body. At first, it'll probably tell you it wants whatever you've been denying it. However, over time, it'll start to crave nutrients you're deficient in. Learn to read your body's subtleties. If you're craving ice cream, you may be short on essential fatty acids. If you crave a hamburger, your diet may lack protein. This way, you can make better food substitutions. It's a way of getting in tune with yourself that will benefit you for your entire lifetime.
Weekly focus: Water. Not swimming in it, though that's good too, but staying hydrated with it. You should drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water per day. Diet sodas and such are no substitute, because they contain a passel of ingredients that live right at the bottom of the junk heap. Drinking a glass of water when you feel hunger pangs coming on will not only keep you hydrated, but will help stave off your hunger to some degree.
As for other drinks, juices and sugary sodas also (obviously) fall into the junk category. And alcohol should be kept to a minimum. We tend to forget (purposely or not) that alcohol has calories. A lot of them: 7 calories per gram. Mixers can be even worse—not only can they add calories, but sugary calories influence the way alcohol reacts with your body. When you do drink, red wine is the alcohol of choice, with natural beer running second.

Week 2

Each week's rules are cumulative, so the "no junk" rule from Week 1 will apply until the end, as will each subsequent week's rule. Remember that this is a learning and conditioning process. It's like you're in school and the subject is your own body.
Eat small, eat often. Eat four to six small meals a day, and don't eat anything for about 3 hours before you go to sleep. Following these rules will keep your blood sugar levels more static and your energy level will stay consistent. Try to keep each snack or meal balanced. Keep a 30 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrate, and 30 percent fat scale in mind, though you don't need to worry too much about it. Just realize that you need a bit from each macronutrient group. Eat based on what you'll be doing for the next few hours (if you're working out, eat a little more; sitting at a desk, eat a little less). The 3-hours-before-bed rule is important, especially for fats and carbohydrates. By allowing time for all the carbs you eat to get into your bloodstream, your body will sleep in fat-burning mode, rather than in calorie-storing mode. This is important because undigested carbs in your stomach at night are stored as adipose tissue (fat).

Cheat Days: 2

Weekly focus: Carbs are not the enemy. Your body needs them, just like it needs proteins and fats. The trick is to choose the right carbs. As a society, we eat too much refined sugar. Complex carbs, like whole-grain breads, whole-grain rice, sweet potatoes, and legumes are outstanding foods. Even fruits, which have simple carbohydrates wrapped in fiber, are very good for you and hard to overconsume. While you don't want a diet based on nothing but carbs, making the right carb choices will maximize your body's potential. Try to avoid white rice and flours. Read labels, and try to avoid ones that use the word "enriched," because this means these products have been stripped of their natural nutrients, overprocessed, and then fortified with a few random nutrients.

Week 3

Eat some colorful, low-density food at every meal. These are foods that take up a lot of space without a lot of calories. Veggies are the most obvious example. You can eat a salad bowl overflowing with lettuce and veggies and you most likely won't exceed 100 calories. By eating low-density foods like veggies and fruits, you'll keep your portions under control naturally, because they have very few calories for their size. Conversely, high-density foods, like chocolate and butter, are loaded with calories in even the smallest amounts. So beware of salad dressings and other things you add to salads and veggies. Only add enough for flavor; don't fill up on them. When it comes to live foods, the richer the colors, the fresher the products tend to be. Try to eat a variety of colors in your diet. This simple and somewhat random act will help ensure that you're covering your bases, nutrient-wise.

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Protein at every meal. This becomes even more important as you eat more low-density food, because protein tends to be high-density. Many veggies have a lot of protein, but the quantity you must consume starts to become prohibitive. Try to get some protein—meat, dairy products, nuts, seeds, or legumes—each time you eat, especially when you're working out hard, because you need to repair broken-down muscle tissue. Frequency of protein consumption is even more vital for women, who aren't able to digest as much protein at one time as men are. It's almost impossible to get all your necessary protein at one or two meals, so try to get 10 to 20 grams of protein each time you eat. Reading labels is a simple way to learn how to estimate your protein intake, but if you eat natural foods, most of which don't have labels, you can look at online nutritional information guides to determine the amount of protein each serving contains.

Week 4

Cook at home. One of the best ways to control your eating is to prepare all your meals yourself. Eliminate all fast food (which should have been gone in Week 1) and most other restaurant food. You may still eat food from certain restaurants where you can be sure of the ingredients (most will be savvy enough to make a point of how healthy their food is). But avoid all fast food chains, even ones that claim to be "healthy." Restaurants need their food to taste good, so they'll often use compromised ingredients, even when they list low numbers on fats and/or calories. Fast food can contain many hidden evils in addition to calories. For example, next time you see one of those nutrition charts, check the sodium levels; most fast foods use ridiculously high amounts of salt. Avoiding fast food alone will often bring your body closer to homeostasis (its desired state of balance). This can be hard for many of us because we now have to plan our meals and prepare ahead of time, but try and treat it like vocational school—you don't learn a new "job" without a little retraining.

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Fat is essential. Remember that fat is a vital part of your diet, not just something that makes you fat. What is not vital is a lot of saturated or trans fats. Trans fats are mainly those that are artificial, and hopefully they've been eliminated from your diet by this point, since they're generally only found in junk. Saturated fats are found in dairy products and meats, and you don't need too much. For cooking, try to use olive oil when possible. Also, the addition of either flaxseed or hempseed can have a pronounced effect on your health. These seeds are loaded with essential fatty acids (omegas 3 and 6). Be careful about that amount of fat. It is dense and has 9 calories per gram, as opposed to 4 for both carbs and protein. A tablespoon goes a long way!

Week 5

Reduce starchy carbohydrates. Starches include rice, bread, potatoes, corn, beans, and other legumes. While many of these are in no way bad foods, most people tend to consume far too many of them. So what you want to do this week is cut way down on them, if not cutting them out completely. Then add them back in when your body feels like it needs energy, which it will at some point if you're exercising (and why wouldn't you be?). But don't add a huge plate or bowl of pasta; instead, add a small single serving. Starches are great energy food, but if you eat too many, they turn the tables and make you sluggish!

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Sugar is only beneficial after a hard workout. Your body doesn't need processed sugar. But if you really enjoy it and can't avoid letting some sneak into your daily diet, the 1-hour period after you exercise is the best time to indulge. During this window, your blood sugar is low, because you've used it up to finish your workout (assuming you pushed yourself), and sugar during this time will help you recover faster because it speeds into your system and initiates the recovery process. Adding a little protein, but not too much, will enhance your recovery even further. The best ratio is 1 part protein to 4 parts carbs, as in Results and Recovery Formula^®. You should avoid fats during this immediate post-workout period, because they slow absorption—a good thing most of the time, just not during and immediately after working out.

Week 6

If man makes it, don't eat it. This is likely to be the hardest week of your diet. You want to eat only whole foods and eliminate all processed foods, even good ones, for the week. This includes breads, most salad dressings, all cereal, luncheon meats, cheese, dried fruits, anything with preservatives, and alcoholic beverages. What you can eat are whole foods such as fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, meat (sans any type of sauce), natural whole-grain rice, poached eggs, etc. Since your eating habits have been slowly changing, this shouldn't be that big a shock to your system, but keeping in focus that you only have to do this for 7 days will make it easier. (Although each week's rules are cumulative in the plan, Week 6 is more of a "cleanse" or "reset" week where you avoid all processed food; after Week 6, you can go back to the occasional processed food, but chances are you'll take what you learned this week and tend to make healthier, smarter choices.)

Cheat Days: 1

The "cheat day" mentality isn't a bad one. Rewards like decadent desserts, a night at the buffet, or drinking with friends are good for you as long as you keep them in perspective. These are rewards for a life well lived and you should be able to feel good about doing them. Plus, there's some method to this madness as well, in that you still tend to crave nutrients you lack. So if you're cutting down on the calories to lose weight, allowing yourself a cheat day will give your body a chance to take in what it needs to avoid being malnourished.
Weekly focus: Nuts make great snacks. A handful of raw almonds or cashews is a quick and easy snack that goes a long way. Don't be put off by the high fat count of nuts, because this means it takes fewer of them to satiate you. Nuts are loaded with important phytonutrients, as well as good fats, proteins, and fiber.

Week 7

Be yourself. No rules—just try and eat as healthily as you can and do it by feel. Trusting yourself might seem like a lot of responsibility, but by now you'll be up to it. Learning to eat by feeling what your body needs is an important step in your transformation. Consider the way you've been eating over the last 6 weeks, but don't worry about what you should and shouldn't do. Just fuel yourself. The point is to take a mental break. Relax and allow yourself to eat in a way that feels normal. You may be surprised to find yourself craving something healthy instead of a candy bar or soda. You'll be better at listening to your body because it'll tell you what it needs to eat, as opposed to what you're used to eating. Your body should feel somewhat transformed. Does it?

"Reward for a Life Well Lived" Days: 1

Weekly focus: If you're so hungry at night that you can't sleep, try a protein shake (like Beachbody's Whey Protein Powder) before bed. When it's real, and not habitual, hunger means you lack nutrients your body needs to repair itself as you sleep. You want nothing but protein powder and water. No carbs or superfluous calories. But protein at night, especially whey, will help the body repair damaged tissue and enhance the natural growth-hormone spike that you get while you sleep.

Week 8

Eat a perfect diet. Now it's time for a real challenge—are you ready? The perfect diet is strictly individual, as there's no one diet that suits everybody. So who better to choose the perfect diet for you than you? Our bodies are all different, and the key to your own perfect diet is learning about how your body reacts to different foods under different circumstances. Your journey over the last 7 weeks should have brought you to a new understanding of how food affects your body, both for good and for bad. Now it's up to you to put it to the test. See how well you can eat for a week. In fact, see how well you can eat for the rest of your life. Live and enjoy.

Reward Days: 1, of course!

Weekly Focus: Don't bonk. Bonking is a state where your body runs out of stored blood sugar for energy. If you feel like your workouts are going backward instead of forward, this is a likely culprit. Use your energy level as your gauge. As soon as it starts to drop, start adding carbs back into your diet until you feel energized all day long. When you feel energized during your workouts and not sluggish throughout the rest of the day, you'll know you've found the right balance between carbs and other nutrients. Also, remember that as your body puts on more muscle, you will need to eat more. Muscle weighs much more than fat so as you gain muscle and lose fat, you will shrink at the same weight. You will also require more calories in order to maintain your muscle. So when you're working out hard, don't be afraid to eat more carbs than you do otherwise.

Going Paleo

After completing my last 4 weeks of P90X, I was able to lose 7.4 pounds and am very happy with my results so far.  This is my fourth round of P90X and I have literally changed my health and fitness since starting to use Beachbody workouts.  Basically, I was on a slippery slope to a early grave when I started.  I have had two heart attacks in my 40s and was at my all time weight gain of 234 pounds, and on 2 blood pressure medications along with a declaration from my doctor that I was pre-type2 diabetic when I started my journey to a more healthy lifestyle.

Throughout my fitness journey, I have used the meal plans provided in the Beachbody workout programs I have used and I also use the Meal Planner offered to club members of the Team Beachbody Community.  These meal plans have helped me change the way I eat gradually over time.  When I started my health journey, I was eating McDonald's at least twice a day on average.  I usually left home and stopped by McDonald's on my way to work and got a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit and a small Coke, which comes with the hash brown potato.  I would eat lunch in the cafeteria or local resturaunt and on my way home I would stop again at McDonald's and get a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and a medium Coke.  This was all for the convenience of the fats, oops I mean fast food cycle I was in.

You can only imagine what eating at McDonald's was doing to my body, especially if you have ever seen the documentary "SuperSize Me" where the guy ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 days and became very unhealthy, gained about 20 pounds and took almost a year to recovery from it.  The bottom line is that eating habit and lifestyle was literally killing me and is ever so slowly killing you it you are caught in the fast food cycle.

Those eating habits, along with a stressful work environment produced obesity and high blood pressure in my life.  I would get winded walking up a single flight of steps, didn't sleep well, always felt tired, never had any energy, and my love life was waining more and more.  Then, my doctor informed me that I was pre-diabetic.  he also told me that if I didn't lose some weight and start exercising, I would most likely be on diabetic medication along with the two blood pressure medications for the rest of my ever shortening life.  That is the slippery slope I was on.  I had no one but myself to blame.  I made a lot of excuses, but that was my wake up call.  I HAD to take action.  There was not more choice.

So I have changed my lifestyle.  I have been using Beachbody workout programs for just over 2 years, I gave up fast food for healthier selections and I have regained my health.  Off all medications, Blood Pressure that of a 35 year old, more energy, low risk for diabetes, low risk for another heart attack.  My cholesterol is lower than my doctor can believe.  Every time I have it checked he makes the technicians run the test twice to make sure the numbers are right.

As I have leaned more about exercise and proper nutrition and the need for some supplementation, I have refined my daily diet and during this round I decided to try supplementing with Creatine to help increase my strength and lean muscle mass.  It is a lot easier for a younger person to build lean muscle than someone my age, so supplementation comes in handy.  This has been interesting to see the increase of my overall strength and ability to work out more intensely, but I have my reservations on using creatine long term, even if I do follow the cycling recommendation.  I would prefer to sustain my healthy lifestyle as naturally as possible.

I have been studying diet and looking at ways to be leaner and stronger by eating better.  I have reviewed many different nutrition plans and this month I will test the Paleo diet to see the effects eating paleo will have on my fat loss.  My goal this round of P90x is to reduce my body fat from 20% to 15%.  This is a achievable goal in 12 weeks.   One thing I find interesting is that I have increased my calorie intake from about 2400 calories a day to almost 300 calories a day and have lost weight!  That is counter intuitive to what most diet guides say, but I can't argue with my results.

By eating Paleo, I will see how eating low glycemic foods and cutting dairy and grains out of my diet for the next 4 weeks will affect me.  It is supposed to help you reduce your body fat, so I will see how well it works.  I have a food list that includes Paleo food that I like.  I won't be eating everything on the Paleo food list, but I chose things I already like to eat with enough variety to have a 3 week meal plan with a lot of variety and choice.  I am looking forward to seeing what it can do for me.

Check back and I will post the food I will be eating over the next 4 weeks.

To your health and fitness journey,

Jim        

Phase 1 of P90X Complete

Greetings,

Today was my day 28 and end of the 4th week of my 4th round of P90X!  Wow!  I extended the phase by one week because I have been feeling strong.  I wanted to get the most out of this phase and lose a few pounds I gained over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

I started this round weighing in at 203.8 pounds.  I had maintained a weight around 195 pounds for about 14 months after completing my first round of P90X.  Where I went wrong is that after I finished my last round in November of 2010, I decided to take a break from my workout lifestyle and just enjoy the holidays.  That was my first big mistake.  Once I stopped working out, I quickly started slacking off on my nutrition and stopped eating clean and healthy foods.  I figured that I needed to reward myself for all the hard work I had put myself through and should let myself go for the holidays.  I soon found myself eating every ounce of saturated fat in site, including banana pudding, chocolate pie, chocolate cake, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing and everything else in front of me!  It was a glutton fest from Thanksgiving day though New Years.  Thus result was gaining almost 9 pounds of fat in only about 6 weeks.

Fortunately, I know now how to remedy my weight gain and I already have the right program at home that is guaranteed to correct the lapse in my health and fitness lifestyle.  I have P90X, my nutrition plan, and a community of support to help me reverse the trend I set myself on by slipping back into old habits.  I restarted my P90X workouts and now I am back on track to be in even better shape than before!  All from the privacy and comfort of my home.     

I am happy to report that this morning I weighed in at 196.4 pounds!  That is 7.4 pounds of body fat.  I have also gained some muscle mass because I have been lifting heavier weights over the last 4 weeks due to taking Creatine this round.  I have never used Creatine and want to see the effects on my body and so far, I am pleased with the results.  The one drawback is that it makes me feel bloated.  I am on a 6 week cycle and then will cycle off for 4 weeks.  I may change that to 8 weeks on and 4 weeks off but will wait and see how I feel in week 6 before deciding.

All in all, I am completely satisfied with my progress during this round and through my Beachbody fitness journey.  Keep bringin it!

Jim    

In my 4th round of P90X

Greetings...

I am in my 4th week of my 4th round of Beachbody's P90X workout program.  This week is supposed to be my phase 1 recovery week.  However, one of the advantages of doing in-home workouts is that you can make changes to your schedule and modify the program to meet your needs. 

I only make one basic change to the weekly schedule normally.  Since I work full-time and have a terrible commute out of Washington DC, I only have a limited time during the week to get my workout in.  Kenpo X is a workout that takes about 60 minutes to complete and is on the 6th day (Saturday for me) of the routine.  On Thursday, the P90X Classic schedule calls for me to do Yoga X.  Doing Yoga X on a weeknight is very difficult for me because it is 90 minutes long and a difficult workout, in and of, itself.  So I have always swapped Kenpo X and Yoga X to fit my schedule.

P90X is divided into 3 training blocks, or phases, each lasting 3 weeks long with a recovery week.  Since I've been doing P90X for a while now, I've developed more strength and stamina.  This round I've increased my daily calorie intake and taking a Beachbody Creatine supplement to see the effects of using Creatine during the program.  One thing I can say is I feel a lot stronger using the Creatine so I decided to extend my first phase of P90X by an additional week.

So, I am on day 23 and will be doing Shoulders and Arms and Ab Ripper X this evening.  It's one of my favorite workouts in the P90X program.  Since starting using the Creatine supplement I've noticed my strength increase and so added weight to every exercise.  One drawback (for lack of a better word) is the creatine makes me feel bloated and I have actually gained weight over the past 3 weeks.

I am not too concerned since my research has shown that once I cycle off the creatine, the excess water will go out of my muscle and I will "lean" out and have a better indicaton of what my creatine cycle has done for me.  I'm not ready to recommend Creatine at this point, but so far it looks promising.

I encourage you to move your body at least 30 minutes to an hour per day.  If you can consistently do this, you will soon start to realize how much better you will feel, how much more energy you will have, and how much better you will sleep at night.  It only small changed in your daily routine to make a significant impact in your health and fitness.

As Tony Horton always says, "Do your best, and forget the rest."

To your health and fitness,

Jim       

Tony Horton's 11 Laws for a Livetime of Fitness

I have literally changed my life using various Beachbody workout programs including the Power 90 Boot Camp, Power 90 Master Series and finally P90X, which is the advanced workout program developed by Tony Horton and Beachbody.

Tony Horton has made a positive impact on my life and many millions of people from all over the world with his workout programs that people can do in the convenience and privacy of their homes.  No need for a expensive gym membership and no room full of special weight lifting machines.  You can achieve amazing results by using the workout program, the nutrition guide that comes with the program, your body weight, and a couple of dumbells and a pull-up bar.

Tony's passion and philosophy is that people will live a better quality of life if they practice some simple principles or "laws" every day that will enhance your lifestyle and help you live a happy and abundant life.  I wanted to share with you his thoughts, so here they are;  Tony Horton's 11 Laws of fintess to help you stay on track with your new fitness lifestyle.             

1. Variety. Variety is the spice of life and fitness. A lifetime of health and fitness is achievable when you can think outside the box. You have to mix it up all the time. Stay curious, creative, and stick with the kinds of workouts that you enjoy. A variety of exercises, workouts, and sports will allow you to avoid injuries, plateaus, and boredom.

2. Consistency. Improvement and change occur when you do things often. Stopping and starting all the time will kill any momentum you need to succeed. You must find ways to stay in the game. Moderate forms of exercise, done consistently; provide far better results than the occasional full-body pummeling. A lifestyle that includes multiple forms of exercise five to six days a week guarantees results.

3. Intensity. YOU'RE TOUGHER THAN YOU THINK. The fear of pain or injury from working out is a mindset steeped in failure. You must learn to "Find the Line." Do the extra rep or two, increase your range of motion, and increase resistance as you get stronger. Intensity goes hand in hand with Variety and Consistency. The combination of the three work together as a triad that creates a platform for success. The programs provide variety. Your plan will keep you consistent.

4. Purpose. Your purpose is to have a better life. Exercise and eating right help you feel better. When you feel better, you do more. When you do more, you meet other people. A healthy lifestyle gives us the energy to be better than before. We want to participate, share, communicate, and build a community have purpose in our lives. If you had never found Beachbody, you might be right back where you were isolated, with nothing to share, no purpose, because you weren't doing anything with anyone.

5. Reality. Why do we want life to be different than it is? Why do we think about who we were and who we're going to be more than who we are? We certainly talk a good game about who we are now. Why do we try to predict the future with the hope that wishful thinking is enough to change it? Life is NOT the way it was. It's the way it is. Life is not our fantasy predictions of the future or our glory days of the past. Life is that thing that is happening to you as you read this. We fall into the trap of living in the past and future because right here is not good enough. Back then and up there are keeping you from right now.

6. Sports. Take the onus off of weight, inches, and body fat percentages and put the focus on MOVING - from dancing, rock climbing, and mountain biking to table tennis. I love that ping-pong! Think in terms of "can do" instead of "look like." Sports are fun and help develop balance and coordination which in turn accelerates your results. Jump, kick, run, spin, throw, skate, shoot, hit, score, compete . . . PLAY!

7. The Plan. SCHEDULE ALL WORKOUTS IN ADVANCE. This creates accountability. Plan an entire month ahead of time. Try to schedule as many workouts as possible with friends who have similar goals. WOWY was developed so that we could find an easy and effective way to stay accountable and work out together. Now we've got people in Trumbull, CT (my hometown), doing Power 90 at the same time with people in Hollywood. That is cool!

8. Sleep (and stress). Stressed out, sleep-deprived people don't eat right and exercise regularly. Stress depletes energy, strength, and desire, while poor sleep habits affect your moods and immune function along with cognitive and motor performance. Burning the candle at both ends makes it impossible to be fit and healthy.

9. Loving It. Exercise and workouts involve commitment, determination, planning, consistency, and intensity. If you don't like what you're doing, there's no way on earth you'll succeed. Enthusiasm is a very big piece of the puzzle. Get creative and stay curious. If you enjoy doing Power 90 exclusively and it works for you, then keep doing it until it doesn't. If you get part way through P90X and it's not your cup of tea, then stop, and do something else. Something's got to bring you back day after day, week after week. Love it (tolerate it) or leave it.

10. Flexibility. Flexibility is the fountain of youth. Flexible people are much less prone to injury. Yoga and stretching allow you to bring more intensity to your workouts. Flexibility is the key component to becoming less vulnerable and more durable. Aging has a funny way of making everything we do harder. Staying limber and flexible is the way to prevent that from happening.

11. Food and Supplements. You are what you eat! Food and supplements are your fuel. The right fuel supplies proper energy and recovery through balanced brain chemistry. The right supplements simply fill in gaps in your diet.

Making Change

I started this blog all the way back in 2009.  I've never really "blogged" and am not that computer literate as far as creating interesting copy or posts for people to read.  My main reason for starting the blog was to post my accountability and have people follow my journey from recoverying from a couple of heart attacks to living a more healthy and fit lifestyle.

Well, 2 years have gone by and I have maintained a 41 pound weight loss for nearly 1.5 years and feel like I am in my mid thirtys again.  It is an amazing feeling. 

I was obese and on two seperate blood pressure medications and my doctor had just told me that I was borderline type-2 diabetic.  He also told me that I would either have to lose weight and exercise regularily, or I would have to go on diabetes medication along with the BP meds I was already taking every day.  The bottome line is that I found myself on a slippery slope to every declining health and a early grave.  At this point, I had two choices, either take personal responsibillity for my health and fitness, or stay on the path I was on hoping someone would create a miracle pill or potion that would magically transform my body back to that of my youth.  I could have done nothing and just stayed on the path I was on and possibly missed the birth of my first grandson or never seeing my loved ones again.  I don't know about you, but I am not ready to give up and just lay down and die.

I made a decision that I would change my lifestyle and start living a better life.  I had seen the P90X infomercial on TV numerous times but never thought I would be able to do such a intense workout program after having 4 heart attacks in my early 40s.  But I decided I would at least do some research to see what it was all about.  I took the "fit test" offered by the company and quickly failed and to make matters worse the website recommended I not purchase the program!  Wow!  I was so unhealthy that the company wouldn't even sell me their program!!  They did, however, recommend I start with one of their foundation programs (they have over 130 different programs).  I decided to start with a program called Power 90, or P90 for short.  It is the basic bootcamp style program that helps build a solid foundation of fitness so you can go on to do more strenuous programs.

Around 3 Jan 2009, I got the P90 program and read all the literature that comes with it and started the next Monday.  So, my day 1 for my health transformation started on 5 Jan 2009.  Boy, the first day was a workout called Sweat 1-2.  It is only 30 minutes long but by the time I finished it I was soaked with sweat and had to lay down on the floor I was so tired.  I wasn't sure I would be able to do it but I decided I had to at least try my best so the next day I did Sculpt 1-2 and was really wiped out at the end of that one too.  The one thing I realized right away is that it didn't kill me to do the workouts.  As hard as they were to me, I managed to get through them and they were only about 30 minutes long.  I figured I would do them for a few weeks and see how I felt.

Before I knew it, I was half way through the 12 week program and was feeling better and had lost a few pounds.  My energy was improving and I was sleeping like a baby every night.  This pushed me to continue to challenge myself and I worked even harder to see how far I could push myself.  Pretty soon the 1-2 workouts were getting easier so I moved up to the 3-4 workouts.  They are the same but they are 40-45 minutes long so my stamina would be increased.  Plus, I was adding more weights on the Sculpt nights so my body was getting stronger every week.  In the end, I completed the 12 week program and had lost 18 pounds of fat and increased my lean muscle mass by about 4 pounds.  I was feeling great and knew I was on the right track and was ready for a more challenging workout. In hind sight, I never changed my diet while doing the program.  I was still eating junk and fast food but still managed to lose the fat but I know now that if I had followed the meal plan that came with the workout program, I probably could have lost 25 pounds or more in those 12 weeks.  But I can't change the past and I was on the journey forward but it is a lesson learned.

Even though I was feeling better, had lost some weight, my doctor wouldn't take me off blood pressure medications and told me that if I continued my exercise program and started eating better, he would consider removing my from the meds.  I didn't feel like I was ready for P90X so the next program I decided to try was a program called the P90 Master Series.  As it turned out, it was a perfect transition program for me from P90 to P90X.  The master series tapes are a continuation of the P90 Program with Sweat and Sculpt 5-6, which was the same as the 1-2 and 3-4 tapes but each tape is about 50 minutes long.  So my stamina would continue to improve as well as my strength and aerobic conditioning plus there were several new workout tapes included UML, Core Synergistics, and other programs that are related to the P90X programs.  This is another 12 week program so I knew I would be in ever better shape by the time I finished my second "round."

I completed the MS tapes and was really ready for P90X.  Over the course of 6 months I had gone from barely moving off the couch to working out 6 days a week and looking forward to my next workout.  I finally got P90X and jumped right into it.  On top of all this, I was taken off the Blood Pressure medications half way through my MS program and have excellent blood pressure now.  I just had it checked yesterday at the dentist office and it was 113 over 65!  Not bad for a old fart!  By the way 120/60 is the median BP guage.  Hopefully, I will continue to improve my fitness and can get the 65 below 60.

Anyway, I finished my round of P90X and was literally in the best shape of my entire life!  I had leaned out, increased my lean muscle mass and stamina and lost a total of 41 pounds.  I decided to enter the Beachbody transformation contest and won $1,000 in Sept 2009 for my transformation.  I wasn't even finished my round of P90X by then!  So, that motivated me to stick to my journey, which brings us to today, 29 Mar 11. 

I am currently on day 16 of my 4th round of P90X.  I feel pretty good and my goal is to continue to lean out and maintain my muscle mass and my overall health and fitness level.  I also want to help 1,000 people lose up to 20 pounds or more.  Why 20 pounds?  Well, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) losing 10 pounds of fat can decrease your risk of heart attack by 35% and losing 20 pounds can reduce your risk of developing type-2 diabetes by a whopping 65%!!  Those are two of the most serious risk factors of being overweight or obese.

I know I can't reverse the trend of obesity in the US by myself, but if I can just help 1,000 people get into better shape, mabye they will inspire others to do the same and we can start a grass roots movement to get our country back in shape starting with the individual.  You have the power, and I can help you.  All you have to do is ask.

Cheers    

A Message from Tony Horton

Be Part of the Solution

Boys and girls,

I'm unaware of your financial situation but I do believe that you're reading this page because you care about your health and fitness. If you have plenty of income and love your job then what I’m about to tell you might not be for you. If you're not thrilled with the way you make a living, would like extra income, love Beachbody products, like the way they make you look and feel, enjoy helping other people feel and look better, enjoy setting your own hours, get excited about being the captain of your own ship as opposed to working for the man - then listen up.

The reality is, your health and fitness moves beyond you. It impacts the people around you. You (whether you like it or not) have the power to change lives based solely on your own personal transformation. Inadvertently you become a catalyst for change. This is how I got started. I was clueless, asked a few questions based on my need to be strong and healthy, stayed with it and people in my life wanted to know what I was doing. Simple yet powerful.

If you want to share what you've learned with people in your life who want better health (and could use extra income in the process) then you should consider becoming a Team Beachbody Coach. I felt so strongly about this program that I’ve encouraged many of my friends to become coaches, even my own sister. She is doing great (even though my contract with Beachbody won’t let me help her). She is a perfect example of someone who had plenty of doubt and hesitation regarding the coaching opportunity and still found a way to make it work for her. A busy working wife and mother with three very active kids doesn't sound like a good candidate to start an in-home multi-level marketing company. Did you say multi level marketing? What? Ick! You mean pyramid scheme right? Okay chill out. All these fears would be true if BeachBody were selling hats or kitty liter, but this is Beachbody people! The number 1 in-home fitness company on the planet! P90X is steadily becoming the most popular fitness system in US history. Shakeology is the revolutionary replacement meal on the market today. We sell life-altering change - not soap. Tens of thousands of regular folk around this country are doing something they love because of this coach opportunity.

The unemployment rate still hovers around 10% but it doesn't have to be that way if more people were willing to see that new opportunities exist all around them. The Team Beachbody Coaching opportunity is one of them. Health care companies, pharmaceutical companies and our government are not capable of solving this obesity crisis and we can't wait around for them to do it. The crisis is now and the answer is YOU! I know that sounds a bit Rah Rah but it's true.

Cynics don't need to apply, but if you're sick and tired of the status quo and want to make a difference in your own life and in the lives of those around you, then open the door. The two major issues of our time - the health care issue and unemployment rate could be resolved if a million more people in this country decided to get healthy and share the wealth. This is a brand new industry waiting to explode. It's not happening in boardrooms or factories – it’s happening in the homes of tens of thousands of Team Beachbody Coaches and in the homes of their customers. With a tiny investment (actually the company is waiving the enrollment fee through the end of 2010) and a willingness to help people the sky's the limit.

TH-