I‘ve been doing P90X for five weeks now, and each week I’ve gotten extremely run down and sick. It’s gotten so routine that I finally asked for help on the BeachBody community forums.
What’s Been Happening
I feel great at the beginning of the week. I try to eat right and stay positive. When we get home from work, I put on my exercise gear and do my P90X as intensely as possible. However by Thursday or Friday, I start feeling run down. My energy levels get very low. All I feel like doing is laying around on the couch doing nothing.
So I skip one or two workouts, and then by Monday I’m feeling okay again. Then the cycle repeats itself.
I suspected it had to do with my diet, so I found a nutrition thread on the forum and shared my situation. A really friendly community member named Troy analyzed my situation, and gave me some excellent advice.
Troy’s Advice
- I’m pretty much doing okay eating the correct types of foods, but I’m eating too much in the evenings and not enough in the morning/afternoon. This means that by the end of the work day, I have low energy because I haven’t been fueling up my body. He suggested that I eat a larger breakfast and lunch, and eat a smaller supper, versus the other way around that I’ve been doing it.
- He also suggested that I may not be eating enough calories. I’ve been trying to eat around 2400 calories per day, but that’s apparently not enough. Can you believe that!? According to Troy I should be eating closer to 2700 calories each day. I checked the caloric calculator from the BeachBody web site, and it confirmed this. The reason for this is because I’m burning over 600 calories from each workout. Additionally, eating more “tricks” my body into thinking everything is fine so it will burn my fat stores. Remember, fat has the highest number of calories per gram, so when the body is not sure it will be getting enough food in a day, it tends to hold on to the fat and burns it last. So in order to lose fat, we need to eat more often in smaller portions, so the body never feels hungry.
- Finally, he suggested that I eat at least one serving of fruits or vegetables at each major meal (breakfast, lunch, and supper). This way I keep up the nutrients and energy better.
Summary
I’m just briefly touching on the subject, but suffice it to say, P90X is definitely a hardcore workout. As such, it requires attention to your eating habits. How and when you fuel your body, and with what, is very important when you burn 600 calories or more per day exercising.
However these principals can apply even if you’re not doing P90X. Simply lower the calories but do the same things… eating larger breakfasts and lunches… eating more often with smaller meals… more fruits and veggies… etc.
Last but not least, it’s important to cut out the empty calories like soda and chips. Not that you can’t splurge from time to time, but they shouldn’t be daily staples if you want to eat, look, and feel healthy.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thursdays is usually the start of my drain as well… i /know/ it’s because I am not taking in enough.. just hard to eat that much some times…
@Critter – I couldn’t agree more! It’s easy to eat a ton of calories when eating greasy (fatty) foods… or when eating junk food or deserts. However when I cut out the junk, and cut down on the fat, suddenly 2,400 calories or more per day is a TON of food to eat.
The good news is that my body is slowly adjusting to my new eating habits. When I haven’t eaten something in a couple hours during the day, I start feeling hungry now. So it’s getting easier.
Really enjoy your blog! I’ve been doing the X off and on for about 2 yrs. now, but I’m now on week 5 of doing ALL the workouts, most without pauses! Anyway, I eat a good breakfast, do my workout then I have a PROTEIN drink. I find these are crucial…a couple hundred cals, RIGHT after the workout. I have lunch at noon, then another shake around 2pm-3pm. dinner around 6 and I’m good. When I miss a drink, or have too small a meal, it affects me. recently I started getting a sore throat, but pushed through Plyo and I was fine the next day! So, P90X has been keeping me from getting sick. Thanks again!
That’s some good advice you found in the Nutrition Fanatics thread
I’m a semi-regular there. There’s a lot of good, unbiased advice to be found there from some very educated people!
Yea, I had a couple problems the first week or 2. But then my body got used to the fact it was gonna get pushed everyday, and it got a bit better. Not that i got used to the exercise, but just exercising in general.
not to spit more vegan stuff out but one thing that I normally do to keep me energized durning the day is that I carry around a little ziplock bag of several types of nuts,seeds, sugarless dried bberries and stuff. try to not seed dry rosted salted stuff. And drink lots and lots of water. I drink like a gallon of water a day. if it keeps up you can always get a blood sample drawn and they can go through and tell you if you are lacking something like iron or whatever. I got one done and it only costed me $60 after everything. It helped alot. I was missing lots of iron lol. I noticed a huge difference after getting more iron.
That’s a really good point about seeing a doctor. I think in my case it was lack of calories. I was trying SO HARD to eat properly, but I wasn’t getting enough calories each day. Eventually I learned that “do your best and forget the rest” doesn’t mean eating perfectly. Instead I learned to eat better.
I am on my second week of P90x and I am loving it!!! The only issue that I am
Sorry about that……Once again I am on my second week of P90x and I am loving it!! The only issue that I am having is that I feel that I am eating too much. I am 5″8, 130 pounds and I am eating about 1600 calories a day. I am constantly hungry. I eat a wide variety of fruit, veggies and protein daily. What do you suggest? My goal is to get lean and toned. Any advice would be much appreciated!
Jon,
Your blog is great! It exudes honesty about P90X and I like it. My husband and I have been doing P90X together (although he is a few weeks ahead of me) but he is doing the classic workouts, I am doing the Lean program. I find that I have plenty of energy in the morning to work out, but then come the afternoon I am so tired all I want to do is sleep. I get to the point where I say bump it lets go out to eat because I don’t feel like cooking. BUT, I also am not eating large lunches. Like you I eat small breakfasts and lunches and snack in between, and have a large dinner because that is how I grew up eating. I know for a fact I am not getting the right amount of calories into my system, I just don’t know where I can add more. I am not a fish person, so that is out. I enjoy the recovery drink as well, which helps me immensely after my workouts.
I am getting ready for week 4 and my husband is on week 7 or 8…he is constantly feeling nauseous and I tell him he is a man and needs to eat more than what he is eating. If we are burning 600 calories per workout, that explains it!
I really appreciate your blog and will follow it through! Thank you for your honesty! I am sure there are a lot of people out there feeling the same way!