P90X in Sacramento

[Marvan]

Hi everyone! My name is Marvan my daughter bought P90X for me cause of my health I’m 50yrs 6’ 1” 215lbs. In June 2008 I did the Gastric Bypass surgery, the day of the surgery I was at 327lbs taking a total of 11 pills a day for hypertension and diabetes, on my birthday a year after the surgery ( June 27 ) I was at 192lbs down to just 2 pills a day. Now I’m on that roller coaster going back up again and I want to jump back in the car that’s going down, my doctor would like me to get down around 180-185 to get off the meds totally and just control them with a diet. I need help getting started, doing the formal to find my Nutrition Level the Energy amount came out to be 3180 my plan is to make my start date April 1. Should I start with Classic, Doubles or Lean? The Fat Shredder daily serving chart, how I figure that out? And about the diet, can I use a calories meal like Weight Watcher or Lean Cuisine? Remember Gastric Bypass my stomach is about the size of a small avocado so just looking at Menu for a person on the level (3), Day 1 Mushroom Omelet 10 eggs whites, 1 cup Fresh strawberries, 12oz Cottage cheese and that’s Breakfast. There’s no way I can put that amount of food in me. Help Please!

[davjonz]

Hi Marvan,

Welcome, and congratulations for taking your fitness level into your own hands. No doctor can workout for you.

I'm still new here, so I'll leave the in-depth answers to my betters, but I would like to make one suggestion, drawing on my years of martial arts instruction. You may want to consider buying and using P90 before you start P90X. Some people have been using the X to get started, and many have lost tons of weight and gotten into fabulous shape, but I personally know others who got discouraged and gave up. The X was created as a next step in a person's fitness regime, and it may be a bit tough for someone just coming back to working out after years of regular life and even surgery.

Just my two cents. But no matter what you choose to do, good for you in doing something that will improve your health my friend.


-- david j.

[FitRunner]

Welcome to the boards, Marvan!

My advice would be the following, if you do decide to continue with P90X:

Start with classic. Why? Doubles takes a LOT of time and requires your entire day to be in lockstep with working out and eating. From a life organization point of view it's probably easier to start with one workout a day, especially since you mentioned not cooking yourself. Lean is fine time-wise, but muscles help you, well, DO stuff. Why not have more of them? More muscle also helps keep your insulin sensitivity under control.

Monica has a great video about the nutrition that might be helpful (http://www.thefitclubnetwork.com/2009/01/p90x-nutrition-plan-made-easy/).

Do NOT rely on others to hand you something pre-made to eat. There are several reasons why I say this.

The first is the most basic: nutrient control. When you eat pre-made food (whether it's from a store or in a restaurant), you don't control what's in it and it's frankly a pain to find out. But if you are (as we all should) trying to make sure you eat enough of the right kinds of foods, you're giving the control over your nutrition to other people, who certainly are not all working together for the best of your health. People who sell pre-made food are not doctors or nutritionists, they are businesspeople. What is profitable isn't necessarily good for your health (even when they say so), but that's not their problem. It's yours. Even if you make a few mistakes on your own, YOU control what you eat and have the power to correct the mistakes.

Second, from what I've seen most of those meals are very low in calories. As you've already noticed, you need to EAT when you work out a lot. If you don't eat enough, you won't have enough energy.

Third, related to the first, is that trying to get your protein/carb/fat ratios to what the nutrition guide suggests using pre-made food is going to be a nightmare. It's really hard to get to 50% protein even when you cook at home. Protein almost always is part of a food that also has either fat or carbs. When you're talking about pre-made meals, short of snacking on protein powder constantly I don't think it can be done.

I do not know what to recommend about getting around your stomach size, other than spreading your meals out in time such that you over the course of a day will eat enough. However, don't forget that the P90X nutrition plan does NOT by default include a calorie deficit. The 600 calories you add back in is to make sure you don't lose weight! If you pull those off, your target would be 2580 cal/day. Could you plan on snacking twice between meals, and then make the meals small enough for your stomach? If you eat about 350 cal/occasion, you'd get up to about 2580 cal in a day.

Good luck! Please do let us know what you decide to do and how it works out. I know someone else who had gastric bypass dropped in, so you're not the only one out there trying to figure out how to eat so much with a small stomach!

Teresa