Tips for Starting P90X

P90X is significantly more than just a workout, and people realize that. For that reason, it is natural to want to know how to prepare for the program. I do have to admit that if you want to be successful with the program, which for many people means losing weight and getting ripped, you do have to prepare to a certain extent. For example, if you start off without equipment, you cannot do the workouts well. If your refrigerator is filled with junk food, there’s a good chance that you will eat poorly. Either situation will sabotage your success.

As the old saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

So if you want to plan for success, there are three categories of tips you should consider; Support, Equipment, and Nutrition. If you get nothing else out of this article, I want to be very clear that of all of the categories, if you want to lose weight, Nutrition is the most important.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Perhaps the best thing you can do to enable success is to get an account on teambeachbody.com. The reason is that it provides some incredibly valuable resources. It allows you to record your measurements. There is a Body Fat Calculator and a Caloric Needs Calculator under Eat Smart > Nutrition Tools. The Body Fat Calculator will be invaluable to you as you should gain muscle and lose fat as you do P90X, so the scale will only tell you part of the story. Again, you want to do this before you start P90X.

Additionally, you want to take and upload your pictures. While I realize that some people will hate their “Before” pictures, you will find that it will be a source of pride later on.

As important, you can use the pictures to enter the Beachbody Challenge, which will get you a free t-shirt when you complete P90X. You can find info on the Beachbody Challenge through this link.

Also to keep you moving, teambeachbody.com will schedule and track the entire P90X 90 days for you. That feature is found under Get Fit > SuperGym and then you “Add a new auto-schedule”. As an added bonus Beachbody gives away $500 per day to a random person using that function.

While you can always contact me with any questions, teambeachbody message boards can also provide some answers as well, although the accuracy of an answer may vary.

Choosing and Scheduling a P90X Version

Before you start P90X, you have to figure out which version of P90X you want to choose whether you want to do Classic, Lean or Doubles. I can go into details, but the most important issue for people to know is that P90X Lean will not get you leaner. While the book, which was written about 6 years ago, does say it is intended to help you get leaner, the P90X Certificaion training I underwent stated specifically that Lean is for people who are not yet ready to try the full program. In short, think of it as P90X Lean = P90X Lite.

Click on this sentence to read my full article on which version to choose.

Then as mentioned above, you can let teambeachbody.com schedule and track your workouts for you.

Equipment

To get the best results from P90X, you do need the right equipment. While having access to a full range of equipment would be best, you can get by with a minimal set of equipment as long as it is the right equipment.

Click this sentence for my article about what equipment you need for P90X.

Proper Nutrition

As I said/implied before, if your goal is to lose weight, and especially get ripped, that requires proper nutrition. The workouts will get you fitter, but to lose weight, you have to eat the right amount of calories. Too much and you gain weight. Too little and your body will think you are starving, and it will try to save itself by burning muscle. The ideal calorie range for losing weight is approximately 750-1000 calories below your Maintenance Level. You can get the calorie range you need from the Caloric Needs Calculator on teambeachbody.com.

The one statement you need to remember clearly is:

Abs are made in the kitchen.

No matter how hard you workout, you need to eat properly to lose weight. Properly means healthy foods with the right number of calories.

Just “eating clean” will not do it. Again, you need to eat the right number of calories…not too much or too little. So clean out your kitchen and plan your menu.

You do not have to follow the P90X Nutrition Guide, but you do have to follow some healthy nutrition plan at the right calorie level. It can be a vegan plan, Body for Life’s nutrition plan, Weight Watchers, etc, but again it should be something that you follow and plan in advance.

Whichever plan you follow, you should by the food in advance, so that you have the raw materials for meals ready to cook, and more important, you have healthy snacks available. It is the snacking that usually kills your diet.

Supplements

A lot of people want to add supplements to their diet. The assumption is that supplements will help you get better results. If you eat well, you don’t need supplements. That being said, if you are not eating perfectly, there are some supplements that can help.

If you think you need energy before your workouts, a pre-workout drink would help. The common one is Jack3d, but it contains creatine and DMAA. Creatine is not ideal for women, and DMAA has been linked to some deaths for people with blood pressure problems. Beachbody has it’s own pre-workout drink that doesn’t have those ingredients, but does taste reasonably good and gives you an energy boost. Click here to learn more about that.

Recovery drinks are also part of the P90X Nutrition Plan and are especially good after a hard workout. Click here for my article on recovery drinks and the purpose they serve.

Many people also look to protein bars and meal replacement drinks for when they are short of time. As far as protein bars go, there are a wide variety of options. Frankly, they are generally candy bars with protein and a multivitamin mixed in. The P90X Nutrition Bars were recently redesigned to be somewhat healthier than the average bar. You however can do your own price/taste comparisons.

As far as meal replacement drinks go, most of them tend to be chocolate milk with a multivitamin. Shakeology is significantly different as it contains as much protein as many protein drinks, digestive enzymes, probiotics, phytonutrients, and a wide variety of other components that promotes overall digestive health. Most important from my perspective is that it is intended to be used as a base, so you can mix it with a wide variety of different ingredients to create a myriad of different flavors. I can go on, but the video below better describes the product. Also while I know that Shakeology seems expensive compared to most of the meal replacement drinks available, that is not the case and the article you get by clicking here explains why.



There are other supplements that some people want to consider like Omega-3 fats, creatine, protein powder, vitamins, etc. Those are individual concerns, so please feel free to contact me directly with questions by e-mailing me at ira@irawinkler.com.

Support

While everyone goes into P90X with grand thoughts, there will be ups and downs. There will be days when you are surprised by the scale, in both good and bad ways. You will also have questions about the workouts and the nutrition plans. For that reason, please consider having me assigned as your Beachbody Coach. Besides of having completed P90X, P90X+, P90X2, and other Beachbody programs countless times, I am a P90X Certified trainer, and can either answer your questions, or find you the answers.

If you want me as your coach, you can click here to set up a free account. If you already have an account, please feel free to e-mail me at ira@irawinkler.com.

Conclusion

P90X is an outstanding program that will work, as long as you work. While pressing play daily is critical, so is basic preparation. That preparation especially includes proper nutrition. Most important, remember that even if you started out wrong, you can change at any time and increase your results. P90X really means that you are adapting to a lifestyle of eating right and exercising on a regular basis.

Announcements From The Beachbody Coach Leadership Conference

There were a large number of announcements from last week’s Leadership Conference, with a couple of them long awaited by P90X and Shakeology fans. The major announcements are as follows:

• P90X Certification and gym classes
  
• Tropical Shakeology will be vegan
  
• Les Mills BodyPUMP available on DVD
  
• Tai Chi DVD program
  
• Four by Four program from Brett Hoebel
  
• 21 Day Cleanse available soon
  

P90X Certification

People will soon be able to receive a P90X teaching certification. Specifically, they will take both an online and a 2 day in person course and then be able to hold P90X licensed classes. The implication is that trainers will be able to teach such courses at gyms. The initial certification courses will be limited to Beachbody Coaches, so any personal trainers or gym owners who want to offer P90X courses can contact me to learn how they can get in on the courses by clicking here.

Tropical Shakeology will be vegan

Tropical Shakeology was announced last June and was undergoing shelf life testing. Beachbody was also working to create a vegan flavor. Beachbody was then able to combine both issues and reformulated the Tropical flavor to be vegan, which essentially means that they replaced the whey protein. It should be available early in 2012.

Les Mills BodyPUMP available on DVD

Many people know of Les Mills BodyPUMP program, which is taught in health clubs around the world. It is a high energy class that works the full body. It uses light barbells so you do lots of reps throughout the workout. It is a great alternative to people looking for variety from P90X. The Beachbody program will include a nutrition program, which the standard BodyPUMP class doesn’t typically include. It will tentatively be available in December. Also, if you are a BodyPUMP instructor and want to make extra income while helping your students more, please contact me and I will help set you up to sell the DVD program.

Pending Tai Chi program

While many people are not familiar with Tai Chi, for those who are, they will be very happy to know that Beachbody will soon be releasing a Tai Chi program. It will be available early 2012.

New Brett Hoebel programs

Brett Hoebel, the RevAbs and Biggest Loser trainer, will be creating two new programs. The first is Four by Four, which is a series of 16 minute workouts. He will also be creating an advanced RevAbs program. If you want to stay up to date on these and other programs, please register for a free account by clicking here.

I’m Here to Help

As you can see, Beachbody is constantly taking the fitness and nutrition industry to the next level. They are not resting on their laurels and continue to develop new programs. Please feel free to contact me at any time by e-mailing ira@xcompanionguide.com and/or register for a free account to have me assigned as your coach by clicking here.

Beachbody Coaching is Not a Pyramid Scheme

A lot of people are interested in becoming a Beachbody Coach, but are concerned about the possibility that it is a pyramid scheme. People should be concerned about a business that they are thinking of getting into, and as this question comes up frequently, they have a right to get an honest, detailed, and knowledgeable answer before making a decision that can affect their lives.

What is a Pyramid Scheme?

A pyramid scheme, sometimes referred to as a Ponzi Scheme, is a situation where people give a lot of money to buy into a supposed business opportunity, in the hope that when other people buy into it, you get money from them. Supposedly, you recruit 2 people, who each recruit 2 others, and then they each recruit 2 people, and the money is fed into the initial person who recruited them. Once the person on top gets their money back and the profits, the people below them can then get their money back.

Essentially, a high investment is paid directly to some person above them. That is the essence of a pyramid scheme.

How Beachbody Works

Let me make it clear that Beachbody Coaching is a relationship marketing business. Relationship marketing is frequently referred to as direct marketing, network marketing, and multi-level marketing. Unless you are a member of the military or a non-profit organization, you do have to pay a $39 sign up fee, which includes a $14 monthly fee and a $25 fee for your starter kit. Consider this your franchise fee. You are essentially buying a business franchise that you can do with what you want. For your fees, you get 4 websites as well as customer service, product fulfillment, etc.

Nobody makes a profit from the fees paid. Even Beachbody might not break even from those fees given the cost of customer service, website maintenance, etc.

There are no product purchases required. However I want to be clear that if you do want to be successful in the Beachbody business, you probably want to invest in making sure that you own a do a product as well as buy and use Shakeology and have some to give away as samples. This can cost about $200, but is again optional. You should also understand that by becoming a Beachbody Coach, you are essentially a small business owner, and even $200 is a minimal investment to start any business. Again though, you can just start by paying your $39 fee (or $0 if you are a military family or non-profit organization) and leave it at that.

Nobody Makes Money Unless You Make Money

Unlike a pyramid scheme, the only way a Beachbody Coach who sponsors you can make money from you is for you to make money. Without going into full details on the compensation plan, your recruiting coaches only make money when you are successful. This is the opposite of a pyramid scheme.

Frankly, when a coach is not successful in the business, it costs me as the person who recruited them. I am willing to invest hundreds of hours of my time in a coach to help get them started and continue their success. If they don’t make money, not only do I not make any money from them, I lose what I consider my most valuable resource: My time. I am happy to invest my time with someone who is willing to work, as it is a cost of doing business. However nobody should think that once a person becomes a coach, a lot of other people get rich from them. Again, nobody gets rich from another person in a legitimate relationship marketing business, unless that person makes money themselves.

Is it Too Late to Be Successful?

While it is true that the earlier you get in, the more money you have the potential to make at a given point in time, with Beachbody it is still very early in the business lifecycle. As of this writing, Beachbody has 65,000 coaches and is only in the United States. Based on my own experience, I personally estimate that at least 30,000 of those coaches are coaches only for the discounts on Shakeology, and are not actively pursuing the business.

However, even if you assume that all 65,000 coaches are in active in the business, that is tiny compared to similar companies. For example, Amway had approximately 3,000,000 distributors in 2008. Herbalife had 1,900,000 distributors at that time. Beachbody has had a relationship marketing program in place for 4 years, while Amway and Herbalife have been in business for more than 50 and 30 years respectively. The people who became involved in either of those programs within even the first 10 years, and remain active, are extremely happy people.

Your Job Makes You a Living. Part Time Makes You a Fortune

The above quote is from business guru, Jim Rohn. He is a big believer in relationship marketing. The quote comes from his belief that if you don’t do pursue a part time business, you are doomed to continue your same standard of living. Pursuing a part time business, like a relationship marketing business, provides for potential exponential growth in income.

I want to be very clear that there is no guarantee that you will be successful with Beachbody Coaching. Frankly, I have been very surprised when I saw people, who I was positive would be successful, turn out not to be successful, and people I was sure would fade away turn out to be very successful. As long as people are willing to work, work consistently, and don’t have grossly unrealistic expectations, they have the ability to succeed. Beachbody is not a “get rich quick” business, but a get rich steady business. How fast is determined by the individual. Beachbody Coaching is however very inexpensive to start.

Even if you spend $200 to get started, that is small compared to buying a business franchise, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. Beachbody allows you to start increasing your income, without having to quit your current job and risk everything.

If another Beachbody Coach sent you to this page, please contact them. Otherwise, please feel free to contact me by clicking here.

Weight Watchers Points for Shakeology

A lot of people who do Beachbody programs, like P90X, Insanity, Hip Hop Abs, etc., follow the Weight Watchers nutrition program. While Beachbody provides a nutrition plan with all programs tailored to the program, many people choose to use the Weight Watchers program as they like it and are familiar with it. As long as they adjust the points that they need to account for the increased level of activity, Weight Watchers Point system can provide great results. In response, I wrote this article about how to estimate the points to add to their daily intake.

Many people doing Beachbody programs use Shakeology as well. Therefore, it would be helpful for the many people who use the Weight Watchers’ system to know the point value of Shakeology. So to simply provide that information, here is the point value for Shakeology, both Chocolate and Greenberry.

Weight Watchers Winning Points: 2
Weight Watchers PointsPlus:     3

Remember to add the points for any other ingredients for any ingredients that you mix with the Shakeology, such as milk, fruit, nuts, etc.

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at ira@xcompanionguide.com.

Notes From the 2011 Beachbody Coach Summit

The Beachbody Coach Summit took place from June 17-19, 2011, and as expected there were A Lot of announcements to share with everyone. I normally mail updates to my customers, however a message with all the information would be overwhelming, so I thought I would send everyone a message referring them to this blog post if they want more info on the subjects. So, enjoy!

P90X2

P90X2 is supposed to be available for the 2011 Christmas/Holiday season. Preordering will hopefully become available in August, and you should take advantage of it, as Beachbody is trying to balance out the projected orders, and only does a limited run for new programs until they see the demand, so there is strong potential that it might go out of stock early.



As far as the program itself goes, P90X2 will be a 90 day program that you do 5 days a week. Yes I wrote 5 days a week. There will be 14 workouts that are part of the program, which will have 3 distinct phases; Learning, Strength and Performance, and it appears that you will do different workouts in the different phases.

Tony Horton and his advisors describe P90X2 as the most advanced program ever put on DVD. Note that they did not say the most intense. While it will not be as theoretically extreme or intense as Insanity or Asylum, the entire P90X2 program was scientifically designed to provide maximum gains in all areas of fitness.

P90X2 is not however a program for beginners. Doing pushups while your hands and feet are on balls requires very significant core strength for example. It is designed to improve all areas of athleticism, but needs a good base to build on.

The above also touched upon the need for some extra equipment. While there will be alternatives for people who don’t have the equipment, P90X2 will use medicine balls, stability balls, a weighted bar, and a foam roller.

One major change that you might or might not notice is that there will be no traditional cardio in P90X2. As all the work is essentially intervals, you are improving your cardio vascular fitness enough for functional health as Tony stresses. Tony and the people he works with believe that intervals provide more effective improvements, and you also don’t see a functional reason for the normal person to just keep their heart rate in an aerobic range for extended periods of time.

Just to answer another question you might have, yes there will still be yoga, but it will only be about 65 minutes long.

For those of you that care, it might be available in Blue Ray format.

There will be multiple nutrition plans available to accommodate the most common dietary styles, including vegetarians and vegans. Shakeology will also be integrated into the plans.

I will provide more info and videos later, but please let me know if you have specific questions on this.

P90X iPhone App

The long awaited P90X iPhone app should be available in August. This was the most secretive part of the whole summit, where they wanted all recording stopped. While it is still unclear as to what can tell you now, I will say that it has the workout tracking that you all wanted, and so much more. You will definitely be able to take P90X to the gym. From the little bit that we saw, I can tell you that the P90X app is AWESOME!

To answer other questions, you should be able to run the app on iPads, as well. There was however no information about Droid or other pending smart phone versions.

Active Duty Military Coach Fees Waived

As many of you know Beachbody actively supports the military and their families. To further that support, people who have an active duty military person in their family will be able to sign up to be a Beachbody Coach for free, which saves $39, and the later monthly fees ($15) will also be waived. This means it is essentially free for you to be a coach.

While this is clearly an outstanding opportunity for military families to create a second income with no money out of pocket, it is also a great way to get all Beachbody products at a wholesale cost. For example, Shakeology will be $90 per order for military families. You get all programs, including Insanity and TurboFire for the coach prices of $90, and it costs you nothing.

Please email me at ira@xcompanionguide.com if you are interested or need more information.

New Shakeology Flavor

The new Shakeology flavor was formally debuted at the summit, and is named, Tropical. They describe it as based primarily on Banana, Pineapple, and Papaya, and was designed to be a light flavor that is there to enhance the flavors of what you add to it. It was designed to be versatile. For the summit, they were blending it with pineapple, strawberries, yogurt, and milk, and the closest thing I could describe it as was somewhat of a bubblegum flavor. I don’t however believe that that description does it justice.

Many coaches were mixing the Tropical with Chocolate flavors and loved the combination. Personally, I love chocolate, and prefer the chocolate, but I definitely liked Tropical more than Greenberry.

While it is pretty much ready to go, Beachbody is a major stickler for all around quality, especially with regard to Shakeology, and they are still making sure that the formula will have significant shelf life and will not be impacted by adverse shipping conditions. They intend for the flavor to be ready to ship by the end of the year.

Vegan Shakeology and Other Flavors

Very ironically, all of the people who designed Shakeology are vegans, and given that Shakeology uses whey protein, it is not technically a vegan product. They all drink it though. Given the market, they are continuing to work on Vegan Shakeology, and have the product ready during the first quarter of 2012. While I realize this is not the news you want to hear, I get enough questions about this, so I wanted to give you a status that Beachbody knows of your concerns, and is actively addressing them. Apparently the holdup is that they have had difficulties finding a formula that has a flavor and consistency that will meet all standards of quality, which includes taste and consistency.

While there was no detail about this subject, there is also at least one additional flavor in the works that they hope to also have ready in the first quarter of 2012. It will not however be Vanilla, as many people hope, as that flavor was nixed last year as it was being ready to be shipped. Again, they could not get enough quality vanilla that was not chemically treated to have a good flavor as a lead flavor. They will not compromise their core beliefs even when the demand for the product is huge.

New Tai Chi Program

The only new program announced, besides P90X2, is a Tai Chi based program. I will have more information on that later in the year. For those of you not familiar with Tai Chi, it is a martial art that is essentially a slow movement of Kung Fu sequences. The program is designed for people of all ages, but is probably going to be more popular with people who have flexibility issues, difficulty with the harder programs, or just want an easier program for a change that strives for mental clarity.

The New $100,000 Beachbody Challenge

Beachbody has completed renovated what was previously known as the Million Dollar Body Challenge, and renamed it simply, The Beachbody Challenge. Now you can win up to $100,000. Everyone who enters gets a T-shirt for just submitting their story. While a huge transformation is outstanding, for just signing up and submitting your Success Story, you will get a T-shirt. The only requirement is that you have an account on teambeachbody.com. If you are my customer, or have a coach, you already have an account. If you dont have an account yet, please click here for a free one. If you want more information, please e-mail me.

If you are interested in this in any way, please contact me so I can help you. My e-mail is ira@xcompanionguide.com. I have helped many people make it through their respective program, and have decades of experience in fitness and nutrition, and I am more than happy to help you find the right program for your needs, and make it through the program with the best possible results.

Beachbody Continues to Grow and Improve

As you can tell, Beachbody continues to grow and expand their product lines to better serve you. They also have a special concern to supporting members of the military and will continue to support them and their families however they can.

I have clearly thrown a lot out here, so please feel free to personally contact me if you want details on anything mentioned here, or anything else related to fitness, nutrition, or Beachbody in general. I can again be reached at ira@xcompanionguide.com.

How To Get Shakeology As Cheap as Possible

For good reason, people do think that Shakeology is expensive. The fact is that you have to pay for a 30 day supply at one time, and I get that. However, when you break it down on a per meal basis, it is actually pretty cheap, and there are a variety of ways to get it that make the price as low as $3 per serving.

Why I Think Shakeology is Actually Cheap

When you do buy a one month supply at a time, I do understand that costs $89-$119. That is a given. However if you divide it into 30 separate meals, it works out to $3-$4 per serving. My Egg McMuffin with an iced mocha cost me $5+ the other day. Even making a reasonably healthy meal at home is going to cost more than $3 per serving.

I tend to eat out a lot and using Shakeology, instead of eating out and taking my family with me, has saved me hundreds of dollars a month. So, while I understand that laying out the money all at once seems expensive, to me it saves me a lot of money. Again though, stop and calculate what you personally spend on a healthy meal.

Spending As Little As Possible on Shakeology

Monthly Auto-Ship for Free Shipping

There are a couple of ways to save money with Shakeology. Fundamentally, you can start by ordering Shakeology with the Monthly Auto-Ship option, AKA Home Direct. If you use this option, you save the shipping fee, which is around $10 or more.

While the policy states that if you order with Home Direct, you have to order for at least two months, if you are not happy with the product, Beachbody will cancel your order at any time. You can also put your order on hold indefinitely. The risk most people are afraid of is that they will order with Home Direct and forget to cancel or hold the second order if they are not interested. There is however Beachbody’s 30 day unconditional money back guarantee, so at the worst case you are out the cost to return an empty bag of Shakeology.

The Preferred Customer Option

A Preferred Customer is the term that I use to describe a person who signs up to be a coach specifically for the discounts. Beachbody Coaches get just about everything Beachbody sells at 25% off, which means that you can buy Shakeology for $89. That is a $30 savings per order.

The fee to be a coach is $15 per month, so if you order nothing else, you have a net savings of $15 per month, or about $180 per year. This is in addition to saving $10 per order by ordering Home Direct. It must however be noted that there is an additional $24 fee when you sign up. For this reason, it is only worth becoming a coach if you intend to order Shakeology for more than one month.

Again, you also save 25% on just about all other products, including the upcoming P90X2 and any other product. Additionally, if any of your friends are impressed by your results and want to follow the same programs as you, they can purchase the products through you and you can earn a 25% commission.

Active Duty Military and Spouses Have NO Fees

Beachbody just started a program that waives coach fees for Active-Duty Military or their spouse. This way Shakeology can be a flat $89. Period. The sign up fee and monthly fee will be waived, so if you want just about any Beachbody product at 25% off, it pays to sign up to be a coach if you qualify. You need to fill out the right coach application to qualify for this. Please e-mail me at ira@xcompanionguide.comfor the forms.

No, You Don’t Have To Buy Anything

The one hesitation people have is that they are afraid they will be forced to buy products or make sales. To be very clear, the only requirement is the $14.95 monthly fee. Here is an excerpt from the Beachbody Coach FAQ.

Will I have to purchase products for resale?
Unlike marketing programs that require you to buy a lot of products in order to participate, the Coach Opportunity has no inventory requirements.

Likewise Section 2.2 of the Coach Policies and Procedures is specifically titled, No Product Purchase Required.

You Can Still Cancel at Any Time

Just like all Beachbody products, coaching and Shakeology comes with a money back guarantee. You can cancel Shakeology at any time, and return any for a full refund (minus shipping). You can cancel coaching at any time.

What I Tell My Friends and Family

Even if you only intend to order once, I recommend ordering with Home Direct/Monthly Auto-Ship. Again, you can put future shipments on hold and send it back if you are not interested. If you think Shakeology is something that you want to use on an ongoing basis, in my opinion, it only makes sense to sign up to be a Preferred Customer. You are otherwise throwing away money.

If You Are Interested, Please Talk To Your Coach

If a coach sent you to this page, please go back to them for help in deciding the best way to order. If you don’t have a coach already, or prefer to talk to me, you can email me at ira@xcompanionguide.com. If you just want to order Shakeology via Home Direct, you can just click here.