Does P90X Really Work?

P90X was first introduced in the 90’s. It was touted to be the best exercise program out there, brought to you by two friends, two individuals who had transformed their bodies and changed their lives by developing and using this program. The commercials were unforgettable, the purported results were amazing, and since then, this BeachBody product line has been one of the most popular products available. Of course, the current front man, Tony Horton, was one of the originals. But the other so called creator seems to have disappeared into the background.

But Does P90X Work?

This being said, their focus has always stayed the same. They have always told you that the reason why you run, sweat, and otherwise exercise without actually seeing results is because your body gets used to it. So therefore, your fat burning mechanisms shut down, and your body starts working against you rather than working for you the way you would like it to. It stores fat, it creates trouble spots. So by switching your workout program every so often, you are essentially speaking enabling yourself to trick your body, to beat the system.

At this point, P90X has 12 “sweat inducing, muscle pumping workouts, designed to transform your body from regular to ripped in just 90 days.” They now also offer a diet program. The simple fact is that no matter how hardcore the workout, if you don’t have the right diet plan, you will not succeed. Professional athletes have found that if they don’t eat enough, they lose too much weight, their muscles atrophy, etc. The rest of us often find that we cannot actually burn off enough calories in a day to account for bad eating habits. So using their diet plan would ideally give you maximized results.

Is P90X Effective?

I like the idea of Muscle Confusion, and I’ve seen so many people succeed with this program. I’ve seen people who have been too lazy before, couch potatoes, you get the idea, finally succeeding, finally getting all the fat burning results they wanted, building muscle and getting a toned and lean look. So it’s not a horrible program. The problem I find with it is the long term. You always have to have a long term plan, a permanent plan. They have come up with 12 different workouts for you. But what happens when you actually have to create your own workout plan, when you actually have to create a diet plan that you can live with for the rest of your life? That is a question that weighs on the mind of many after the 90 days are over using P90X.

Long Term Results

This being said, many people are obviously pleased in the beginning. If you have ever watched one of their infomercials, though they have to add that results are not typical, their advertisements are strewn with ripped bodies, before and after pictures, transformations, and otherwise. Scronny boys turn into muscle laden men. Fatty deposits and beer bellies disappear. All of the sudden, women who were fat before are ready to go out proudly in bikinis, and all of this can supposedly happen in just 90 days. But do you really think this is honest, do you really think this is in any way real? I don’t. Basically speaking, they take their best consumers. They stretch out their before pictures, airbrush their after pictures, and they make it look far better than it is. And even without airbrushing and otherwise alterations to the pictures, the examples they use account for maybe 1 out of every 1000 customers.

The reality

is that results are mild to moderate at best. Typically speaking, with these extreme workouts, people will see some weight loss results if they are doing it right. They will be strengthening muscle mass. But the 12 workouts progress over time. You start out slow and each workout becomes more intense than the last. So there is no way of going back, and once you get to the 12th workout, they don’t provide you with a way to continue the “muscle confusion” process.

Therefore, after the 90 days is up, you have no set workout plan. While muscle confusion is great at first, it is limited, and eventually, you have to create a schedule for yourself. In addition, I’ve heard multiple complaints about the diet plan. Many have used low carb diets, low fat diets, low sugar diets, and other extreme diets before, and from experience, they know that these are simply unreasonable. Likewise, the P90X diet follows the same model. It teaches you nothing about foods you can eat in restaurants, cook for yourself, or otherwise live with on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, most people pay about $120 in installments of a lesser amount for P90X only to regain the weight back later on, to become soft and otherwise again later on, because they don’t know what to do with themselves and how to maintain results. Yo-yo dieting is probably one of the most dangerous things out there, not only because obviously the idea of losing weight is to keep it off, but because it can actually damage the heart and other vital organs. Gaining and losing weight over and over again is harmful to the body in general.

Final Conclusion

If for nothing else, it will create stretch marks and saggy skin as you get older, leading to a look no one wants to have. People actually go in for surgery to remedy this particular problem. In short, P90X creates a yo-yo dieting effect. So unfortunately, this is one of those solutions that does more harm than good in general terms. If you are looking for real weight loss results, we would suggest another product and serious lifestyle changes that P90X is simply not capable of providing.