Read the disclaimer from the previous post. You, and only you, are responsible for what you do.

Diet

Getting Started

Before you start, see if you can get everyone else in your household to clean up their diet. This will make it much easier as you won’t be tempted by all the nasty stuff they are eating. Plus it’s easier to cook more than one portion anyway.

Before you start, go through your kitchen and hide all “the bad stuff” that has a shelf life over 90 days. Out of sight, out of mind. For the rest of the stuff that spoils (or that you really shouldn’t be eating anyway), consider throwing it out. Now.

When shopping, remember that you won’t eat what you don’t bring home. Unfortunately, this works the other way around, too. If you buy that 12-pack of muffins (@ 300-500 calories each), you’ll end up eating them. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll only have one and take to the office/freeze/throw out the rest. You know that ain’t happening.

Read and understand the nutrition guide. It’s flexible enough to work for most people. There’s even pointers for vegetarians. Don’t confuse the phases in the nutrition guide with the workout phases. Both have three, but they don’t necessarily have to be in sync.

Remember: Eat often.

Tools

Use a tool to track what you eat. I recommend starting this before P90X just to have a comparison between your existing lifestyle and what will hopefully become your new one. There are a few sites online that make it easy. I’ve used fitday.com. It’s free, though they’ve recently added some sort of paid version, too. There are a few other sites and even iPhone applications for this. The main idea here is to track how many calories you get from fat, carbs and protein.

In the beginning you’ll want to be pretty strict about it. Consider getting a kitchen scale to measure the exact weight of everything you eat. Once you get a good understanding of where your calories are coming from you can start easing off and estimating more, and finally you’ll have changed your eating habits for the better. If you’re on the go, use your cell phone camera to take a snapshot of the nutrition information label on whatever you have to buy.

The Magic Numbers

You’ll want to refer to these ratios (Protein / Carbohydrate / Fat):

• Phase 1: 50% / 30% / 20%
• Phase 2: 40% / 40% / 20%
• Phase 3: 20% / 60% / 20%

Keep in mind that phase 3 is “an athletic diet”.

Good Eats

Finding enough foods high in protein to give you variety in your diet might be challenging. Here are some that have become a staple at our house.

• Fage Greek Strained Yogurt
  • Great source of protein, though the taste isn’t that great (though better than Trade Joe’s equivalent). Adding some berries or even some flavored protein power makes it much better.
• Columbus Turkey (different flavors)
  • High protein, great taste
• Body Fortress Protein Powder (or any other Whey Protein powder, this one is inexpensive)
• Part Skim Mozzarella
  • Great for protein/low carbs, but watch out for the fat
• Ground Turkey
• Chicken Breasts
• Flax Seed/Whole Grain Bread (or other low-calorie whole wheat)
• Green Tea

Also, buy some herbs & spices along with low calorie/low carb/low fat sauces and dressings. These will let you get some additional variety easily.

Snacks

If you have a Costco or Sam’s Club membership, go and buy a box of plastic snack bags, and a big bag of almonds/cashews/pistachios (there are other options in the nutrition guide, too). Sit down, measure/count out the correct serving for a snack, and place in the bags. Do this up front and you’ll have healthy snacks ready for the duration of P90X that are easy to grab to go in the morning. Stay away from that vending machine!

Supplements

This one is tough and is often best left for the experts. You can troll the forums for advice, but remember that eating healthy food and getting the exercise is going to get real results, and that magic pill or powder is less likely to do so. That being said, I do take my vitamins (the generic kind), use protein powder (once again generic) and have gone through several boxes of the P90X Recovery Drink. I prefer the packets over the tub. A box of packets fits better in the cupboard that a tub. This is especially true if you have several tubs of different flavored protein powder taking up all your table top space.

This is an area that is ripe for “repeat sales” by pushy salespeople and can easily cost an arm and a leg. Do your research on what you truly need and what brands are reliable when going for the alternative.

I’ve also tried the BSN N.O. Explode, but personally I didn’t find it useful. From what I’ve read, you’d get more out of it with pure weight training, and the P90X routines are pretty cardio heavy even on the days you’re lifting some weights.

Hydration

“Drink your water, people.” Switch sodas for sparkling water. You might see recommendations to not drink these, but the point there is that you’ll drink more regular water than something bubbly and thus regular water can be better in making sure you get enough fluids.

Avoid diet sodas, there are some recent studies that say that your body might actually hold on to fat harder because of the artificial sweeteners. In any case, most sweeteners aren’t good for you.

You’ll sweat a lot during the workouts so you’ll need the fluids. Staying hydrated will also help you feel full and avoid unnecessary eating.