This was my second day with P90X. The first day of P90X was very tough. Apparently I missed a few spots with the Sportscreme last night and I really felt it during the Plyometrics warm up. Ah, nothing makes you feel fatter than your sore chest and ab muscles hurt while the fat over them moves while doing jumping jacks.

Plyometrics is all about jump exercises. It follows the same basic format as the other videos. A few minutes of warming up and stretching, the exercise routine, then a cool down and stretching series to finish things off.

There wasn't any moves in this DVD that I couldn't do, but it was hard to keep up with some. Getting as high or jumping as fast in some cases wasn't possible and in some cases, jumps turned into big steps as my heart rate was getting too high.

Every time you exercise hard, your muscles burn through stored glycogen for fuel. Getting that glycogen back quickly is the whole point of a post-workout recovery drink, and research suggests the 30 to 60 minute window after your workout is when your body is most primed to do it. The question is which drink actually does the job best, and whether the expensive ones are worth it compared to something you might already have at home.

Carbohydrates are the primary source of glucose your muscles need to replenish glycogen, so carb content is the main thing that matters. But research has consistently shown that adding protein alongside those carbs increases glycogen resynthesis beyond what carbs alone provide. Most sports nutrition guidance puts the optimal ratio of carbohydrates to protein somewhere between 2:1 and 4:1.

I went through the numbers on the most commonly recommended options to see which one actually comes out ahead once you account for carb content and cost per serving. One of them surprised me a little.

Today was the first full workout of the P90X program. It doesn't start out easy, the first day consists of a lot of push-ups and pull-ups then the Ab Ripper X workout.

Push-ups and pull-ups aren't easy for me so this was a very hard way to start. The pace of the exercises in addition to the amount makes it very difficult. At one point, I thought I was going to throw up but I kept going.

For a few weeks before I started P90X I tried working on my chest by doing push-ups and chest presses, but I still had a hard time.

I've always hated push-ups and there was only one time in my life where I remember being able to do a lot of them. I knew that going into this, as well as knowing that P90X involves a lot of push-ups so I tried to work my way up before doing the program.

If you have spent any time around fitness nutrition, somebody has told you to ditch the egg yolks. High fat, high cholesterol, all the stuff you are supposed to be cutting. Just use the whites and move on. I tried that. Made an omelet with three egg whites and a slice of American cheese one morning and had to force myself to finish it. It was not the taste so much as the texture. Just kind of awful. So I started looking into whether skipping the yolk was actually worth it, and what I found was more interesting than I expected.

The short version is that the science on dietary cholesterol has shifted pretty significantly since the egg yolk scare got started. And when you look at what you are actually throwing away when you toss the yolk, the case for keeping at least some of them gets a lot stronger.

I do want to say upfront, I am not a doctor or nutritionist. If you have a specific health condition or high LDL cholesterol, talk to your doctor. This is just what I found when I dug into it for my own eating.

I have to be honest, I'm not expecting much from the P90X program. It's not that I don't think the program works, it's that I don't think I'm quite ready for it.

P90X was meant for people who are already in reasonable shape and want to push it even more to get bigger and more ripped. It is actually the next level to the Power 90 In-Home Boot Camp which is also from Tony Horton and Beach Body. The transformation videos I've seen from people who were in about my shape and got really cut from the program seemed to start with Power 90 then did P90X.

When I decided to start getting back in shape, the first piece of equipment I wanted was a set of adjustable dumbbells.

The goal was simple: something compact enough to keep under my desk but flexible enough to handle curls, presses, rows, and other exercises without filling the room with a rack of weights.

After comparing a few options I ended up buying the Bayou Fitness 2 × 25 lb Adjustable Dumbbells.

After using them for a while, I learned a few things I wish I had known earlier.

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If you want to lose weight around your midsection, the instinct is to start doing sit-ups. It seems logical. You want to slim down your stomach, so you exercise your stomach. The problem is that is not how fat loss actually works, and understanding why will save you a lot of wasted effort.

Ab rollers, those electronic muscle stimulators, dedicated core programs sold in three easy payments — none of these are the most effective path to a flatter stomach. They are not useless, but they are solving the wrong problem first. If you already have a flat stomach and you are working toward visible ab definition, then targeted exercises for your abs, obliques, and lower abs are genuinely necessary. There is no getting around that part. But if you have not yet reached that point and your main goal is to slim down around the waist, there is a more efficient approach that most people skip entirely.

The answer involves your legs, and the reason why is more interesting than you might expect.

The price of the P90X DVDs isn't so bad, but along with it, you'll need some equipment. It's not too bad, especially when you compare it with a typical gym membership.

But what if you were on a very tight budget and wanted to start the P90X program? How little can you actually get away with spending?

The normal P90X equipment consists of a set of dumbbells, an exercise/yoga mat and a pull up bar. Beachbody, the distributors of P90X, sell this equipment on their website. What they have is pretty pricey in some cases, but there are alternatives I'll review in the rest of this post.

"I'm not fat, but I'm not skinny." You've probably heard a lot of people say that and you might have said that yourself. From comparing the different people that have said it, you realize that people have a very distorted view of their own physical fitness.

If you want to have a good idea of where you stand, try computing your body mass index (BMI). If you have a normal weight, your BMI will be in the 18.5 - 24.9 range. 25-29.9 and you're overweight. Over 30, you're considered obese.

This is just a rough guide. If you were 6' tall and 250lbs but completely ripped, it wouldn't mean anything, but for most people, this should give you some idea of where you're at.

Even at my heaviest, I have never fallen into the obese category, but I could stand to lose a few lbs. I'm definitely overweight according to my BMI index. Now, I have two choices. I can gain 6 inches in height, or I can try and lose around 25lbs. I'm already tall enough and can't figure out how to get any taller, so I'm going to have to lose some weight.

This is one of the things I started to push myself to do and I'll use this blog as a record of my progress and things I learn along the way.