p90x - month 3

Well I finally completed the last phase of P90x on Sunday. Boy it feels good to finish. It is by far the most intense workout I've ever done. The last month I also went completely hardcore on my food intake. Not quantity; just what was going in. I probably shed about 5 pounds of fat. And the results speak for themselves. I'm probably in the best shape I've been in since I was about 30. I'm much stronger and flexible. And my cardio ability is way up.

• Building muscle just isn't what it used to be. I think if i did this in my 30s I would have a lot more muscle bulk. As it stands I'm a lot more sinewy. Having said that I'm still increasing the weight on the strength routines.
• I am more flexible now than I have ever been. Even as a teenager. Each week I could stretch a little more.
• Yoga, particuarly P90X's version, continues to be my favorite workout and one that I'll do in my 80s if I'm around. It is just grueling. There's one particular move that stands out. You are in a lunge and you link hands by reaching one arm behind your back and one between you legs. At this point sweat drips off my body at the rate of 3-4 drops per second. Never fails. I call the move the 'sponge squeeze'.
• The one area I was hoping to improve that didn't was my lower back issues. I get chronic lower back pain. It shows up every 3 months of so. Typically when I work out I get more back issues not less. This was true during P90X. They weren't debilitating issues (at least they weren't until the very last day) but they were more prevalent. I'm hopeful if I keep up the workouts this will eventually not be true but I'm not sure if that will pan out or not.
• I can't say I have 6 pack abs. I'm painfully close. With the right lighting you might be fooled. But there is still a small layer of fat in the very center portion where these muscles are. Everywhere else is fat free. Arrgghhhh!
• I never realized you have muscles around your ribs but then, of course, what are you eating when you eat ribs? The Ab Ripper and Core Synergistics have really built up these muscles impressively.
• Looking at some of the worksheets it's amazing how much more fit I am in a few areas. The one that sticks out is pullups. I could do maybe 6 full pullups at the beginning before I needed to switch to using a chair for help. Now I knock out about 8 sets of 8 or 9. My goal is to at some point get to 8 sets of 15. Pushups for me would die around 30 reps before I had to go to the knees. Now I can do about 150-200 over the course of 8 sets depending on the type of pushup.
• It's become difficult for me to really cheat with my diet. A lot of bad food appeals less to me because I can't help think what it'll do to my workout that night. Booze is completely out. I never really liked alcohol but a casual drink is about as unappealing as anything to me now. Having said that I have a required boozing session this coming Friday.

So now the question is what next? I'm taking the next week off. I'm forgetting the diet and the workout for 7 full days. And then I think I'm going to start it up again and run it through another 90 days. In fact I'll probably just keep doing if forever.