How I'm eating

If you don't follow the dietary guidelines, you'll just build a bunch of muscle underneath your fat. This might be what you want, but if you want to lean out, you have to eat right.

I chose to use the nutritional proportions listed on page two, which involves tracking intake of the protein, fat and carbohydrate macronutrients. Before, this took almost as much time in a day as the workout, but using an app like MyFitnessPal makes it a realistic undertaking.

The minimum calorie goal in the booklet is 1,800, but for me, I shouldn't go higher than 1,600. I can't even manage to fit more than 1,600 calories worth of healthy food into my body. (Unhealthy food, no problem!) I am also eating more fat than is called for. I've seen on social media that Tony Horton still seems wary of fat, but lots of other people who track macros and are lean and muscle-y eat a bit more fat than what used to be acceptable. I think new research debunking the "badness" of fat has helped. Plus, such a protein-heavy diet can only be tolerated with a little more fat, at least for me.

These are my percentages:

Phase one

Protein

50%

Carb

20%

Fat

30%

Phase Two

Protein

40%

Carb

30%

Fat

30%

Phase Three

Protein

30%

Carb

40%

Fat

30%

I'm not really that amazing at hitting my macros all the time, although I do usually stay under calories. And I tend to eat the same foods over and over. When my diet has to be so strict, sticking to foods that I know I like and will meet requirements is the easiest thing. Eventually, I do get tired of certain items and go searching for something else. The worst is not being prepared, so I'd rather reach for the same old thing, than talk myself into eating out somewhere when I really shouldn't. Of course, when I do eat out, I go to places where I can actually get ahold of the calories for each dish so I can log it.

Listening to your body is really important. Just before starting P90X, I was eating between 1,200 and 1,300 calories most days. At first, I was trying to hit certain macros goals similar to the percentages I have for phase 1. But when I'd try to go to roller derby practice or play soccer, I'd just perform really badly. It took me awhile to realize that I wasn't eating properly for that specific activity. Fridays are now pasta lunch day, and I eat more carbs than on other days of the week. It makes a big difference in how hard I can run in my soccer game, and I even finally scored my first goal since returning to soccer.

Some people advocate loudly against cheat days, but I think cheating is good. Changing it up keeps your body on its toes. I've read a lot about plateauing because your body just gets used to whatever fitness routine you've got going on, so it seems to me that a little cheating is probably OK. Also, being 100% perfectly strict does not work for some people, but rather causes them to quit and make a hard swing in the exact opposite direction.

Now, the way I was doing cheat day was all wrong. I was doing it every Saturday, all day. I would wake up and just start binging on sugar and mac-n-cheese. I was probably making up for my entire week's calorie deficit in one day. I didn't even want to do things because it would get in the way of being able to eat as much crappy food as possible.

The worst part is that it started spilling over into Sunday. I didn't even make a conscious choice to do this, it would just happen. Before I really started dieting, I used to joke to people that I hadn't lost the baby weight yet because I would black out and binge on sugar. That was only sort of a joke. Something would happen to my brain, like in a dream when you're floating above yourself watching yourself. I would be thinking to myself about how I shouldn't eat anything crappy, but then my arms and mouth wouldn't listen.

So, I'm not doing a scheduled cheat day. If a holiday comes up, or it's someone's birthday at work, I might have a cheat snack or meal or something, but I'm always going to log it. My hope is that after being reasonable for 90 days, I will just live a reasonable life and stop going nuts over sugary treats, and then I won't even need a full cheat day.