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I've heard that you're supposed to see the greatest results in P90X Phase III... however I seem to have stalled. I've definitely seen results in Phases I and II - my stomach has shrunk a fair bit and muscle definition has increased, but not huge results and they seem to have basically stopped now that I'm in Phase III.

Any thoughts? I'm eating clean (had a couple things this week that I shouldn't have but you can only argue so much with your family! - but not anything huge) and bringing it every time... my diet probably looks something like this:

Breakfast: cereal, almond milk, blueberries
fruit yogurt (this is 3.25% fat content, but I'm monitoring to make sure I don't overshoot 20-25% fat on the day)
1 egg + 2 egg whites (I know about the egg yolks, but I want the other nutrients they have and I don't have them every day)

Lunch - varies: salad, sardines, some fruit

Dinner: chicken or fish or lentils+rice, etc

Snacks - a few nuts, some toast and cheese, fruit, etc and of course the protein shake. In short my proportions are on target and although I can't physically eat 1800 cals, I'm usually around 1300+ and feeling full.

For the last week I've been munching on energy bars... but those have no junk in them either - they're all whole grain and mostly rolled oats, bran, date puree, some cane juice and a bit of dried fruit so I can't imagine it's doing any harm - no enriched flour at all.

Because of school I end up doing my workouts late but the only thing I ingest past 9pm is my protein shake and previously maybe cottage cheese (I always eat dinner well before working out)

Is it something to do with the workouts? diet, not eating enough, something else? Any thoughts?

Yeah, fair enough. Um, I didn't want to list my entire food intake lol because I figured it might overwhelm you. But yes, I'm right on my proportions (maybe a bit high on protein) and I usually run around 1300-1400 calories without feeling hungry.

I wouldn't necessarily them indulgences - I don't randomly eat junk food day to day lol! Last week though we had a funeral so say, over two days I had a a couple of small (really small) sausage rolls, two fried potato slices and let's call it a small piece of cake (it wasn't cake, but close enough). Other than that though there's been nothing else - it's only when I absolutely can't avoid it lol.

Example of diet from a few days ago:

Breakfast
1/4 cup Kashi GoLean cereal
1/4 cup almond milk (plain or vanilla)
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup fruit yogurt

Snacks (through the day)
1 slice pumpernickel bread
1/2 oz lowfat cheese
1 energy bar (as mentioned above - about 35g carbs, 3g fat, 4g protein, 200 cals, no enriched flour or refined sugar)
10 or so cashew nuts

Lunch
0.5 cup 1% cottage cheese
Various vegetables (salad, steamed, etc)
1 slice pineapple

Snacks
1/4 cup cereal
1/4 cup almond milk maybe with blueberries
1/2 serving of protein shake (after workout - approx 13g)

Dinner (ate out)
Chicken leg, small beef patty
1/2 Pita bread (this day it was white, but normally whole wheat)

^^ for this day my fat content was at about 32% - a bit high because of the beef I know. But normally I don't eat beef - so other normal dinners are:

1/2 cup rice + 1/2 cup lentils OR
Sardines and toast and vegetables OR
4oz fish and vegetables
etc.

Does that help? I may be having slightly too much dairy with the cheddar cheese, but I doubt that would be affecting it overall... though I can cut it out if you think it's a good idea.

Yes, I'd like to know those things too, although I'm fairly certain this is starvation mode due to undereating.

According to the calorie calculator on this site, you need to be eating around 2000 cals a day to lose weight. So getting as close to that 1800 cals as you can will help, but you may even need to go over it a bit depending on your metabolism.

Yeah, I definitely don't need to lose a lot of fat! Tightening up is all I really want to do. I'm also definitely not trying to lose it by becoming skinny and unhealthy, I just didn't think I could really eat that much I didn't realize I was in starvation mode though lol.

I'll definitely eat more then... hopefully I can find something to eat

Thanks!

OK, that was a dumb question on my part lol. I knew that, it just slipped my mind

I can aim for 1800, but are the 200 cals from the recovery drink really going to affect things that much? I'm eating all the solid food I'm supposed to lol... yesterday I was at 1700, the day before 1680, etc.

Also... I was thinking of Phase II rather than Phase I - that might be too much lol.



Yeah... but water retention should be a day to day thing, not so much week to week, no? :S Could it be due to being forced to eat late a couple of times this/last week?

Sorry... I suppose I have one more question. You know how people say breads, pastas etc go straight to the gut? How does that fit in with what you say re carbs not making you fat - is it that they're eating the wrong type of carbs or the wrong combinations?

Also - bear with me here, I'm just trying to understand something lol. Eating junk makes you add fat... is that because of the ingredients in the junk or because the junk is so high-calorie, high-fat that it makes up too much of what they're eating? So if a 'magical' cake existed that was say 70 cals for a piece instead of 300 something (with the same ingredients) it wouldn't affect you?

Not that I want to eat cake. Just trying to understand what's going on here

Thanks bb staff - I'll try that. I swear my stomach has doubled in size in the last week though. :S

Thanks that's exactly what I was wondering. It wouldn't give you all the nutrients you need though so I can totally see how it would mess you up if you then tried to get those nutrients. Cakes would be even worse since they don't fill you up AND are mega calorie...

Hmm, I could have sworn I posted this already but it disappeared and so did one of the previous ones in the thread. Must have hit a wrong button lol. :S

First - I had heard something like that study before and it totally makes sense considering all the advice re eating fruits, veggies etc to get lean. Good to know - not that I was planning to eat junk food anyway lol.

However... the thing is my stomach is definitely worse than it was a couple weeks ago and it's been like this too long for me to write it off as water retention any longer... something seems to be wrong.

The only things I'm eating that I wasn't in Phase II are whole wheat bagels, small amounts of fruit jam, fruit yogurt (1/2 cup per day) and the energy bars... is it possible I'm overly sensitive to carbs?

Nutrition info for the yogurt is here and for the energy bars is here - scroll to the right until you get to the Optimum Energy Bars - I eat the pomegranate cherry or blueberry flax ones. For the yogurt it's either Activia, Activia Fat Free or the Fibre ones.

I'm still kind of skeptical that I could possibly have added belly fat doing P90X but something is definitely wrong...

Hmm... some of both (measurements + the way I look). Plus, I can definitely tell by the way my clothes fit - it's like it's gone back to where it was in the middle of Phase II. Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you that it's not possible though lol. Maybe there's just something weird going on... I'm going to go on to Insanity after I finish P90X next week and IIRC its nutrition guide proportions are 40/40/20 just like Phase II, so let's see what happens.

Thanks to both of you for your help.