P90X; Gym; Calorie Deficit

bradspace

I am in week 3 of my first round of P90X. Prior to starting it, I was hitting weights (full body, superset workout) on Mon, Wed and Fri mornings. Also, I was doing 30-45 min of cardio every day. I quickly learned that it was not possible to maintain this schedule and give 100% to P90X, so I backed off the weights a bit and started doing "fill in" workouts on days where the program wasn't working a specific body part while still doing the cardio daily. In addition, I have been using My Fitness Pal to log calories and exercise. I am supposed to be taking in 1750 calories every day before exercise. Between the P90X and the gym, I am burning between 1200 and 1800 calories a day which typically leaves me with a net calorie deficit of 700-1200.

Having said all that, my questions are:
Am I doing my body more harm than good with the additional cardio and weights at the gym?
Am I causing my body to enter a "starvation mode" by using up so many calories?

I would appreciate any insight on this before I do myself more harm than good and end up behind on reaching my goals.

Thanks!

lilchino4af

As long as you eat your recommended daily allotment of calories per MFP and at least some (maybe 25% to start with) of your exercise calories, you should be ok. Just take it one week at a time and judge what works best for your body. Listen to it, because it knows what it needs. If you're hungry, it will tell you and you should eat more. But if you're not hungry then there's no need to gorge yourself. Just be aware that all the weights you're doing will be building muscle at the same time you're burning fat so you may not see any movement on the scale. In this case, taking measurements is crucial because it'll be the only way to see progress being made until the scale starts moving again. Hopefully this helps. Main thing is to listen to your body!!

PeachyKeene

Personally, I believe you exercise to lose the weight (or gain the muscle). Why waste the cardio work out if you are just going to eat the calories back? My doctor told me to eat between 1200-1300 calories a day no matter if I exercise or not and my body will not go into starvation mode.

jamesadcox

I applaud your efforts. You should make up almost your entire calorie deficit since you need to fuel your body to handle all of the exertion. Make sure you are getting your proper nutritional needs and you probably need to supplement in some vitamins and protein to help with recovery and encourage muscle development. Otherwise I say keep up that hard work.

pyro13g

I looked in your profile and I get a sedentary calorie intake of 2630(2130 to lose 1lb per week and 1630 for 2lbs) for you. That means you need 3830 -4430 to maintain current weight. so 3330-3930 to lose 1lb a week and 2830-3430 for 2lbs.

Sounds like you are basically doing doubles which is pretty advanced, especially for endurance type stuff. Under-eating is not an option really. You are greatly increasing your risk of over training. If that happens, your muscle is going to atrophy Frankly, if you've been doing full body super set routines, sell the P90X, you don't need it's inferior(to how you already lift) high volume split routines. P90X is weightlifting 101 with exercises that aren't the best option for muscle but minimize equipment. Buy a book on HIT weight training with the P90X sale or read online about it. It may free up a lot of your time to do other things. And if my thinking is correct, you need to eat a lot more right now. Maybe take a day or two off and work it back out.

The way it appears, I would say yes, you're greatly reducing the odds of hitting your goals .

Yeah, I just did the P90X guides math on your weight you list. 3400 for 1lb of loss per week, 2900 for 2lb for only doing P90X according to it's 6 days schedule. Be careful with super shortages on P90X I''d start with 3400 and see how it goes. You're already ahead of the curve from the full body super sets. You'll put muscle on slower than someone who never lifts.

From another perspective you could keep the superset full body(even drop the superset part if you've been at it a while) and keep your previous cardio and start with that 2900-3400 per day to lose 1lb per week. As you start dropping weight you'll need to adjust calories down. I still think the 2900 is too low right now and you'd be better served by 3400 and dropping down to that 2lb a week clip over 5-10 weeks. You're doing a lot of work, yo don't want over training to strike you down and out for an extended period. The only way to drop the calorie load is to start dropping cardio and keep the weight lifting to 20-30 minutes. Then your probably looking at 2400-2900 without the cardio(really depends what those sessions actually burn).