Question Re:P90X + running?

It is nearly impossible to give a meaningful answer to this without knowing a whole lot more about you. What is your diet? What is your current fitness level.

The fact is that if you are not in shape, your body needs time to build up. Is doing both bad? No. Will you be tired? Yes probably.

Most people do not know the difference between pain and injury or tired and exhaustion.

That being said, you are in control of how hard you push yourself and where your body is at. Are you willing to go to sleep for 9 hours a night? Can you be sore for a week?

So the short answer is no, and the long answer is maybe.

For me to do what you are doing, I would be considering it an 'easy' week, but my life is different from yours and I am willing to live with a lot of pain to train for where I need to be.

A good plan needs a good goal first and then build your plan specific to where you are and how and when you need to get where you are going.

Mostly any program that has you following a strict 5-6 day a week schedule was meant to be done on its own, and it is difficult to incorporate additional exercise of any kind without creating problems in one of the following areas:

1. Too little rest in between periods of high intensity exercise, which can stunt results OR make you more prone to injury
2. It becomes difficult to meet your now astronomically high calorie requirements
3. It becomes difficult to meet your now higher sleep requirements

This is not to say it can't be done. It just requires a lot of planning when it comes to both rest and nutrition. I like the above suggestion about removing the "cardio" workouts from P90X and adding in running to replace them. However it should be noted that Plyo X is more than just a "cardio" workout. It is a very intense lower body resistance session and if you omit it from the schedule completely you may find your upper body will develop at a different rate than your lower body.

I am on week 7 of p90x. Personally I couldn't handle phase 1 of the nutrition guide. My body just doesn't do well on high protein/low carb. I did it for about 3 weeks and crashed. I had horrible dizzy spells and had no energy what so ever. After upping my carbs and lowering my protein a little I started to feel much better. I don't have any advice about running along with it. What the other person said about subbing the kenpo and plyo out sounds like a good idea. I love running but I love plyo more so it wouldn't work for me lol but it may work for you.

Wow! Right on! That is great for you to have done so much already.

Now that sounds like a plan, and a good one. I would caution one thing. DO NOT get attached to that weight number. It sounds like you have a naturally strong body type, just guessing by your description. Muscle weighs more, and you may find that 'loss' of inches comes at the gain of weight once you get going. It will even out in the end and you will see it in the mirror, but don't let that weight number trip you up.

Your diet looks good. When I cut, or do strength work, I keep my protein higher and carbs lower because I build better with about 50% protein, 25 fat 25 carbs and never mix the carbs and fat when I eat (if I can help it). But you are not me, so play with it a little bit and see what works good for you. The good thing is that all you need is fine tuning based on your activity and that is a great place to be.

An hour a day is plenty of time to do what you want to do. (and good for you!) If you want to add some strength into your running days without changing much, (i am assuming you have good shoes) you run at about 10km/hr (6mi/hr) go for a few min to get warmed up and throw in some hill sprints (charge up fast, walk back down slow) or some timed sprints at about 85% effort for 30 seconds then fast walk or jog for a min. and repeat 3 times. Then run as slow as you need to make it back without disgracing yourself and crawling. The effort will build your legs, abs, core, and also give you higher cardio HR after you do it for your now slower run. I would not do anything else the day you do this or do it more than once a week until are feeling tougher.

At 36 the good news is that you are in your cardio prime. 30's are considered endurance years, so you are the perfect age to rock out the endurance workouts or marathon or whatever.

Your P90x workouts to build strength and core are great to get you started. If you keep going you will probably want to lift more than just the cals and body weight, but if you are looking for tone and beginning, that is perfect. You can also make it heavier by adding a child or pet, or backpack of books or whatever to your P90X to your workout. I had a friend who had this baby carry harness thing and he did squats and lunges with his kids strapped on him then ran pushing the stroller.

Calories: The question is, how much do you burn ... I would guess that your running pace you are burning 100calories/10 min. If you feel your HR is slimier during P90x then you want to assume about the same burning rate. I use a fancy HR monitor that knows my age and weight and tracks my HR and speed etc. I know it is very close, based on experience with it. But lacking something like that you have to guess. So, what do you burn in a day just doing life, plus what do you burn during exercise minus how much deficit do you want to create to loose weight. (not too much or you will be weak and tired) Keeping in mind that the more you build the more you burn.

I am guessing also by you saying that you varied your calorie intake that you have realized that your body adjusts to a static equilibrium if you stick to the same thing all the time? Not everyone has this issue, but if you do, good for you for shaking it up! Self awareness award! The last thing you want is your body lowering your metabolism or something while you are trying to sit and read because it feels it needs to conserve so it has enough for exercise. If that is you, keep doing that every few weeks.

Once again, good for you for getting this going with all that you have to do and old injuries.

Oh yea, one more thing. If something isn't working, don't keep doing it because 'it's good for you'. It is only good for you if it is working.

Also pay attention to how your sweat smells. If you are working out hard and start to get that sharp 'cat urine' smell, you are burning LBM ... not a bad thing per se, but realize that you need to get some good solid protein after that workout and give yourself a good solid recovery day(s) with water and sleep.

You're really looking for a downward trend in squishy-ness rather than an absolute number. If you're consistent with your weight workouts and make sure you're in a sensible deficit, you'll lose mostly fat and the photos will show you what you need to know.

What is considered a sensible deficit?

Check this out
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/952996-level-obstacles-lose-weight-target-fat-easy

I did both at the same time last year. I started with classic and then switched to the "doubles" after the first month. I swapped out the Kenpo and Cardio X for running. Since several days were "doubles," I was running and lifting on the same days. But never doing 2 cardio sessions like running & plyo on the same day.

It's definitely do-able!