T25 newbie

Prior to leaving for my recent 3 week vacation, I did about 8 weeks of T25. I had previously done P90X and was getting great results (I'm 24 and didn't do much of ANYTHING active the first 20 years of my life, have always been pretty "skinny-fat"). I loved going from zero to strong and fit and saw major muscle growth and definition, but P90X was taking up way too much time and the routines were getting old.

I was super excited when I started T25, and still love it. But, while it's an amazing program, I'm not sure if I'll be going back to it when I get home and back into a workout routine.

Also a word of advice - (especially if you're using MFP) with T25 I'd highly recommend investing in a HR monitor. Especially if you're new (like I was!) for this type of plyo/cardio/HIIT activity when you start, you may be burning way more than you'd think.

Let me explain my thoughts---

PROS:
-Seriously killer workouts in 25 minutes. Like I was dripping sweat every time! And being able to go from zero to having worked out, showered and had a protein shake/snack within an hour is amazing.
-MAJOR burns! I was hitting 300-400 cal in some workouts, plus HR recovery time with continued burn since it's HIIT.
-Overall slimming and streamlining effect on your body, especially with good diet, is tough NOT to notice, even just after alpha phase.
-Sean T kicks *kitten*. Seriously. And with Tanya as a modifier you have zero excuse to slack.
-You will definitely improve certain aspects of your cardio and agility with these routines.

CONS:
-Super high impact to the point that I developed a severe lower back issue and was having difficulty walking. Let me stipulate, however, that I have back issues to begin with and have had spinal surgery. That said, I can lift, do yoga, Pilates, and most other things without issue, but even with some low impact modifications on certain moves, over time my neck, shoulders and most of all my back really took a beating. I'm just not sure if it's worth the potential for a lasting injury.
-Weight loss seems to occur over muscle gain, and for me I noticed some loss of muscle mass due to an excess of cardio and minimal weight training, especially in Alpha. I will admit that this gets somewhat better in Beta, but for my body type it's still a bit cardio-heavy. I know for some others this tendency toward weight loss may be preferable, but for me it just wasn't quite the right formula in terms of weight loss vs. toning and strengthening.

At the end of the day, it's an awesome program and will really give your fitness routine a kick start. Just make sure you take care of your body as well, and if you have the time/energy maybe add in some additional weight training too. It will have the added benefit of additional protection for your muscles and joints in all those high impact exercises!

Enjoy the program to those who've recently started, I'm eager to hear what you think as you progress!

I just finished day 2 and it is so hard. I can't imagine I will actually be able to ever keep up with them but going to try as hard as I can lol.

I'm really sorry to "hi-jack" this post but I'm after some advice and for some reason I can't work out how to start a new topic.
I'm just coming to the end of week 5 of Alpha (did week 4 twice as we had guests staying in our workout room so didn't complete the week) I haven't exercised properly in so long so I have found the workouts challenging but I've really enjoyed doing it and I feel I have so much more energy now even though I haven't actually lost any weight/ inches. I'm due to start Beta next week which, as I understand from previous posts is where most of the inch/ weight loss starts. However, I'm having an operation on my hand and I believe a lot of the workouts involve weights/ resistance bands. Could anyone who has done/ is doing Beta please let me know if there are any workouts similar to Cardio/ Speed 1.0 which don't involve weights or "hands on the floor" activities (planks, burpees etc).

I'm panicking a little bit as I don't want the progress I've made in improving my fitness levels to be ruined by having to miss out completely on working out. I estimate my hand will be out of action completely for 2 weeks then maybe another 2 weeks when I'll have to take it easy.

Thanks so much in advance for any help.