Tuesday, June 02, 2009


Workout: P90X Calories & Diet?

It's a big question -- how many calories should I eat whilst doing P90X, or any crazy-hard workout routine?

I have the easy answer. Here's the equation/logic (borrowed from another P90X user from a few years back) that will give you your total intake number.

Once you have it, consider using fitday.com to track every calorie and keep your Protein levels above Carbs, balanced as outlined in your P90X diet guide.

First, you should figure out how many calories you'll need to eat a day and which 'nutrition level' you're in. Just follow these basic calculations to get your estimates:

1: Calculate your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), which is basically the number of calories required to live:

Your Body Weight x 10 = Your RMR

2: Calculate your Daily Activity Burn, which is about the number of calories required for daily movement apart from exercise:

Your RMR x 20% = Daily Activity Burn

3: Add the calories required for your exercise needs, which the program calculates at around 600 calories per day:

Your RMR + Daily Activity Burn + 600 = Energy Amount, or how many calories you should be eating a day while on P90X.

This is where the Nutrition Level comes in:

If your Energy Amount is between:

1,800-2,399, you're in level 1 and should eat roughly 1,800 calories a day.

2,400-2,999, you're in level 2 and should eat roughly 2,400 calories a day.

3,000+, you're in level 3 and should eat roughly 3,000 calories a day.

Naturally, these are all estimates, and I had some tweaking to do myself during the first week. I completely bonked (ran COMPLETELY out of energy) during my first Plyometrics workout, and had to take a long break and eat and basically re-energize myself before completing it; I hadn't been eating enough.

While I fall into the 2,400 calories spot, I've ratcheted down to 2,200 to see how I would fare. So far, no bonking during the workouts, and I'm not hungry.

Will give it another two weeks and it I'm still OK, I'll move down to 2,000. Here's my personal fitday.com public profile -- keeping it open and real and open to everyone to keep myself accountable, as always.

3 comments:

Faith | Family | Fitness said...

Great post. My husband and I get calls every day from people regarding nutrition. It's crazy how people stress over it so much when they now have to think of food in an entirely new way.

Tim McLain said...

Glad to help Christina -- honestly, this is the first time I've carefully tracked all incoming calories on a P90X round. My results till now have been good to great -- not insanely great. It's my hope that adding this final piece to the puzzle will pay off, and I'm already down 6 pounds this first week. ;)

Unknown said...

I am starting P90X now and was a little confused about the diet plan. I used my current weight to determine that I am Phase 1- Level 1 and I know that I should do that for the first 28 days then change to Phase 2. I was just wondering if before I start Phase 2 will I need to recalculate my nutrition level with the weight I am on day 28 or will I continue to use my day 1 stats and always use Level 1?