Shakeology® and P90X

By Steve Edwards

The whole Beachbody community is buzzing about Shakeology and all the great health benefits it provides. Today, Steve Edwards answers your questions about how to best incorporate it into your P90X regimen.

Can Shakeology replace one of my meals in the P90X nutrition plan?

I’d hope so, given that it’s a meal replacement shake! [laughs] But seriously, Xers do have a different nutritional equation to consider than most people. Generally, meal replacement shakes are designed so that you drink them instead of eating a meal to help you lose weight. Of course, Shakeology fits into this mold just fine. In fact, given how nutrient-dense it is, I’d say it’s better than anything on the market. And even though it contains an entire day’s worth of many nutrients, it’s still only 140 calories.

Aren’t most of the meals in P90X nutrition plan in the 400 to 500 calorie range?

Exactly, and the average Xer won’t be served well to cut out calories. The reason is that as you get fitter your nutritional requirements change, along with your body composition. When you first start to exercise, you can lose weight by just restricting your caloric intake. But as you gain muscle, you need to eat more to continue losing weight, and this is often a lot more than you ate when you first began losing weight—sometimes it’s more than double. If you eat too little during P90X, your weight loss will plateau, along with your ability to do the workouts.

This is why we give you a lot of smoothie recipes and options. Shakeology, like any other meal replacement shake, can be a component of something larger. For meals, we suggest adding more calories from healthy fat sources, like nut butters (almonds, cashews, etc.), along with more standard smoothie-like ingredients such as fruit. This not only brings your calories into line with your diet plan but balances meals so they digest more slowly, as normal meals would.

Can Shakeology replace one of the snacks in the P90X nutrition plan?

Shakeology is a ridiculously nutrient-rich snack, a perfect snack for Xers. Because it doesn’t have much fat, its nutrients are put to use very quickly by your body. This makes it an ideal pick-me-up snack when you’re on the go. It’s better, in fact, than a lot of energy drinks. While something like Red Bull might give you more up-front punch, Shakeology will give you sustained energy because it’s providing nutrients your body needs to get things done.

Shakeology’s macronutrient ratio splits the difference among sports drink, protein shake, and recovery drink, but it can substitute for all of them in any given situation because it also has an excellent micronutrient profile. Most people are focused only on macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbs), but they’re only part of your nutritional equation. Micronutrients are things like phytonutrients, adaptogens, and other scientific-sounding stuff. While we refer to these as "micro," nutritionally, they are anything but small. Many of them are absolutely essential for a healthy life. Shakeology speeds these micronutrients into your system, which enables you to perform better.

Why don’t we hear more about the importance of micronutrients?

Not to dwell too much on conspiracy theories, but "big food," as we call the American food industry, doesn’t want us focusing on micronutrients because they’ve been destroyed in most of the foods we eat. Things like food processing and pasteurization kill most of the micronutrients in food. These processed foods are then sprinkled with what have been lobbied to be "important" ingredients, which in reality only provide enough nutrition for surviving, as opposed to thriving. As you can observe by watching society grow larger, this is leading to all sorts of problems.

In nature, food doesn’t come this way. It has a balance of nutrients that help sustain life. It’s possible for food scientists to recreate this balance in processed foods, but this is expensive. Essentially, if it doesn’t fit the numbers, shareholders want to see it doesn’t happen. So they make cheap food and keep us in the dark about nutrition. This is exactly why we’re in the predicament we’re in today (with obesity), because we can make calorie-rich but nutrient-poor food cheaper than we can produce natural food.

This is why Shakeology is designed the way it is. There is no one food in nature that has all the micronutrients we need to fill the nutritional gaps in our diets—that’s why we need to eat a variety of foods. But most of us don’t do that. So at its core, this is what Shakeology is doing—filling in our nutritional gaps.

I’m doing the Portion Approach in P90X. What block(s) could Shakeology replace?

The portion plan is basically little chunks of macronutrients portioned out to help you easily balance your diet. Shakeology is equal parts carbs and protein, with almost no fat. So Shakeology can replace one block of protein and one block of carbs.

Can Shakeology substitute for Results and Recovery Formula?

It’s not an exact swap, but you could do a lot worse. When you’re training very hard, like those times when your body is shaking during, say, P90X Chest & Back, Results and Recovery Formula is better because your body is bonking—essentially out of glycogen, or blood sugar. Any time you’re in this state, the quicker you can recharge your glycogen, the less damage you’ll do to your muscle cells, and hence, the faster you’ll recover. It’s the one and only time sugar is a preferred nutrient in your diet.

Shakeology doesn’t have nearly as much sugar as Results and Recovery Formula. It only has a little for nutrient transport. But because its other ingredients also support your digestive process, you have rapid assimilation of nutrients. The science from the ’90s showing that a small amount of protein can "piggyback" sugar and be put to use more rapidly, during or after exercise, holds true for Shakeology. It’s not as effective as a Results and Recovery Formula for your hardest workouts, but at any other time, it’s pretty darn good.

How about as a protein shake?

Shakeology has an ample amount of protein. While many protein shakes on the market may have more grams of protein, the type of protein they use often digests so slowly that you can’t drink them when you’re active. Shakeology uses whey protein, which is one of the most (if not the most) bioavailable sources of protein. That means it absorbs quicker into the system than other proteins. Most proteins, especially when you get them in a whole food, take forever to digest. This means that eating protein right before, during, or right after exercise is generally a waste because your body is using energy to digest something that won’t help you for hours, energy that it could be using to enhance your workout or recovery. But when you combine whey protein along with Shakeology’s other nutrients, you have a high-protein shake that can fit into many different nutritional slots in your day, something lacking in a standard protein drink.

Should I still bother taking P90X Peak Health Formula or ActiVit Multivitamins if I’m drinking Shakeology every day?

We get the vitamin question a lot because Shakeology has so many vitamins in it already. However, using my above example of processed foods, most of us only get a fraction of the nutrients that we should consume on any given day, even when we’re eating more calories than we should. This is exactly why we have vitamin supplements in the first place. Throw exercise into the equation, which accelerates your body’s usage of nutrients, and you can see why we recommend so many times the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for certain vitamins and minerals.

For an average person, Shakeology might eliminate the need for a multivitamin. But if you remember that movie Supersize Me, the average American takes about 600 steps a day—which isn’t even your warm-up for a P90X workout! No one doing a Beachbody program is average. Xers, especially, are advised to take additional vitamin supplements.

It’s also great to take your supplements along with Shakeology because they will digest more easily. One of the limiting factors with supplements is how well your body can assimilate them, so adding them to something that you know is broken down easily by your digestive system is a plus.

It’s important to mention two other variables here as well. First, many—if not most—of our customers are trying to lose weight. This requires reducing caloric intake while adding exercise, which increases nutrient requirements. Starting to see an equation where multivitamins and supplements make sense? The body can be a complex organism, but this comes down to simple math. The key to losing weight is not just about reducing calories; it’s about finding a way to reduce your caloric intake and still get enough nutrients to keep you body functioning at its highest level. The key to doing this is to seek out nutrient-dense foods. As I said before, you’d be hard-pressed to find something as nutrient-dense as Shakeology.

Then there’s the RDA, which is the "recommended daily allowance" for everybody. Imagine one nutritional number for every person on the planet, from a 100-pound computer programmer who sits all day to a 350-pound NFL lineman. How absurd is that? Anybody who is doing P90X is no longer an average individual. So chances are the RDA won’t fit the bill if you want your body to perform as well as it can.

When’s the best time to drink Shakeology during a P90X day?

One of the beautiful things about Shakeology is how versatile it is. Because it helps you digest anything you consume along with it, there isn’t really a wrong time to have it. Ideally, its best slot in an Xer’s day is as a pre-workout snack, taken about 1 hour prior to your warm-up. Your impending workout will help you get the most out of Shakeology and it will help you during the latter part of your workout, especially if your glycogen stores are slightly depleted. It can be effective pre-workout, post-workout, or any time during the day when your energy is flagging and you need a pick-me-up. Or you can make smoothies and simply replace your meals. You basically can’t go wrong.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about Shakeology?

Price holds a lot of people back, and I can understand that it looks expensive on the surface. We tend to look at foods in a cost-to-calorie ratio, instead of a cost-to-nutrient ratio. Sure, you can buy a Big Gulp and you get 800 calories for a dollar (or something like that). But what good are they? There are no micronutrients. It’s man-made sugar, chemicals, and by-products of genetically modified corn and soy production—no nutrition whatsoever. Whereas if you tried to find all the nutrients in Shakeology, you’d spend forty bucks.

If you’re serious about your health, you should consider what you spend your money on. People drop three to four bucks a day on things that are a detriment to their health without batting an eye. We’re talking the price of a latte or smoothie or any number of things that are much worse than that. The consumer is at war with a lot of corporations that are trying to poison them to make a quick buck. The obesity trend will only stop when we take some responsibility for our health and begin to make better food choices.

To learn more about Shakeology or to order a bag, click HERE

In the order of importance with the P90X program, you have:

1.  Commitment to the diet. As I tell all the people that I coach over and over again, the diet makes up 80% of your results. If you can’t commit to the diet, forget about getting ripped.

2.  Commitment to the workouts. The P90X system requires you to workout 6 days a week, and the workouts aren’t easy either. There is no going around it, you have to complete the workouts to build muscle and burn fat.

3.  Mental toughness. This is what separates the people who get great results from the people who get absoutely stunning results, and is what I’m going to focus on in this post.

Everything about P90X is mental, whether it’s with the diet or workouts, but mental toughness is one thing that most people don’t have or quite understand.  Why have I been so successful with P90X and the P90X coaching business? The word “can’t” isn’t in my vocabulary. Let’s start with the diet. When I first started the program, do you think I wanted to completely change the way I ate, eliminating ALL junk food? Heck no, but I did. I knew that I had to in order to get amazing results! There were countless times during my first round (and something I still face to this day) that people have either made fun of the way I ate or tempted me to eat something that wasn’t good for me, but instead of giving in, I stayed mentally strong and committed. The problem is that most people are weak and can’t commit to the diet. This is why the majority of the people fail to get great results. If you want to succeed with P90X, stay mentally strong with the diet.

The workouts are very tough, and there will be many times that you just don’t feel like working out, but if you’re out looking for extreme results, it takes extreme dedication. You have to be mentally strong to be able to complete every single workout for the entire 90 days. I can’t tell you how many times I felt completely exhausted, but still managed to fit in the workout. Did I want to workout? No.  But I did any anyway.

Along with completing all the workouts, there is another side of mental toughness that is involved during the workouts, and that’s the ability to push yourself. Most people don’t understand how to push themselves, and stop the exercise way before they should. There is this little voice in the head that says “I can’t,” but in reality you can. This is something that I have learned from my parents growing up, and something I stress to everyone that I coach. Never quit or give up too early. Nothing comes easy, and the workouts definitely aren’t easy, but if you put in hard work and dedication, pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will notice greater and faster results than if you just did everything “average.” Never settle for less than your best!

If you struggle staying mentally strong, then talk to me about it, and I can help you out. I will be very straight forward with you, but will tell you exactly what you need to hear. Mental toughness is one of the most important parts of the P90X program, and if you can stay mentally strong, watch out, because you are going to see someone ripped looking back at you in the mirror after 90 days!

Here is a post from my coach that I thought I would pass on to you:

One of the problems with our society is that we focus on what is happening now, instead of what will happen in the future with every action that we take. For example, when just starting a new workout or diet program like P90X, the majority of people will expect to see results right away. This narrow minded thinking causes people to quickly get discouraged, quit the program, and go on with their unhealthy ways. As a coach, I’ve seen it hundreds of times. However, take a second and think about the people that have had great success with P90X, like Tommy Mygrant, Jeffrey Armbruster, Mark Briggs, Robert Hudgens, Barbie Decker, and on and on. Each of these people who have had tremendous success all have one thing in common, they have focused on the bigger picture instead of what was happening now. Tommy at his heaviest was around 280lbs, which is about the time he started P90X. As an obese but determined man, do you think he started P90X and thought to himself after the first day that since he didn’t see amazing results he should quit? Hell no! Tommy knew that it would take a lot of dedication and hard work to both the diet and workouts on a consistent basis if he wanted to make a great change for the future. Tommy and I are a lot alike in that we set super high goals, and understand that it takes time to reach those goals! He truly believed that he would be one of the most successful weight loss stories ever, and guess what, he did it! He knew and understood that it might take him a year to reach his goal, but he was going to do little positive things every day to reach it.

It isn’t a surprise that everyone I mentioned above and myself have all have success with the Beachbody coaching business either. Are you starting to notice a pattern? The people who have had great success with their transformations have built a successful business as well! Why? First of all, starting your own business is highly comparable to starting your own fitness journey, or a program like P90X. You start out at the complete bottom and then work your way to the top. Your determination, hard work, commitment, and ability to make sacrifices every single day all have an affect on how quickly you reach the top. We are a rarity. We completely understand the amount of effort it takes to reach the top, and don’t let any obstacle or any negativity keep us from reaching that goal. Will we fail along the way? Yes, of course. However, we learn from our failures and move on, making the necessary adjustments to make sure that that particular failure doesn’t happen again. Most people get discouraged when they fail, and don’t have the mental toughness to move forward. We are different.

Second, we pay no attention to immediate results because they don’t exist. From working eight to ten hours today on coaching, I won’t see any results in my income or growth tomorrow. So why work eight to ten hours? Because I know that it will have a HUGE impact on how successful I am in a year, two years, 5 or 10 years from now! If you eat a Big Mac every day will you notice a difference the next day? Probably not. However, in a year or two you might find that your cholesterol and weight have increased. These tiny negative actions lead to a bigger negative outcome in the future. I have super high goals for myself, and will do little positive things every single day to build up a successful future, and you need to do the same. I don’t picture what my life will be like tomorrow, but I do picture what it will be like in the future, and that’s why I’ve had success with everything that I’ve done, from my fitness transformation to my Beachbody Coaching Business.

If you are someone who focuses on immediate results, take a second to think about this post and how it can affect what you do from now on. I can tell you right now that if you stop focusing on what is happening now, and focus on improving little things from day to day, you will have success with everything that you do.  Again, you will fail from time to time, but stay mentally tough and learn from your mistakes. You are in control of your future!

Your belief system is everything.  You truly do create your own reality.  Watch this clip from Will Smith that I think pretty much sums it up:

Basically, in English, what this means is that you want to see, hear, feel, smell, & taste success.  Doing one is just not enough if you really want to melt the rest of your body fat off or grow all the muscle and truly transform, once and for all.  This video goes for anything you want in life as well, not just your fitness goals.