P90X is an ok starting point for people new to fitness, if you can handle the over-the-top fitness narrators on there. But it WILL stop being effective after about 4 months.
The reason it gets such rave reviews is that people who never worked out start using it and seeing results after 2-3 months. This will hold true for nearly any workout program initially, because and untrained body is much more susceptible to losing weight and/or gaining muscle. If you are serious about wanting to be in shape and have fitness be a part of your life in the long run, I suggest going to an actual gym and doing some resistance exercises with REAL weights - you not only burn fat at a much higher weight, but you also build muscle as well.
I totally understand what you are saying, and sort of touch on that in the article. I don't think P90X is the best long term solution, buts it's great for people that are just learning how to become fit as it's an all-in-one solution.
After completing my first 90 days, I bought a weight bench/smith machine, started lifting, and started running.
Many people get intimidated by just hitting the gym without much fitness knowledge (the people, the equipment, the possible embarrassment, etc...).
Great tips for staying motivated on there. It sounds simple, but I find the easiest thing to do is just not buy the crap food. I find it very easy to resist the purchase, but much harder to resist eating if I know something is in the cupboard - so the supermarket trip becomes the most important thing!
We are currently building a community at http://www.skinnyo.com to help with the other side of keeping yourself motivated - getting friends and others involved and even competing with them. It's obviously much harder to do these things alone..
Fitness should be easy for nerds. We must only understand one concept: being healthy is smart. Not only for longevity, but cause it actually will make you smart. And when we're on the frontlines of tech business - we need to be as smart as possible. Eating healthy and regular exercise is, to me, a strategy for being; and maintaining intelligence. And in that context it's not only easy, but it's compelling, to do these things.
It makes sense that pizza and Mtn Dew became the defacto standard for codemonkeys...they're quick, cheap and tasty. But over time the quickfoods diet becomes counter-productive. The sugar/caffeine crash and greasy fats slow everything down.
I started working out a year or so ago and it is now a pretty core part of my week. I haven't tried p90x yet but several of my friends have had good things to say and I want to jump into it in January.
Either that, or someone needs to hurry up and make the tech that allows us to download our brain/personality to hardware already so we can do without those annoying wetware limitations of requiring sleep, food and exercise. :-)
The reason it gets such rave reviews is that people who never worked out start using it and seeing results after 2-3 months. This will hold true for nearly any workout program initially, because and untrained body is much more susceptible to losing weight and/or gaining muscle. If you are serious about wanting to be in shape and have fitness be a part of your life in the long run, I suggest going to an actual gym and doing some resistance exercises with REAL weights - you not only burn fat at a much higher weight, but you also build muscle as well.