The order doesn't matter, you need equal and consistent amounts of all three. Exercising has never been an issue for me, as you can read in my previous blogs. A healthy diet and plenty of sleep, however, are my nemeses.
I'm currently reading The Big Picture by Tony Horton (creator of P90X and P90X3 among other workouts). As you may know, I completed the P90X workout 4 years ago and recently completed P90X3. However, my results have been quite different between the two. When I did P90X, I went all out. I ate an extremely healthy diet, got plenty of sleep and worked out 6 days of week for 13 weeks. I continued on that course for the 3 months that followed. However, after that, although I did several other Beachbody.com workouts I wasn't as strict with my diet and or my sleep.
For P90X3, however, I did the 13 weeks, 6 days a week religiously (with the exception of a couple of days one week when I got sick and a few Saturdays when I just didn't feel like working out), but this time I didn't really watch what I ate nor did I get the proper amount of sleep. I averaged about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night and you need at least 7 in order for your body to recoup and function properly. Needless to say, the results were sub par.
In The Big Picture, Tony talks about how important sleep is and that it is just as important as eating right and exercising. I've read that several times since then from other authors, exercise gurus and doctors. I've modified my sleeping habits accordingly by making sure I'm in bed by 10 most, if not every night, and sometimes even earlier (especially since I get up so early). However, my diet is still an issue.
In The Big Picture, Tony also discusses eating whole foods and from what I keep reading and hearing, the whole/real foods phenomenon seems to be all the rage now. Get rid of processed foods they say, eat food as close to its natural state as possible, don't eat anything with more than 5 ingredients, CUT OUT SUGAR, etc... I've been considering this for a while now and yesterday, I decided to give the whole/real foods diet thing a try.
What's prompted this change is that despite my P90X3 effort, I didn't see much of an improvement...in my mid-section. Although, I see improvement in my arms, legs, and butt, and my strength and endurance, I see no changes/improvements in my torso and in fact, I seem to have gained fat in that area. I feel bloated, sluggish, tired and irritable (as well as gaining a little weight/fat). I feel so blah that I started thinking something might actually be wrong with me internally (thyroid, hormonal imbalance, etc) So, I did a little research. First, I looked at the results from the blood work I had done in Feb and found that not only was my thyroid functioning just fine, according to my information, I have a slightly overactive thyroid. So then, I read up on hormonal imbalances (given my age...turned 43 on July 16...this isn't a far fetched idea neither is suspecting thyroid problems) however, what I found is that diet can help regulate these as well as improve my not so great symptoms listed above. Everything I read seems to point to diet. So, I finally admitted to myself that maybe I was trying to find an excuse for my issues instead of facing the cold hard facts that I am eating like crap and its making me feel that way. You know what they say, you are what you eat.
So, yesterday, I made a 10-day Real Foods Challenge Pledge with a start date of July 21, 2014. (there is also a 100 day real food challenge pledge http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/, but I wanted to ease into it.) I'm taking these three days beforehand to prepare. To be honest, the rules don't seem that difficult and I certainly should have no problems following them for 10 days. If I like how I feel when I'm done, I plan to continue. One thing is for sure, I can't feel any worse than I do now.
