Can Shakeology replace one of my meals in the P90X nutrition plan?
I'd
hope so, given that it's a meal replacement shake! But seriously, Xers
do have a different nutritional equation to consider than most other
people do. Generally, meal replacement shakes are designed so you drink
one of 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 to 150 calories.
Aren't most of the meals in the P90X nutrition plan in the 400 to 500 calorie range?
Exactly. And it won't serve the average Xer well to cut out calories.
This is because as you get fitter, your nutritional requirements change
along with your body composition. When you first start to exercise, you
can lose weight just by 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 can plateau, along with your ability to do the
workouts.
This is why we give you a lot of smoothie recipes and options.
Shakeology, like many other meal replacement shakes, 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, like fruit. Doing this not
only brings your calories into line with your diet plan, but helps you
balance your meals so they digest more slowly, like ordinary meals
generally do.
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 replace one of the snacks in the P90X nutrition plan?
Shakeology is an incredibly nutrient-rich snack, a perfect snack for
Xers. Again, 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, and it has a low
glycemic impact, which helps keep blood sugar levels stable.
Shakeology's
macronutrient ratio splits the difference among sports drink, protein
shake, and recovery drink, but it can substitute for any or all of them,
because it also has an excellent micronutrient profile. Most people are
focused only on macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbs), but
macronutrients are 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're 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 most of them have been destroyed in many of the
foods we eat, killed by things like processing and pasteurization. These
processed foods are then sprinkled with what have been lobbied to be
"important" ingredients, but which in reality barely provide enough
nutrition for basic survival, as opposed to thriving. As you can observe
by watching the American population grow "larger," this is leading to
all sorts of problems.
In
nature, of course, food doesn't come packaged and processed and robbed
of vital nutrients that make it good for us. 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 don't want to
see it happen. So the Big Food corporations 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 and poor health, because it's
much cheaper to make calorie-rich, nutrient-poor food than it is to
produce natural food.
This is why Shakeology has been designed the way it has. There isn't
any 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.
Can Shakeology substitute for P90X® 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"; it's essentially run out of
glycogen, or blood sugar. Any time you're in this state, the more
quickly you can recharge your glycogen, the less damage you'll do to
your muscle cells, and 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 does. Shakeology only has a little, for nutrient transport. But
because Shakeology's other ingredients also support your digestive
processes, it helps you assimilate nutrients more rapidly. The latest
science showing that a small amount of protein can "piggyback" on sugar,
helping your body put the protein 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's Shakeology 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 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 more quickly into
the system than other proteins do. 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 a standard
protein drink can't do.
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 previous example involving
processed foods, on any given day, most of us only get a fraction of the
nutrients we should be consuming, 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 the movie
Supersize Me,
you may recall that 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'll digest more easily with help from Shakeology's digestive enzymes
and whole-food sources of nutrients. One of the limiting factors with
supplements is how well (or not so well) your body can assimilate them.
Adding them to something you know your digestive system can break down
easily 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 isn't just reducing
calories; it's also finding a way to reduce your caloric intake and
still get enough nutrients to keep you body functioning at its highest
level. To do this, you need to seek out nutrient-dense foods. As I said
before, you'd be hard-pressed to find something else that's 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's 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. Then your workout will help you get the most out of Shakeology,
and the Shakeology will help you during the latter part of your
workout, especially if your glycogen stores have been depleted slightly.
Shakeology can also be effective pre-workout, post-workout, or any time
during the day when your energy's flagging and you need a pick-me-up.
Or you can make Shakeology smoothies and simply replace your meals.
Basically, you 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 on the
surface, Shakeology might look expensive. 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. They're full of man-made sugar, chemicals, and the
by-products of genetically modified corn and soy production—no nutrition
whatsoever. Whereas if you tried to assemble all the nutrients in
Shakeology independently, you'd have to spend 40 bucks.
If you're serious about your health, you should consider what you spend
your money on. People drop 3 to 4 bucks a day on things that are a
detriment to their health without batting an eye. We're talking the
retail price of a latte or a smoothie, or any number of things that are
even less healthy. The consumer is essentially at war with a bunch of
corporations that seem to be trying to poison them to make a quick buck.
The obesity trend will only end when we take some responsibility for
our health and begin to make better food choices.
If you have any questions about Shakeology, please use our helpful Shakeology FAQ page at faq.shakeology.com. You can also e-mail me jaydpaul@gmail.com, find me on facebook www.facebook.com/coach.ryann.paul , or go to www.myshakeology.com/mommyfied
I will be your FREE Coach!
Get your P90X & Shakeology together and save money go here! P90X Challenge pack
Or if you want to step up your game and be further Challenged go for P90X2!!
