P90X workout, diet, supplements and hair loss - opinions and experiences

I want to start the P90 X program, and diet (the diet is similar to what i already eat now), and supplements.

Reducing body fat, increasing muscle mass, sweating a lot .. are all good things for detox and regulating blood sugar.

Should I worry about any bad hair effects from the workout.. if i increase my T levels would that benefit or hurt the hair? how about cortisol levels will that go up from intense exercise, will this benefit or hurt the adrenals and thyroid?

Is their supplement line any good, i am often wary of shakes and blends and energy bars and drinks .. i like the more bio-available options.

If you have any knowledge or experience with this let me know plz.

Thanks

If you're not in good shape I think doing all 6 days may be a shock to your body and cortisol levels will elevate. The increased T should only affect you positively. the problem is if you shock your central nervous system and have an over production of Cortisol your T will not be increasing like it should.

I suggest listening to your body. Do day 1. If you're extremely sore either rest the next day or do some very light exercise/stretching (better option)... and in general I wouldn't do 6 days of intense wroking out in a row. Maybe start with 3 days a week with days off in between and then add another day after a couple weeks. this way you and your body won't get bored/stagnant with the same 6 workouts day in day out either... Always listen to your body.

I would get my own supplements. I don't know much about the p90x supps, but I'd rather listen to why they're using what and then build my own regimen off of that. Most important is going to be your diet and rest though.

Thanks.. I see your diet in the signature. I like your diet, that's what I'm working towards.

teacup - The thing you might not be able to avoid is there are toxins that are stored within our bodyfat that when they are burned/released can cause hair loss. It's part of the reason why morbidly obese people have perfect heads of hair as the toxins are all tucked away in the body fat and aren't damaging their hair. That being said, the benefits of exercise outweigh the chance that vigorous workouts might cause some additional hair loss. I doubt that working out at a high level is going to take all your hair, but it might cause some shedding. Staying on the IH regimen and keeping your diet clean should help you.

I know in my case I dropped 80 pounds doing Interval training and weight lifting and following the IH regimen with a good diet. I did not lose any additional hair from going through that transformation. But there are reports of men losing hair when they do vigorous workouts that shed stored fat.

I think doing P90X is a very good thing. I do some of the videos at home when I can't make it to the gym. They are hard and they kick your ass. Go for it. Don't worry about raising T. T is not the enemy. If it's cortisol you're worried about start using Sensoril to control it going forward.

Good luck!

Thanks man

Yep, i will use Sensoril / ashawagadha after my exercises (maybe an hour or 2 later) to help with stress.

@yanks is the Vitex you list in your sig Vitex agnus-castus?

@hadrion, you know i never really thought about that idea of morbidly obese somehow protecting their hair by never releasing the toxins they take in! pretty interesting concept and I guess that explains the issue some have with weightlifting and increased shedding. Unfortunately, if this is the case, some people are getting scared off from lifting/exercising bc of a misconception of what's happening. If they were to just hang in there they might reach a point where it starts benefittin hair instead of hurting it!

What's your routine like btw?

@sdguy, yup angus castus. I'm not sure of what benefit it would be if you don't think prolactin is an issue though. Still may be worth a try since it's inexpensive. I'll be buying powder in bulk instead of capsules next go round.

BTW if I'm not mistaken was it you who did the mole experiment for the HealthyFixx article? If so how are the scars now at a few months past?

Yanks wrote:@hadrion, you know i never really thought about that idea of morbidly obese somehow protecting their hair by never releasing the toxins they take in! pretty interesting concept and I guess that explains the issue some have with weightlifting and increased shedding. Unfortunately, if this is the case, some people are getting scared off from lifting/exercising bc of a misconception of what's happening. If they were to just hang in there they might reach a point where it starts benefittin hair instead of hurting it!

What's your routine like btw?

@sdguy, yup angus castus. I'm not sure of what benefit it would be if you don't think prolactin is an issue though. Still may be worth a try since it's inexpensive. I'll be buying powder in bulk instead of capsules next go round.

BTW if I'm not mistaken was it you who did the mole experiment for the HealthyFixx article? If so how are the scars now at a few months past?

Yanks - That's actually a theory I've seen CS post in here in the years I've been talking to him on here. It makes a ton of sense. I know guys that are 350-400 pounds who have hair like Robert Redford. What I've also noticed is when they yo-yo diet and go up and down in weight, their hair goes to shit. The one's who stay fatter sometimes keep their hair. I'm addicted to watching Biggest Loser and most of the guys on that show have full heads of hair. It's rare to see more than 1 bald dude on it. That said, when you see the after pics of some of those guys you see hair loss starting. It's interesting.

As for my program I'm always changing it as my body adapts quickly to what I do and then plateau's. What I focus on is at least 3 High intensity interval training sessions cardio wise a week. If I can do a 4th I will but I push so hard in the 3 I usually don't have the gas to do more. In those sessions I'm closely monitoring my heart rate. I try to reach my heart rate threshold (the highest it will go) at least 1-2 times in those sessions. If you're training properly it gets harder and harder to reach threshold. Usually I can do it in a spinning/cycling class with max resistance on the bike pedaling as hard as I can. I also can get there doing uphill sprints on a treadmill or outside. My threshold is 171 beats per minute. It's hard for me to get there but when I do it feels like I've hit a stone wall. Anyway, my three cardio sessions are intense. They usually last anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour including warm up and cool down. A lot of literature says you only need to do like 20 minutes of those kind of intervals but I feel like I still have fat around my mid section and I want the extra caloric burn.

Then I lift weights 2-3 times a week. I do the resistance training regimen in a book called Body For Life. That though has led me to getting huge muscular wise. Too huge. My chest,shoulders, back and neck are enormous now. So I've backed off that regimen and I'm doing higher reps/lower weight shorter recovery. I'm also taking some bodyweight exercise classes which I would think are similar to the P90X classes. Those are changing my body. I pretty much got strong enough to rack every machine in the gym, but doing the bodyweight exercises kicks my ass. I'm standing up straighter and I've also noticed some persistant ache's and pains have gone away since I've dropped the heavy weights. And by heavy I mean I was getting pretty ridiculous. I had to put 16 45lb plates on the leg press machine just to feel a pump. Now I do bodyweight moves with 5lb dumbells in my hands and my legs are sore for days as opposed to the heavy weight leg routine I had grown accustomed to.

So my basic is 3x High intensity interval training (cardio) and 2-3x resistance training focusing on bodyweight moves. That's working very well for me but I'm the body type that gains weight fast and puts on muscle easily.

Hope that helped!

@yanks The reason I asked is because I saw this quote on http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/chaste_tree.php

"Precautions
Men shouldn't take chaste berry. Testicular atrophy could result after repeated use. Binging on sugar, alcohol, or marijuana will block the herb's action on dopamine receptors in the brain and cancel out its effects. Not recommended while pregnant."

Maybe Brian will chime in since he just researched it for the kidney stones article on HF.

As far as the mole scars, they're still pink, visible scars. Unless you just have a particular one that is bothering you and flat, I probably wouldn't recommend the hassle since the scars don't look much better than the moles. Of course I scar easily and didn't follow up with iodine on the scars, so your results may be much better than mine. Give it a try on one of your smaller ones if you're curious and let me know how it turns out.

sdguy wrote:@yanks The reason I asked is because I saw this quote on http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/chaste_tree.php

"Precautions
Men shouldn't take chaste berry. Testicular atrophy could result after repeated use. Binging on sugar, alcohol, or marijuana will block the herb's action on dopamine receptors in the brain and cancel out its effects. Not recommended while pregnant."

Maybe Brian will chime in since he just researched it for the kidney stones article on HF.

As far as the mole scars, they're still pink, visible scars. Unless you just have a particular one that is bothering you and flat, I probably wouldn't recommend the hassle since the scars don't look much better than the moles. Of course I scar easily and didn't follow up with iodine on the scars, so your results may be much better than mine. Give it a try on one of your smaller ones if you're curious and let me know how it turns out.

I get a similar question to this at least twice annually.

It's all about the dosage. if you take much less than 120 mg of Chastberry (Vitex), then there is a risk of elevation of prolactin. However, dosages 120 mg or higher will result in a decrease of prolactin and an increase in dopamine. The herb was used at one time to help keep monks celibate, but that may only work in tiny dosages. The higher the dose, the more likely it will boost all things sexual.

I have been out of the gym for a good while now and high stress and poor diet have caused me to put on a good amount of fat. So I'll be having to deal with that whole detox process soon once I start back on the workout regimen.

But I think the best thing you can do in this situation is to begin a detox program for the first one to two months of getting back at it. These are where you'll see the greatest drops in fat as the body acclimates to the new stimulus, so maintaining a strong detox program during this phase will help flush the toxins out of the system.

I'm using a whole host of antioxidants, iodine, humifulvate, TMG, bentonite clay combined with a psyllium/cascara sagrada complex, a shit ton of garlic, and alpha lipoic acid/acetyl l-carnitine.

Hopefully this will help buffer the increase in toxins I'll be releasing during that period.

Proven methods to improve T/Cortisol ratio:

Carbs : Protein (the higher the better)
Working out <1hr
BCAA

Just thought I would chime in as I had actually completed the full on p90x workout consistely for the 90 day period back in 2010 (the only part I skipped was yoga). If you want to shred fat, you will, if you want to sweat, you will, but if you want to put on muscle mass, avoid it, unless you plan on modifying it. I got ripped abs, arms, chest, etc on the program, the only problem is I got extremely thin - I did not gain muscle mass at all - if anything I lost it. You have to be very careful with it as it burns an insane amount of calories. And it does employee a lot of cardio - too much cardio is definitely a bad thing IMO as I believe it will limit muscle growth. If you still decide to do it, make sure you eat plenty.

Nowadays, I am on a modified P90x regimen. I do the same exercises just with heavier weights and I cut out the cardio workouts. I have gained back weight and muscle mass and have not added on hardly any additional body fat. Personally I think weight training is much safer on hair and more in line with what most guys are trying to achieve. Traditional P90x is not what most guys are looking for. I suspect that Tony (from P90x) doesn't use the P90x program exclusively. Just my 2 cents...

abc123 wrote:Proven methods to improve T/Cortisol ratio:

Higher carbs : Protein (the higher the better)
Working out <1hr
BCAA

Abc, this interests me. I've actually heard about BCAA, but have never really checked into it. How does it help with T/Cortisol ratios?

unfortunate wrote:

abc123 wrote:Proven methods to improve T/Cortisol ratio:

Higher carbs : Protein (the higher the better)
Working out <1hr
BCAA

Abc, this interests me. I've actually heard about BCAA, but have never really checked into it. How does it help with T/Cortisol ratios?

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/581/BCAAs_and_Recent_Research.aspx

abc123 wrote:Proven methods to improve T/Cortisol ratio:

Carbs : Protein (the higher the better)
Working out <1hr
BCAA

have you got a reference for the carbs:protein ratio as well? looks like supplementing with whey protein isolate might be a mistake then...

thanks!