Drinking the Kool-Aid

In the last weeks of my grand P90X experience, I have utterly and completely drunk the Kool-Aid. I'm buying stronger bands for my pull-ups, I'm scarfing up protein bars, I'm amping up the weight on my dumbbells. Perhaps it's the realization that I'm nearing the end of the program and I still don't look like a 21-year-old Zach Efron, but a sort of last-ditch desperation has taken over. The most egregious example of this is that when I say I've drunk the  Kool-Aid, I mean it literally. Yes, yes, I broke down and did it: I BOUGHT THE P90X RECOVERY DRINK. A month's supply. How could I not? It's got a high protein efficiency ratio for rapid muscle resynthesis! It's got a dextrose-based formula for optimum glycogen replenishment! It's got the endorsement of TONY HORTON HIMSELF! How could I deny myself such vital tools for success? Hoo boy. The constant shilling, the ads after each workout, it was too much for my little bear brain.

Like this,
but without
the astronauts.

The Recovery drink comes in a huge tub emblazoned with a chiseled torso. It's in powder form, and the smell of it is intensely synthetic and nostalgic at the same time. It's as if you dehydrated a creamsicle and made it into Pixie Stix. A friend, (after mocking me mercilessly) accurately defined the smell: it is exactly the essence of a Bayer's Children's Aspirin. If you have a soft spot for those orange-y, melty little orange pills we all used to take by the handfuls, by all means, get yourself a tub of this stuff. It tastes as fake as it smells (remember Tang?), but after a few days I got used to it. Mixed it with coconut water and frozen strawberries. I drink it every day after a workout, in the precious hour where OH MY GOD THE CHANCE FOR MUSCULAR GROWTH IS OPTIMAL! Hmm. For the record? I notice no appreciable difference at all, as far as post-workout soreness or suddenly burgeoning muscles. Ah well. At least I get to stare at the tub.

My... Preciousssss...

Recently, I went to the Glendale Galleria to undergo a rite which, in terms of transformative ecstasy, must rank up there with one's first dip into recreational drugs or an audience with the Pope: I bought jeans in a smaller size. Waltzed into Lucky Jeans with a swagger. "Well, I was wearing a 32, but I think I'm a 30 now..." I might as well have been wearing a "My Son is an Honor Student at..." bumper sticker affixed to my ass. The salesperson confided that three other folk had come in just that week for the very same purpose, buying skinnier jeans because of P90X. Call Congress! P90X could singlehandedly save this economy, folks!

How weird, how one exercise program catches the fancy of a nation, while other equally valid ones languish in bargain bins. Hey! I'm part of a fad! A trend! How unlike me (pay no attention to that Soloflex behind the curtain...) This is what it must have been like to have ridden that Jane Fonda Aerobics Express all those years back. I somehow missed my chance to display leg warmers, but I shan't deny myself the opportunity now. I'm sure P90X will flame out eventually, and there will be the inevitable backlash and we'll find it's terribly harmful to joints and tendons, but for now, someone get me that Beachbody tank top—I'm going in.

Tony, this could be  you in... five years.