The P90X program is amazing if you stick to the six-a-week workouts and are really strict about your diet. It will kick your ass in the beginning, so be ready for that. By the end, you will be enjoying the workouts that you dreaded when you started.
There is no gimmick here: you have to work hard and diet hard (although "diet" just means eat smart and healthy, not follow some bullshit fad). The main benefit of the program for me was that it provided variety, structure, and intensity levels that I didn't have to think about.
I would HIGHLY recommend it.
One note: if you are WAY out of shape, start with a more basic program to get you up to speed. This isn't a program for people who are way overweight or haven't worked out in years. It is not for beginners.
I want to add an additional comment about the diet for you. The diet is BY FAR the most important part of this. Finding an hour in your day is not that hard. People who say otherwise are full of shit and just making excuses -- I work 60-70 hours a week, easily. If you have small children, that's a different story ;-) I don't, but I can see that their schedules and responsibilities are far more demanding than mine.
If your diet is not already clean, and you're not used to eating five or six smaller meals spread out over the day, it will be a lot to get used to. You can easily burn 6-700 calories in a workout. But you'll want to cut your calories and eat very smart and healthy. If you consider that you need to have a calorie deficit of about 3,500 compared to what your body needs in order to lose a pound, you can burn 500 calories and cut 500 calories in a day, and that will give you about a two pound loss for the week, which is a good goal. But you only have to worry about the workout for an hour a day. You have to worry about your diet ALL DAY.
The good part, as I mentioned above, is that there is no fad here. You have a tonne of flexibility as far as what you can eat, and as long as you cut out junk like soda, junk snacks, burgers, pizza, etc. you should the pounds drop off very quickly. I didn't even think I had 20 pounds to lose, yet I had lost 20 pounds in 60 days.
But the workouts make you want to eat better, the healthy diet makes you want to workout more, and when you start seeing real results (which you will very quickly if you follow the system religiously), that will motivate you even more.
Really, I cannot speak highly enough about this program if you're willing to commit to it.
This might get answered once the DVDs arrive, but in your opinion can I pretty much just do the program in the morning before work and then drink a protein smoothie afterwards for breakfast?
For sure. I can't workout first thing because I'm too hungry, but if you can, then a lot of people do it. Since your post-workout meal is also your first meal of the day, you'll want to male it more than a smoothie. There is a lot of info that comes with the program, so you can read that.
There is no gimmick here: you have to work hard and diet hard (although "diet" just means eat smart and healthy, not follow some bullshit fad). The main benefit of the program for me was that it provided variety, structure, and intensity levels that I didn't have to think about.
I would HIGHLY recommend it.
One note: if you are WAY out of shape, start with a more basic program to get you up to speed. This isn't a program for people who are way overweight or haven't worked out in years. It is not for beginners.