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From protein shakes to snow shoveling: A day with Eddie Lacy and Tony Horton

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Lacy improved, but not a finished product (1:36)

ESPN Packers reporter Rob Demovsky details the training Eddie Lacy did with P90X founder Tony Horton and how coach Mike McCarthy noted Lacy's progress thus far. (1:36)

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen any video of Eddie Lacy’s plyometric workouts or yoga sessions with P90X founder Tony Horton, there’s a reason.

“It was Eddie’s desire to stay under the wire,” Horton said.

Save for a picture that a friend of Horton’s posted on a social media site -- and then quickly removed -- his training sessions this offseason with the Green Bay Packers running back went virtually undocumented.

“We just wanted to be focused,” Horton said. “It wasn’t anybody’s business. That was kind of our vibe. He’s a humble, quiet guy. He just wanted to get down to business.”

While much of the focus from the outside was on Lacy’s weight, especially after coach Mike McCarthy’s ultimatum that he “cannot play at the weight he was at [last] year,” Horton’s work was more of a complete lifestyle makeover to rid the 25-year-old of his poor eating and drinking habits.

Their workouts began at Horton’s vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, then concluded in Los Angeles, where Horton has lived and worked since 1980.

“It really depended on the day and what time we worked out and what time we worked out the day before because we wanted to make sure we had enough recovery time,” Horton said. “So it wasn’t exactly the same every day.”

Those sessions may not be over. Horton told ESPN.com that he hopes to reunite with Lacy this summer before training camp opens in late July.

In an interview this week, Horton agreed to detail a typical day with Lacy, who actually lived with the 57-year-old workout guru for two months. He described a day early in their sessions in Wyoming:

8 a.m.: Wake-up call

“It’s not like we’d get up at 5 or 6 a.m.,” Horton said. “Sleeping time is healing time, especially when your muscles are sore.”

9 a.m.: Breakfast

“Most days would start out with a pre-workout shake that I would make for the two of us,” Horton said. “Just protein powder, egg whites, blueberries, strawberries, cashews, a lot of super greens. I got him on a lot of the super greens. It usually tasted like dirt, to be honest. That took a little adapting to. But he got it. There was no hesitation.”

10 a.m.: Workouts

“There were a couple of local gyms that we made a deal with in Jackson Hole initially,” Horton said. “Some days it was plyo day. Some days it was shoulders, arms and core. Or chest and back and core. Or just pure sweat cardio day.”

The workouts varied. Monday and Friday were plyo days, although each one of those was quite different (more on those coming later). There were pure cardio days. Then there was boxing, basketball and yoga sprinkled in.

“My success comes from tons of variety,” Horton said. “If you look at P90X, it’s everything. I just wanted to make it as fast and as furious as possible. We had high-rep days and low-rep days. We worked on a lot of speed work, balance work. Then he got into boxing and playing hoops [in Los Angeles]. He was playing hoops and it was fun because he was just flying up and down the court and ripping down rebounds. He wouldn’t have been able to do that in early February, but by the end of our time frame, he was quicker, faster, stronger.”

The workouts lasted no more than 1 hour, 15 minutes, Horton said. Some days, they worked out twice a day. Even on those days, it was never more than three hours.

Noon: Lunch

A native of Gretna, Louisiana, Lacy was used to eating what Horton called “rich foods” commonly found in the New Orleans area.

“We ate a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins and healthy foods,” Horton said. “We ate very little processed food. The only processed food we ate was the stuff the company [Beachbody] that I work for makes.”

His goal was to show Lacy that healthy foods can taste good too.

1 p.m.: Hit the slopes, but not Lacy

Horton goes to Jackson Hole every February for a month of skiing, so most afternoons he tried to hit the slopes. Lacy, however, did not follow.

“Then he would just get a chance to relax and do emails and text some friends while I’d go off and ski,” Horton said. “He was sequestered at my place.”

4 p.m.: Shoveling

The average annual snowfall in Jackson Hole is 450 inches.

“We shoveled a helluva lot of snow,” Horton said. “Usually after my ski day, I’d say, ‘Look at all that snow over there. Let’s get going.’ And we’d have snow-shoveling contests, and he’d kick my ass.”

6 p.m.: Dinner

Horton never left Lacy alone at meal time.

“I was always the guy at breakfast, lunch and dinner to say, ‘Look, here are your good options and your bad options,’” Horton said. "I just said, ‘Here’s what you need to eat. Instead of a beer, let’s have some Pellegrino.' Fortunately for us, [drinking] never really came up. That wasn’t really an issue. I knew that food was an issue and from being from New Orleans and eating rich foods. But we got right into it.

“I don’t think I ever saw him take a drink. I don’t know what he was doing prior. He knew what was at stake, so he just hunkered down and killed it. He struggled at first because it was all new stuff."

Said Lacy: "It was different. Some things were harder than others. But at the end of the day, it's all about the result. Whether it's fun or not, you've just got to get it done."