Insanity Workout Day 19: For the love of FASHION

Staying motivated is not an easy task when the only place you are losing inches is your chest and the scale seems to be stuck in the past. On day nineteen I find myself drifting to the back of my mind where it is asking the question "why do you keep going if you are not seeing results." Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. Right?
Even though today was my FAVORITE workout day because it was cardio recovery I found it hard to want to start the workout. One because of that little voice in the back of my head reminding me I haven't seen too many results and two I fear that I might have hurt my knee in one of the past routines.

One of the things the instructor repeats on every video is that you should go at your own pace and be safe. I have been doing just that; however, on day seventeen I could feel my right knee starting to ache and swell. Not a good sign but I am in this and I am not about to quit or make excuses not to do the workout.

There is not much I can do about my knee except to take the necessary steps to protect it from any further damage. So right now I am walking a fine line of not losing momentum and not hurting my knee permanently. I am thinking about doing the cardio recovery and Cardio abs video for the next two days even though it is not the routine scheduled. My thought process is that switching the videos my not be ideal for the program but it will allow me to keep going and give my knee some time to heal.

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As for the little voice inside my head asking WHY is it so important to complete this particular exercise program, especially since your results to date are only fair? I choose to respond to it's pesky questions with this responses:

1. I said I would! I am the type of person that we I make a commitment to someone or even myself I always follow through! 
2. It's a challenge and I want to conquer the CHALLENGE!
3. Because I believe this program produces results. I have seen it with my own eyes. 
4. For the love of FASHION!

Yes, you read number four correctly. For the love of FASHION is one of the ways I stay motivated to push through the challenge and the pain. At the end of the day, life is about being healthy but like any girl I love clothes and I want to look good in what I define as "my style." When my little voice starts to get me down I turn to Pinterest Fashion to stock my virtual closet and remind me to keep pushing forward.

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Insanity Workout Day 18: That Sh^t is Bananas!

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If you have every done the Pure cardio workout for Insanity you will know that at the end Shaun T always says "that sh^t is bananas!" Yes, he always says it because with a pre-recorded DVD the endings doesn't change. Even I know this but found it  humorous because no matter how many times you have done the routine, knowing the pre-recored ending and knowing he will say "that sh^t is bananas"  you 100% agree as if it was the first time! As you are lying on the floor after the last exercise in the moment "that sh^t is bananas" feels like the perfect sentiment!


You would think the craziness would end there but now that we are into week three we get an extra special treat of an additional 16 minutes of cardio abs! That is if you can scrape yourself off the floor for another warm-up session.

And of course you will...because you are INSANE! :)

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Insanity Workout Day 16: To Eat or Not to Eat?

For the better part of a decade I have been on what some would call a "professional's diet." For those of you that are living in breathing Corporate America you might know this diet includes coffee as a meal and is usually picked to be the breakfast and lunch of champions. This is not a diet that is developed on purpose or overnight. One day you wake up in the busy world of back to back meetings realizing that it is three o'clock in the afternoon and the only thing you have had to eat all day was the cream and sugar  you added to your cups of coffee. By this time you think yourself that it is only a couple hours away from dinner so you might as well grab another cup and head off to another meeting. My body is now a well oiled coffee machine and does not want for food in the mornings. Well, at least that is what I tell myself. It may need food but it does not want for it. I never realized how much I could be hurting my health or the shape of my body by slowing my metabolism. Like I mentioned earlier this diet wasn't on purpose but rather an outcome of my particular circumstance. Now that this habit is as familiar as biting my nails or twisting my hair into a bun the moment I awake from sleep.

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I did not occur to me that my bad eating habits might impact the INSANITY challenge. I have workout, been in a gym and even started running while maintaining the same eating habits. Yes, I read the nutrition guide and I have heard it all before about eating six small meals. But really, who has time for that?  Convincing a mind that has survived on the professional diet for years was going to take more than a pamphlet inserted into a DVD workout program. I would need to see proof!

After sixteen days of doing my best to muscled my way through the INSANITY workouts I may have been given the proof I needed to make the change to ditch the professional diet. As I have mentioned in my past posts I can feel my muscles getting stronger and I even performed better on the second fit test but my measurements must have been written in permanent marker.

Source - Pinterest

Being one out of three individuals doing the program and not losing the weight or inches you begin to question what it is YOU are doing differently. After several conversations it has been narrowed down to the question of "to Eat or Not to Eat?"
The other two individuals are following the six meals a day plan with a focus on healthier choices. They have not gone completely organic or vegan but started small with the simple changes such as less sugar, more fruit and more water, less soda. In this case I guess you could say that the "proof is in the pudding" literally.







Now that my mind has been opened to the possibility that I may be holding myself back by the choice to remain on the "professional diet" I am willing to make a change. This week I will focus on eating breakfast within the hour I wake and repeating a meal/snack every two hours thereafter. If I keep the meals around 200/300 and the snacks around 100 calories I should still be able to maintain my goal of eating less than 1200 calories a day. So let the eating begin! Oh, I forgot to mention this does NOT mean I am giving up coffee. I will just add a meal to go with my beverage of choice.

Insanity Workout Day 15: What you can MEASURE, You can IMPROVE!

The first day of the INSANITY program you have to complete a fit test that you will then be asked to repeat every two weeks throughout the entire program. The purpose of the fit test exercise is so you can track your progress as you move through the sixty day program. This workout can be used in two ways.

1. A way to push yourself each time you test ensuring that you will beat your last results and
2. As well as it is a visual reminder of how far you have come in the past few weeks. 

I must admit that I was happy to see the needle move on a couple of the exercises given that the scale needle seems to be glued in place. But we will get back that in a moment.

My baseline: Week 1 Results:

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• Switch Kicks - 60
• Power Jacks - 43
• Power Knees - 60
• Power Jumps - 20
• Globe Jumps - 6
• Suicide Jumps - 13
• Push-up Jacks - 13
• Low Plank Oblique - 40

Beginning of Week 3 Results:

• Switch Kicks - 77 (+17)
• Power Jacks - 50 (+8)
• Power Knees - 75 (+15)
• Power Jumps - 21 (+1)
• Globe Jumps - 8 (+2)
• Suicide Jumps - 15 (+2)
• Push-up Jacks - 19 (+6)
• Low Plank Oblique - 50 (+10)

For me, my results tell me that I am still "weak" when it comes to jumping. I use the word "weak" loosely because I am not viewing these results as a negative but rather a way to focus on what I need to improve on in the weeks to come. On a loose average it appears that I have increased my numbers by 25%. As I begin the next two weeks of workout routines I now know I will need to really push myself when it comes to power jumps, globe jumps and suicide jumps in order to increase my numbers on my next fit test. It will be my own challenge to move the needle another 5% on March 11th when I complete my third fit test.

As for my other measurements, the scale seems to be stuck in time and I have only seen an inch lost around my stomach. Although these numbers are not WOW numbers I try to remind myself that it has only been fifteen days and to imagine what another fifteen days will do for me!

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Insanity Workout Day 13: Saturday Morning Insanity

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Saturday workouts seem to be my greatest challenge when it comes to finding time alone to complete my workout routine. I am a little shy when it comes to working out in front of other people even if the people are my family. I have never been the girl in a sport bras and yoga pants "shaking it like a Polaroid picture" for the entire gym. Quite the opposite really. If you come in the room that I am working out in I will stop until you walk back out. That is if I am doing a workout video had home. If I made the choice to go workout at a gym I lean into my discomfort and remind myself that everyone is there for the same reason and then I block them all out with my headphones. In the past I have participated in group workout sessions doing cardio Combat classes, Zumba and even worked out in the middle of the gym with a personal trainer but it is not my preferred setting and it is definitely not in my comfort zone. But I am a firm believer that if we never push outside our comfort zone in life regardless of the actual event we will never become the people we are suppose to be.

With the Insanity workout I am still in the embarrassment phase of the exercises. Trust me, I own a mirror and I know what I look like when I am standing in front of it so I can only image what the high jumps, frog jumps and my Heisman's look like while I am performing the INSANITY routine. So like a teenager sneaking out for a big party on Friday night I am sneaking into my living room Saturday morning hoping to complete my workout before the house is awake. What I didn't anticipate is the noise that would come from my "soft landing" jumping abilities. We live in a 624 square foot apartment so I am not sure why I thought sneaking out of the bedroom into the living room to do a noisy workout was necessary but alas I tippy toed out and softly closed the door. I did manage to get through the first forty minutes of the workout before I heard the bedroom door open and a head pop out to make sure I wasn't wrestling an alligator or big foot monster in the living room. Lucky for me there was no alligator or big foot wrestling in progress but instead the head popper got a nice backside view of my body in V position , rear in the air while completing the pulsating abs. I guess it was bound to happen during Saturday Morning Insanity!

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Insanity Workout Day 12: Mandatory Meeting with THE BOSS

I once read that if you want to stick to your workout schedule you have to treat it like a mandatory meeting with your boss because no one cancels on "THE BOSS!" Strangely enough this theory is actually working for me. Everyone has a shifting schedule and that can easily be an excuse to not follow through on your commitments to your workout program or yourself.
Today would have been the perfect example of how to make up multiple excuses NOT to follow through. Here are just a few to get you started:

1. It's Friday
2. I have plans at the time I normally workout
3. One day won't matter
4. I don't want to have to shower again before going out to dinner
5. The sun is shinning
6. I have been doing really good so far, I deserve a day off.

Yes, all of these things run through my head just like they run through yours. Then I have to remember why I started this program and that the only thing I am doing is making EXCUSES! Then I employ my "mandatory meeting" theory and that reminds me that:

1. ...just because it's Friday doesn't mean you can cancel a meeting with "THE BOSS."
2. ...just because I have plans during my normal workout time doesn't mean I can't propose a better time to meet with "THE BOSS."
3. ...ONE day ALWAYS matters to "THE BOSS."
4. ...just because you don't want to get ready again doesn't mean you cancel with "THE BOSS." It means you workout before your first shower!
5. ...just because the sun is shining doesn't mean you can't meet "THE BOSS" outside.
6. ...just because you are doing really well doesn't mean your reward should be a day off from "THE BOSS."

The moral of the story if you haven't figured it out is that YOU are "THE BOSS" and the investment in yourself is one of the most important investments you will make.

For the record, all of the above applied to me today; however, THIS BOSS didn't cancel!

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Insanity Workout Day 11: Building a Bridge

After the first week of INSANITY I quickly labeled Cardio Recovery day as TGITH! (Thank Goodness it's THURSDAY) Now that it is towards the end of week two and my body is starting to adjust to the routines I am slowly recognizing that my mind is now able to focus on completing the exercise within its proper form. If we are being real with each other I think it is safe to say that the goal of the first week is simply to survive and to keep going!

Today's routine focused on breathing and working the muscles without the all the cardio. Does this sound like a familiar exercise? Maybe a very trendy, well known exercise? I personally have not experienced it myself but from my reading and again being honest my favorite TV shows it seems strangely similar to Yoga.
I have read a few articles about Yoga because being a person that lives in the fast paced world of Corporate America I often wondered if I could break into the spiritual side of this trendy exercise. For me doing yoga would be a way to become more flexible because I spend long hours sitting a desk and more importantly if there was a way to learn how to quiet the anxious world that lives within me. In my mind I could never really bridge the gap between spiritual meditation, breathing, stretching and a physical workout that toned your body into a beautiful shape.

INSANITY has built that bridge for me.

Today as we concentrated on slow squats, lunges and then into various stretching poses (warrior pose, downward dog) I began to see sweat beads rolling down my nose and hitting the floor. I noticed that my body was shaking as every muscle in my core, thighs and arms tried to find a way to hold their own weight and remain balanced. At the end of this workout I was physically tired, sweaty but not amped up from the cardio.

After spending two days lacking enthusiasm and energy I find myself once again inspired by the possibilities of what lies ahead when I finish this INSANE challenge.

I might just take the walk across the bridge that was built for me by this INSANITY program and take on the YOGA challenge.

HAPPY TGITH!!

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