Here it comes...Insanity!

Tomorrow I'm embarking on the 63 day program known as the Insanity workout.  I'm a little scared, but mostly excited to try something new - and to share the experience here.

Let's start with some basics:

What Is Insanity?

• Have you ever head of HIIT (high intensity interval training)?  Basically, you warm up to a moderate pace and then throw short blocks of hard/intense work before shifting back to a lower gear to grab a drink/catch your breathe/slow your heart rate - and you repeat this pattern throughout the duration of your workout.  Insanity flips this formula on its head with something they call Max Interval Training. You come out of the gate hard and push yourself to the max for 3-5 minutes, take a quick (30 seconds or so) break to get a drink/wipe the sweat of your face/curse yourself for deciding this was a good idea, and then it's back in for another 3-5 minute block of intense exercise - for 63 days.   The fine folks at Beachbody, the company behind Insanity, claim that you can get a year's worth of results in 60 days.  I don't know that I necessarily believe that, but I do know that traditional interval training does deliver much faster results that just slogging along at one pace through an entire workout.

(source)

What's In The Box?

• 10 DVDs
• Nutrition Guide
• Wall Calendar
• Fit Test Tracker

The DVD's are divided into 3 phases:

Month 1: 

• Plyometric Cardio Circuit
• Cardio Power & Resistance
• Cardio Recovery
• Pure Cardio

Recovery Week:

• Core Cardio & Balance

Month 2:

• Max Interval Circuit
• Max Interval Plyo
• Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs
• Max Recovery

There's also a Fit Test DVD that is used 5 times during the program (Days 1, 15, 36, 50, 63).

The Nutrition Guide is pretty good.  Unlike a lot of so-called nutrition guides that come with workout  programs, this one actually has the user go through a relatively complex formula to determine how many calories the body needs to function (known as basal metabolic weight or BMR) + how many calories you burn going about your daily activities (a desk jockey like me will burn fewer calories than a someone doing physical labor like construction).  From there you also factor in your gender and age.  After that, you add or subtract calories based on your goal - lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight.

Once you determine your calorie level, you use the Nutrition Guide to build a menu of 5 meals a day. Each meal starts off with a base calorie level around 300 calories and there are suggestions of how to increase the calories to 400 or 500 based on your needs.  I like this feature a lot since it means that Mr. R&R and I can eat roughly the same meals, but I won't be over-eating and he won't be starving!  Oh yeah, did I mention that he's doing this too?  I guess we're both insane!

Finally there's the Wall Calendar (self-explanatory) and the Fit Test Tracker - a fancy-sounding description for a card that looks like this:

Why Am I Doing This?
If you've been hanging around here for any length of time, you know I love a challenge and I enjoy finding new ways to make myself sweat. I'm pretty sure that Insanity is going to give me a run for my money - in fact, I'm pretty sure it's going to kick my ass around the block and then wipe the floor with me.  I'm also hoping that Insanity will help me build a really good cardio/endurance base for my 2015 training/racing season - which just happens to start the week after Insanity ends.  Oh, and then there's the little matter of an upcoming beach vacation.  I'll be wearing a swimsuit... in April.  I can deal with being pasty white (which is pretty much par for the course in my life), but I'd really rather not display my current layer of winter insulation, so it's time to lose it. What? Vanity can be a damned good motivator sometimes.

This afternoon, Mr. R&R and I both calculated our calories (and did our starting weights, measurements, and photos), menu-planned, hit the grocery store, and then got to work doing food prep for Day 1.  All I can say at this point is that our refrigerator is near-bursting, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to manage to eat all the food this program calls for, and I'm really not looking forward to doing all the dishes that will be resulting from this adventure!

Questions? Comments? Offers to do my dishes?

Web Zombie No More

Like many people, I freakin' love the internet and like many (if not most people) these days, I'm almost always connected to it.  At any given moment, I have a smart phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a desk top computer - and frequently more than one of those devices - within an arm's reach of me.

It's not unusual for me to Tweet or check Feedly from my phone during the work day, and I also tend to stream jazz over Spotify in the afternoons.  When I get home, I plug my phone into the charger and switch over to my iPad.  From there, I usually catch up on Facebook, Tweet some more, perhaps play a game like Plants vs Zombies or Sudoku, or generally go down the rabbit hole of web surfing and/or  Pinterest.

Occasionally, I'll fire up the laptop if I need to do some more in-depth research on something, edit photos, write a blog post, or need to get more work stuff done.

The point is, I'm always connected.  I realized over the holidays that my internet presence was getting in the way of getting a lot of other things done, sucking up what little free time I have, and generally preventing me from being present in my life.  I was essentially becoming a web zombie by getting lost in the internet vortex almost every night.

(source)

As of January 1st, I made a conscious effort to decrease my internet usage/online presence - especially the completely useless, mind-numbing trips down the rabbit hole of random web surfing. If I'm going to be on the internet, I've been trying to limit myself to social interaction (Twitter), blogging, or working on actual projects.  I actually set myself a weekly schedule of other things I needed/wanted to do.  I'm pleased to say that, 15 days in, I've definitely reduced my internet consumption and have made lots of progress on my goals.

I set a challenge on Goodreads to read 24 books in 2015, and as of right now, I've already read 6. I think I may need to revise that challenge number upward! So far, my favorite has been Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks by Andrea Lankford and I'm currently reading Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.  Spending so much time with my nose in a book, or a Kindle, has made me feel a little bit like a kid again.  My mom used to yell at me to "Quit reading, turn off the lights, and go to sleep!" all the time.  Back then, I used to wait until she was asleep and then I'd read some more under the covers with a flashlight - and hope I didn't get busted.  Now, no one tells me to go to sleep, but I sure do need an extra cup of coffee on some mornings!

I've managed to tackle a project that's been on my "Things I'd Like To Do Someday" list: I'm trying to learn Spanish!  Mr. R&R and I scored a killer deal on Rosetta Stone's Spanish package just after Black Friday, so we figured we'd both give it a shot.  So far, I really like it.  The lesson format is very different from the way I remember learning French when I was in school, but it's really nice to be able to repeat lessons as desired and work at my own pace - usually about 20-30 minutes 2x/week. I've completed the first lesson (each lesson has several parts) and I'm looking forward to starting Lesson 2 over the weekend.

In the last two weeks, I've also:

•  Managed to order Walter & Spot's 2013 photo book. Yes, you read that right, the 2013 photo book.  I've made one via Shutterfly every year since they've been with us, and the 2013 book sat, fully completed, for over a year because I kept forgetting to do something about it.  I finally took the 10 minutes to review and order it - with a coupon!  I also went through my photo library for 2014 and I'm in the process of slowly putting together their 2014 book using iPhoto's book platform.  It's been a challenge, but I'm curious to see how the final product turns out.  I still have quite a bit of work to do on that one, but I figure it's probably a better use of my time than reading a bunch of religious rants/vague complaints/looking at funny pictures of cats on Facebook.

• Joined Mr. R&R in a nightly reset of the house where we make sure all the dishes are done, the rabbit cage/play area are tidy, and all the clutter is picked up.  It takes about 20-30 minutes a night and we've both been really happy with the results.  It's definitely taken an element of stress out of both of our lives and has made it so that instead of having to do a ton of damage control on the weekends, we're free to tackle other stuff that always gets pushed aside - like reorganizing the linen closet, painting, or plotting another mini-improvement to The Cave.

• Studied the Nutrition Guide for my upcoming foray into the Insanity Workout - and start planning how to make all the shopping and food prep work for me.

• Tried a few recipes that I've been meaning to try for a while - like a copycat recipe for New York City-style Street Meat

Close, but not quite!

• Spent more time on the floor playing with Walter and Spot - which they seem to like.  

More time...more photo ops

Overall, I'm loving this new way of living.  I also think it's only going to help once Insanity begins.  It's a relatively small time commitment as far as the length of the workouts, but I'm going to be spending a lot more time in the kitchen, in the shower, and trying to get 8 hours of sleep a night.

How do you like to spend your free time?  Read any good books or cooked anything fun lately? Thoughts on learning another language?

P90 Masters Wrap Up & What's Next

I did it!  I finished the P90 Masters Series on December 27th.  It wasn't all rainbows and puppy dogs, but it wasn't exactly horrible either.  I definitely didn't get the dramatic visual results I got with last year's Raise The Bar Challenge, but my clothes fit better and I feel much stronger and healthier, so it was definitely a worth while endeavor.

I only lost about 6 pounds, but I've gotten strong enough to do the majority of my push ups on my toes - something I wasn't able to do before.

My body fat is only down 3%, but somehow I have lines in my abs that I've never seen before.

I may have only lost a few inches off my hips and waist, but I'm more flexible than I was when I was practicing yoga on a regular basis.  That's something I didn't realized I missed until I got it back!

(source)

Now onto why I think I didn't get such visually dramatic results this time:

• After Raise The Bar, I mostly stuck with the healthy eating plan, so I didn't have as much work to do to clean up my diet and thus, since my body was already used to eating pretty well, I didn't drop weight simply from dropping junk food.

• Stress.  My stress levels have been through the freakin' roof for the last few months and that kind of stress is obviously sub-optimal for losing weight/building muscle/etc.  Unfortunately, I don't get paid to workout, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.  A girl's gotta work!

• Cheat meals.  I let myself off the hook a little more during P90 Masters than I did during Raise The Bar.  This was probably not the best thing I could have done as far as maximizing results, but I truly believe it's a big part of what got me to the 90 Day mark instead of making it to about 65 Days.   I got off the "Dieting Merry-Go-Round" a long time ago and I'm not about to get back on it!

So that leads to the big question: What's Next?

I'm giving myself a short break (about 4 weeks) from any formal program.  I'm indulging in some less-than-clean eats and doing whatever sort of workout I feel like doing.  After that, it's on like Donkey Kong because on January 26th I'll be starting the 63 days of torture known as The Insanity Workout - a.k.a. The Hardest Workout Ever Put on DVD.  Oh yeah...I definitely think this one is going to hurt and I'm already looking forward to it.  Stay tuned!

Sourced from Pinterest

Have you ever tried Insanity?  Would you?  What would you like to see included in my Insanity posts?

The New Challenge (P90 Masters)

Remember last year when I started the Raise The Bar Challenge just as #HellMonth was beginning at work?  Yeah...I did something similar this year.  On September 29th I started a second round of Les Mills Pump.  After about 2 weeks of feeling completely unchallenged by the workouts, I switched gears and moved over to the P90 Masters series, an at home boot camp-style workout.  P90 Masters consists of 7 DVD's used over the course of the 90 day challenge.  It also happens to be the precursor to the wildly popular P90-X workout, so needless to say it's definitely a big, sweat-inducing challenge - which I'm all for.  I'm not kidding...some of the workouts have left me lying on the floor of The Cave in a puddle of my own sweat!  I'll get into the specific workouts in a future post, but let's just say these make Pump look like a walk in the park.

I wasn't quite in the same shape I was last year when I began my challenge.  I sort of let myself go a little a lot after the Pewaukee Triathlon so I have a little more work to do this time.  I'm also not being quite as strict about the nutrition program as I don't have a beach vacation/black-tie wedding looming on the horizon.  Instead of eating clean 7 days a week, I'm allowing myself one cheat meal (and the occasional after work cocktail).  That cheat meal seems to do wonders for keeping me on track the rest of the week.

It's worth being good so I can be bad!

I'm not going to post Day 0 and Day 30 progress pictures at the moment, mostly because I'm really not in the mood to crop/blur my face, but so far, I'm down about 3 pounds (stress can really wreak havoc on weight loss), 3.5% body fat, and I've lost about an inch and half off my waist and hips.  I'm also finding that I feel much stronger in general, which is never a bad thing!  Hopefully now that life is slowly returning to normal, I'll see the weight and fat loss pick up a little bit.  Maybe I should schedule a beach vacation for a little extra motivation?

Have you ever tried an at home workout program?  If so, what was it and did you love or hate it?  If not, what would you like to try?

Please Pardon The Interruption

Yes, I know it's been just over a month since my last post, and I'm sorry about that.  For some reason, this year's #HellMonth at work was a lot more brutal than the previous 9 I've been through and I've pretty much been in Survival Mode for the last 30-something days. Every area of my life paid the price, not just this space. 

But it's over now (at least until next year) and I'm ready to start living my life again.  In the coming days/weeks, I'm hoping to post about the boot camp-style workout program I'm doing, some recipes, some hiking photos (if I can get out and actually go hiking), and of course, bunny pictures!

Operation: Renovation

Because life isn't crazy enough already, Mr. R&R and I had our bathroom renovated over the last few weeks.  Notice I said had it renovated since neither of us are exactly the handy type.  This project has been scheduled for quite a while, and I knew going in that it was going to make things a little crazy, but I think I seriously underestimated the level of craziness that would be involved.  Fortunately, I really hated the old bathroom, so it was worth two and a half weeks of inconvenience to get rid of this:

Oh yeah...there was gold-flecked tile on every wall, a toilet that the previous owners sawed off to fit the tank under the counter, a vanity cabinet that looked like it was spray painted by a drunk frat guy, light fixtures that my sister once described as "early brothel", and a floor that was so beat up that I couldn't get it clean anymore. It all had to go!

First, and foremost, Mr. R&R and I had two new roommates in our bedroom for the duration of the project since all the pounding/sawing/banging and the dust would not be good for them. 

They moved in on Sunday, September 7th and they were not happy about it.  Many disapproving rabbit looks and much sulking occurred since they don't adapt well to change.  

We also had to relocate all our 'stuff' to the basement bathroom.  While I'm grateful beyond words that I don't have to go to the gym or my mom's to take a shower, I also deeply dislike having to duck down in order to get my head under the shower head - and I'm only 5'4"!  I feel extra sorry for Mr. R&R who can barely stand up straight in that tiny little shower stall.

Anyway, the contractor arrived Monday morning and demolition began.  I worked from home (read: was sequestered in my bedroom with 2 rabbits, 1 laptop, and a mountain of work to plow through).  It turns out that the only time I could really tell that anything was happening downstairs is when they were sledge hammering out some tile and the bathtub.  This made me feel better about having to leave Walter and Spot home alone during most of the rest of the project. (Note: I made arrangements to bring them to work with me on the days that the new tile is installed if they didn't do well with that sound.  It turns out, our bedroom must be pretty sound proof because they slept through most of it.)

By lunch time on Day 1 the old vanity cabinet, toilet, mirror, and a large part of one of the walls was gone - and there was a whole lot of plaster dust in the air.

By the time the contractor and his assistant knocked off for the night, I was amazed.  What had been a  hideous, but functional, bathroom 8 hours earlier was now nothing more than an empty shell - and there was plaster dust EVERYWHERE in the rest of my house!

Over the course of the next week, the new bathroom slowly began to take shape.  It was fun stopping home at random times during the day and coming home at night to see what transformations had occurred.

A glass block window was installed - replacing a regular window that had to be covered at all times to prevent the neighbors from getting a show every time either of us took a shower.

Plumbing was replaced/updated.

A curved bathtub was installed (and mortared in 50 lbs of concrete) and cement board and drywall were added as well.

Both Mr. R&R and I welcomed the weekend.  It gave us a chance to clean up some of the plaster dust mess and spend lots of extra time with our fuzzy little roommates.

Mom and Dad will regret letting me out of my pen!

If anyone needs me, I'll be in my greens

Week 2 brought lots of cosmetic changes.

Tile and the accent row went up and the drywall was textured and painted.

At long last, the vanity cabinet, quartz top, hardware, medicine cabinet, and toilet topper were put in place.  The bathroom was done and we could move out of our "Bathroom in Exile"!

There were a few bumps along the way, the rest of my house required extensive cleaning to get rid of all the plaster dust (that crap coated everything), but it was definitely worth it.  The bathroom is beautiful and the finished product has exceeded every expectation I had!  (Although I'm sure Spot would tell you that it's the worst thing ever since he's not allowed to take up residence behind the toilet for a while!)

Have you ever done any major renovations?  If so, was it worth it in the end?

A Little Piece of Paradise

Mr. R&R and I just returned from an absolutely wonderful, relaxing, and very much needed trip to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.  I thought I'd share a few photos from the trip - although I didn't take very many. So, grab a seat by the fire, crack open a beer (I recommend an Appalachian Trail Pale Ale from the Nantahala Brewery), and enjoy!

We rolled into Louisville, KY in the midst of a rainstorm that can only be described as 'biblical', checked into our hotel, and met up with my lovely friend April for dinner at a nearby brew pub - since Mr. R&R and I were slightly terrified of ending up like this car!  

By the time we parted ways with April, I already felt at least 50% less tense/up tight when I left home that morning.  In my opinion, hanging out with friends is one of the best ways in the world to de-stress!

The next morning we were up bright and early and back on the road.  Over the course of the next several hours, we worked our way through the rest of Kentucky, Tennessee, and finally into North Carolina.  I was so excited when we checked in at the rental office, stopped at the grocery store, and finally navigated the winding road up to the cabin.

Over the next few days we hung out on the porches reading books, hiked, kayaked, and caught up on lots of lost sleep!

Hiking the Road To Nowhere Trails:

Hiking in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest - complete with 400+ year old trees:

Kayaking on Fontana Lake and the Nantahala River - followed by a short swim in some of the warmest, cleanest water I've ever experienced!  I didn't even care that record-sized fish have been pulled from that lake and there were a couple of little bitty fish hanging out where I jumped in!  (Thanks to Mr. R&R for the pictures since I didn't take my camera and/or phone out on the water.)

And of course, there was plenty of beer-drinking, book-reading, barbecuing, and staring at the beautiful view!