Insanity Week 2: Let's Eat!

Think about that for a minute.  I'm guessing that if you're like most people losing weight and improving the shape of your body automatically triggers thoughts of boring, tasteless food, constant hunger, and possibly pills or shakes with an ingredient list that is not only long, but also mostly unpronounceable.  I was one of those people for a very long time. The keyword here is was.  Over the years I've learned to eat a mostly healthy mix of foods balanced with some not so healthy treats.  Let me tell you, it's been way easier sticking to this way of eating rather than trying to subsist on lettuce or shakes.

The Insanity Nutrition program is definitely not a diet.  It's a fueling system because the body is a lot like a car, it needs good fuel to run.  So, what does a typical day of fueling for Insanity look like?  I'll show you.

The Refrigerator Is Near Capacity Every Sunday Night

In the interest of saving time, money, and what's left of my sanity, I try to alternate 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 2 sets of snacks all week and then have a different dinner every night. I also tend to gravitate towards foods that can be made ahead of time, travel well (I keep all my food for the day in my Feed Bag, so space is an issue), and can be eaten at my desk.  The Insanity Nutrition Guide has lots of really yummy sounding food, but until my office lets me put a mini fridge in my office and installs a stove, I'll only be enjoying those on the weekends when I can make and consume them at home!  I'll talk about weekend eats in a future post.

Breakfast: I've been alternating between Proatmeal and PBJ toast with a side of cottage cheese.

Proatmeal tastes like a cross between cake batter and berry crisp, so it's almost like having dessert for breakfast.  Ingredients: 1/2 cup plain oatmeal, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1/2 cup skim milk, 3/4 cup fresh berries

PBJ Toast w/ Cottage Cheese: 1 slice whole grain bread, 1 tbsp natural pb, 1/2 tbsp natural jam, 1/2 cup 1% milk fat cottage cheese - large rocket fuel optional, but highly recommended.

AM Snack: This week has been all about the Apple Walnut Yogurt Mess and the TBLT.

I was initially really skeptical about the Apple Walnut Yogurt Mess since I've never been a fan of plain yogurt, but I'm now a convert. It has a nicer sounding name in the nutrition guide, but really, let's call it what it is - a mess!  Ingredients: 3/4 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt (I like Chobani 0%), 1/2 an apple - diced, 2 tbsp chopped walnuts, and a drizzle of honey.  I stir the whole thing together the night before and when I get around to eating it around 11:30, the apples are still crunchy and not even thinking about turning brown.  It's also super filling.

The Turkey Bacon Lettuce and Tomato (TBLT) is pretty standard, but still pretty good.  I microwave 3 slices of turkey bacon and pack it up along with some tomato slices and mixed greens.  Then, when it's food o'clock, I drop a couple slices of bread in the office toaster and I'm eating in under 3 minutes - as long as no one stops me on the way back to my desk!

Lunch: I don't know about you, but by the time lunch time rolls around, I'm usually elbows deep in some work-related thing and can only go about 30 seconds at a crack without someone coming into my office.  Thus, I've learned that my lunches need to be cold (or I have to make multiple irritating trips to the microwave) and easily pushed aside when necessary.  This week's lunches were a Roast Beast Pita and a Chicken Ranch Wrap.

The Roast Beast Pita is pretty basic: 1/2 whole wheat pita, 4oz lean roast beef, tomato slices, and a good handful of dark greens - shove in pita and consume along with a small piece of fruit.

I know this picture sucks, but you'll just have to take my word that the contents of the Chicken Ranch Wrap are delicious: Whole grain tortilla, 2oz grilled chicken, sliced tomato, dark greens, 1 tbsp of yogurt ranch dressing, and 2 thin slices of avocado.  I actually contemplated unwrapping this thing just to take a picture of the insides, but I was too interested in wolfing it down!

PM Snack: By the time my fourth meal of the day rolls around at about 4:30pm, I'm usually pretty damn happy to be eating.  The timing of this meal is also really important because I need to eat late enough fuel to get through my workout when I get home, but not too late or I feel like it's going to come back up during said workout!  This week's 4th Meal has been either 1/2 a pbj sandwich with cottage cheese (eaten on Proatmeal breakfast days) or grown up, homemade Lunchables.  Yes, I'm eating like a 4 year old, but sometimes I like indulging my inner child.

Same deal as the PBJ toast for breakfast - minus the toasted part!

The grown up Lunchable is just kind of fun. 100 calories worth of whole grain melba toast (my brand of choice happens to come in convenient, 5 packs that happen to contain the right number of calories), 2oz turkey, 2oz ham, and 1 ounce of swiss cheese.

Dinner:  Mr. R&R and I usually finish our workouts around 7:00-7:30pm and dinner needs to be both healthy and  quick because we still need to do dishes and food prep for the next day.  I forgot to take a picture of Monday's dinner, but here are the four other quick, healthy, and still really good tasting dinners we had over the course of the week.

Tuesday - Dinner Scramble: 1 egg, 2 egg whites, 1/2 box of spinach, 1/4 cup reduced-fat feta, and a slice of dry toast.  This is definitely the fastest and easiest of all our dinners.

Wednesday - Citrus Chicken with Honey Carrots: 5oz boneless, skinless chicken breast, 2 tbsp lemon juice, paprika, peeled and chopped carrots (Walter and Spot were thrilled to get the green leafy tops for their dinner), and a little honey.  Ready in about 25 minutes!

Thursday - Steak, Potato and Broccoli: I think this is one of my favorite meals in the book.  5oz filet (I like mine so rare it's almost moo-ing), small baked potato topped with spicy brown mustard, and steamed broccoli.

Friday - Baked Tilapia with Mixed Veggies: Tilapia Filet, 1 tsp olive oil, 2 tbsp whole grain bread crumbs, sea salt, pepper, and a bag of microwaveable mixed veggies. These tilapia filets were about 8oz each.  The nutrition guide calls for a 6oz filet, but I'm willing to take what I can get at the market. 20 minutes in the oven and we were eating.

As far as the workouts went this week, it was the same set of workouts as Week 1 with the addition of a 15 minute Cardio Abs workout after Saturday's Pure Cardio session.  The workouts felt a little more manageable this week, but I was still pouring sweat by the second round of the warm up and felt completely used up by the time I was done.  I think Plyometric Cardio Circuit kicks my ass the most, but Pure Cardio feels like the hardest workout - if that makes any sense?

Monday: Rest day due to mandatory happy hour.
Tuesday: Pure Cardio - I need pure oxygen after this one.  I actually crawled over to my water.
Wednesday: Plyometric Cardio Circuit - Level 1 drills followed by ski abs...ow!
Thursday: Cardio Recovery - Yoga, squats, and lunges.  Still hate lunges.
Friday: Cardio Power and Resistance - I made it through the walking push ups!
Saturday: Pure Cardio + Cardio Abs - What Fresh Hell Is This? I'm already dead and now there's an ab workout?  I thought I had strong abs.  WRONG!
Sunday: Rest - Time for meal planning, grocery shopping, and preparing for the week ahead.

So there you have it, Week 2 is in the bag.  Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Insanity Week 1: Descent Into Madness

A big part of any workout challenge is establishing a baseline so you can see how you're progressing. In this case, I'll be using both photos and measurements as my metrics and in the interest of full-disclosure, here are my starting photos and stats:

Starting Stats

Weight: Ideal + 7.4 lbs

Body Fat: 22.7%

Chest: 32.5"

Waist: 26.25"

Hips: 36.5"

Right/Left Thigh: 19.5"/19.5"

Right/Left Arm: 10.5"/10.5"

Day 1:
On Monday morning I rolled out of bed, packed up the obscene amount of food I'd need to get through the day, grabbed my coffee, and headed off to work.  By the time I finished eating breakfast, I was so full that I was having serious doubts about my ability to consume everything else I had in my cooler.  I made it through the morning snack, forced down lunch, and nearly cried when it was time for my late afternoon snack.  I was pretty much sick to death of eating.

When I got home, Mr. R&R and I changed into workout clothes and headed to The Cave to do our first Fit Test.  It started out with a warm up and a stretch which felt good...and then it was on to the test: 8 moves, each performed as many times as possible in 1 minute, followed by 45-ish seconds of rest, and then onto the next move.  By the time it was over I was pretty much ready to die, but I was pretty pleased with my results:

Switch Kicks: 45

Power Jacks: 30

Power Knees: 46

Power Jumps: 25

Globe Jumps: 7

Suicide Jumps: 10

Push Up Jacks: 15

Low Plank Obliques: 39

If you're going to do Insanity, I highly recommend having someone else count your reps during the Fit Test because you will lose track very quickly - you're too busy focusing on maintaining good form and digging deep for enough motivation to keep going.

Day 2:
I really expected to be a lot more sore when I woke up.  I could definitely tell I'd used my core, but my legs felt surprisingly normal.  After another day of forcing down food (it all tastes good, but there's just so much of it) it was time for the first actual workout: Plyometric Cardio Circuit (approx. 45 minutes)

I was pouring sweat by the end of the 9 minute warm up.  Seriously, even the warm up is no joke.  That was followed by some pretty good stretching and then onto the main event.  There was heismans, football sprints, level one drills (jump back to plank, 4 pushups, 8 mountain climbers, jump back in, stand up...repeat), ski abs, various types of punching, and a whole lot of other stuff.  I had to stop several times during the workout just to catch my breath - which is encouraged.  At the end, I was soaked with sweat and completely spent.  My legs even started to feel sore almost immediately afterward. At this point I'm pretty sure Insanity is going to live up to its claim of being the hardest workout ever put on DVD.

Day 3:
Once again, I wasn't sore when I woke up - until I sneezed - that's when I realized that I had definitely used my abs the night before.  As usual, I showered, packed my feed bag (my somewhat affectionate name for the my cooler), and headed to work.  I didn't have to set a timer to remind me to eat today because approximately every 2 1/2 hours, I got hungry.  Right on schedule!  Tonight's workout was Cardio Power and Resistance. It started out with a warm up that had me sweating by the end of the first 3 minutes.  From there it moved into the actual workout, which was a doozy.  Two moves from the Fit Test, Power Jumps and Globe Jumps, made an appearance in this workout along with a lot of push-up type moves like tricep dips (with one leg in the air!), V push-ups, and moving push-ups.

This workout seemed designed to target the legs, chest, and triceps.  I did the best I could, but I definitely took a lot of extra breaks.  My new goal is to make it through one round without needing an extra break, but I think it's going to be a while.  I was, predictably, drenched with sweat by the time it was over and it took everything I had just to drag myself upstairs, make dinner, and pack food for the next day before collapsing into bed and sleeping like a baby.

Day 4:
The first thought I had upon crawling out of bed was "Oh $#!%. Ow."  I. Was. Sore.  I suppose that's to be expected after mostly sitting on my tail for a month after finishing P90 Masters.  All day, I found myself inordinately excited whenever "Food O'Clock" rolled around.  This program is starting to make me hungry!  I got home and we headed down to The Cave for Cardio Recovery.

The warm up for this workout was mostly breathing exercises and stretching.  I was warm by the end, but not pouring sweat like the previous two days.  The workout itself was a lot of yoga-like stretches punctuated with squats, lunges, and balance poses.  I actually found myself enjoying most of the workout instead of just trying to survive it.  I definitely felt the benefits of my P90-induced increase in flexibility.  I still don't love lunges, but I'm starting to embrace them as a necessary evil in life - and realizing that due to the way I'm built/the way my knees react to them, that I just can't go very deep into them.  I was also really excited to eat the prescribed dinner tonight - steak! Seriously, how can you not like a nutrition guide that encourages you to eat steak?

Day 5:
I really need to learn not to schedule things after work.  By the time I made it home from running errands, changed, and made it downstairs, it had been hours since I'd eaten and that made for a really tough workout.  Tonight's challenge was Pure Cardio.  After a pretty standard, sweat-inducing warm up and stretching, Shaun T looked straight into the camera and proclaimed that he was nervous about what was to come.  Uh oh!  When the ripped-as-hell dude leading the workout claims to be nervous, it's probably a sign that you're about to get your ass kicked forty ways from Sunday.  Yeah...that happened.  The workout itself is only about 15-20 minutes long, but there. are. no. breaks.  Granted, Shaun T is constantly telling his people to "take a break and get some water", but there are no scheduled water/catch your breath/recover for a few seconds breaks in this workout.  There were, however, switch kicks, power jacks, level 2 drills (jump back to plank, 8 push ups, 8 mountain climbers, jump back in, jump up), and a form of evil known as 'pedals'.  Pedals involve sprinting in place, dropping into a lunge, hopping into a lunge on the other side, popping back up, and sprinting in place again.  I'm pretty sure these things are going to be the bane of my existence for the next few weeks.  By the time the workout was over, even Shaun T proclaimed, "This Shit is Bananas, Yo!"

I bonked pretty hard during the workout and I really didn't even want to peel myself off the basement floor.  I thought about trying to convince Mr. R&R to bring me a pillow, a blanket, and dinner right there, but eventually I hauled myself upstairs.  Valuable lesson learned: Do Not Let Too Much Time Go By Between Last Meal and Workout.

Day 6:
After 8 blissful hours of sleep I woke up to some really cranky obliques and a rumbling tummy.  Since it's the weekend, life it less structured, so breakfast became brunch, followed by couch-laying mixed with reading and blogging, and finally...today's workout: another round of Plyometric Cardio Circuit.  This $#!% was also bananas, yo!  I think I managed to do more of the workout than I did on Tuesday, but it definitely didn't feel any easier.  If anything, it felt harder because I was already sore from the four previous days.  Post-workout, I enjoyed a Vanilla Berry Protein Shake, took a shower, did some laundry (because we're going through workout clothes like crazy around here), and was very happy when I planted myself on my massage therapist's table for 80 minutes.

Day 7:
Normally Day 7 would be a rest day, but I have a breakfast meeting on Monday morning and a practically mandatory Happy Hour with the office staff after work, so I know there's no way in hell I'll be working out after even one cocktail, so that left me with two choices: A) Do Monday's workout on Sunday or B) Skip the workout.  Let's be honest, there's really only one option here, so Cardio Power and Resistance it was.  I'm pretty sure that this workout should go by its initials - C.P.R.

It's also Super Bowl Sunday.  Under normal circumstances Mr. R&R and I would be making the 45 minute trek out to Maverick and Goose's house to cheer on the Seahawks, watch commercials, drink beer, and chow down on Goose's famous Firecracker Shrimp (which he now admits to copy-catting from a restaurant, but they're still awesome).  However, the forecast called for snow beginning on Saturday evening and ending somewhere in the vicinity of 3am on Monday - with a total accumulation of 6-10 inches and seriously nasty winds leading to drifting and near white out conditions.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that being out on the roads unnecessarily in those conditions isn't a good idea, so we made the decision on Friday night that we would be staying home.  It turns out that that was a very good choice because it started snowing around 9pm on Saturday and by 9am on Sunday there was 6 inches of snow on the ground, it was still snowing, and said snow was blowing all over the place.  By 11pm, we were up to 14 inches and 3ft+ drifts.  Definitely a good call.

Although we didn't get to enjoy Goose's shrimp, we did splurge a little between rounds of shoveling with baked hot buffalo and Devil's Spit wings and garlic oven fries - still healthier than the fried variety.

Too Bad They Didn't Come With A Seahawks Win

Did you watch the Super Bowl?  Were you happy with the outcome? Have any awesome snacks?

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?

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?