Insanity Max: 30 – Week 1

I decided not to blog every day about the workout, because the context of the posts would have been the same; man, this is hard.  Instead, I will do a weekly recap of the program and my results and thoughts.  I might have a random post mixed in sometimes, depends on how I’m feeling.

So this week, there were 4 workouts over 5 days with 1 of those workouts being done twice.  On Tuesday and Thursday, it was Tabata Power.  Tabata training is basically just a form of high intensity interval training.  20 seconds on, 10 seconds off.  It’s tough because if you push yourself to do as best you can, your heart rate is always in the upper spectrum.  On Wednesday was Sweat Intervals and today was Friday Fight.

Friday Fight was the toughest workout so far.  It’s intense cardio, and the program goes 15 minutes, then a 30 second break.  Then 11 more minutes and another 30 second break.  Then the final 4 minutes.  It’s tough, and by the end of the workout, I had almost completely spent all my energy.  It was difficult to even do some of the more simpler moves.  The ones that kill me the most are the tricep dips. You’re basically in a legs bent seated position.  You put your hands behind you to your sides, with your hands facing your feet.  And then you do tricep dips.  It’s not easy.

As like previous Insanity programs, it’s all about cardio.  There are no weights or other equipment needed.  Any strength building is done with your own body weight.  Push-ups are plentiful in this program, but you also need very strong legs to do a lot of the jumping.  My legs (quadriceps) are usually what fail me first.

I’ve officially lost 20 pounds.  I don’t usually like to share my weight loss right away.  When I started back on July 6th, I weighed 198 pounds.  (I think I posted about why I started all of this in not wanting to reach the 200 pounds mark).  I’ve now completed 8 weeks of exercise, and on Wednesday I weighed 177 pounds.  I’m refraining from posting progress pictures until I’m done with this program, which has 7 more weeks.  But I feel great.

We are trying to follow the meal plan a bit better.  It was confusing to have to try to put stuff in containers to measure, so we modified it a bit and are just doing a calorie count.  I think my target was supposed to be 1700 calories a day, but I am probably averaging about 1200.  The thing is, since I have altered my diet now for 8 weeks, I am not hungry during the day.  I eat oatmeal for breakfast, and that gets me to lunch.  I eat a salad or something similar for lunch, and that gets me to dinner.  I no longer have the cravings for mid-afternoon snacking; in fact I feel fuller longer after eating.  My hardest part is trying to force myself to eat more.  However, as I’m not doing muscle building, the calorie deficit is help progress my results.

Which brings up another point.  Because this program is so cardio intense and less about muscle building, there will almost guaranteed to be muscle loss.  I’ve noticed it a bit in my arms already.  If I was doing muscle building, I would need to make sure that my calorie intake was higher.  I think after this is done, I will probably go back and do P90X to try and gain back some muscle.

So that’s my progress for this week.  This is a great program, and I would recommend it to anyone…as long as you are into cardio.  Until next week!

Insanity Max: 30 – Day 1

I did it.  I finished day 1.  It may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but getting through the first day is key because now I know I can do it, and push myself much harder than I ever thought I could.  In the previous Insanity program, I pushed myself to what I thought was my max.  When I was tired, I rested.  I completed the workouts each day, and I felt great.  But was I really pushing to my max?  Short of having Terry Crews standing next to you yelling at you to keep going, it’s tough to really know if you can REALLY keep going or it you’re spent.

The premise of Insanity Max: 30 is that you push yourself as hard as you can and then you take a quick break and get back into it.  And this program does a great job of pushing you further without having someone next to you.  And it’s just a timer.  The previous workouts that I’ve done all count down.  They are counting down to zero; to completion.  Insanity Max counts up.  You start at 0:00 and you just keep going.  And when you’ve gone as far as you can, when you have no more energy or when your muscles can’t go on, you write down your time.  Today I made it 6 minutes and 37 seconds, before I really felt like I couldn’t go on, and it’s because my legs gave out during one of the moves.

The motivation here is, can I extend my time.  6 1/2 minutes is not a long time under usual circumstances.  And there were a few times when I felt like I was maxed out, but I asked myself can I go more.  I look at that number and think…I KNOW I can do better.  Tomorrow is a new exercise, so my time today can’t compare to it.  But the next time this exercise comes around, I’ll have that 6 1/2 minutes in my head.  And I know I can do it; I can go longer.

Honestly I thought the whole write down your time thing was just going to be a gimmick, but it does provide that extra little motivation to push just a little longer.  That said, I probably wouldn’t do it for the second time through.  I’m not going to post any of my statistics or pictures yet.  I’ll wait until the end for that.  However, I was comparing pictures from last night to those from 7 weeks ago when I first started working out, and my wife said she can definitely see a difference.  So we’ll see how this one does.

I’ll probably do a blog post every day for the next couple weeks, but I might drop off a bit after that.  We’ll see.

Workout Updates

I’ve completed 7 weeks of exercise.  5 days a week, for about 40 minutes a day in the mornings before work.  My eating habits have drastically changed.  I no longer have the cravings that I used to.  I am no longer randomly snacking when I’m bored or just sitting.  I’ve had 1 beer in those 7 weeks (today actually in Leavenworth), but no soda.  My ‘sweets snacks’ have been so limited to the point where I can’t eat as much as I used to because my body is not used to that much sugar anymore.  A piece of cake for a birthday party, or a spoon of ice cream.

I splurged a bit today in Leavenworth.  A beer and a brat, and a couple bits of my daughter’s ice cream.  I did so because on Monday starts a new workout program.  I am going to blog about this one.  It’s called Insanity MAX:30.  It is touted as THE hardest workout program out there, and I don’t doubt it.  I remember the very first time that I did the Insanity program.  Within the first 7 minutes, I had to go outside because I felt like I was going to puke; and outside was a lot closer than the bathroom which I didn’t think I would make it to.  The last 4 weeks I’ve been doing the Insanity program again.  I love it now, it really pushed me and I feel like I get a great workout.  I’ve lost about 18 pounds so far.

I am actually excited about starting it.  The premise of the workout is to push yourself as hard as you can for as long as you can.  When your body finally gives out, you write down the time.  The idea is that you’ll write the time every day, and hopefully you’ll see your time length increase.  Here’s a little preview of what the program is like.

I must be crazy or something to willingly subject myself to this, but there is something about these types of workouts that I just love completing.  So we’ll see how it goes.