Round 2, Week 4

Oh cool, I'm a third of the way through!  Actually I'm not sure if that's good or bad.  I'm already feeling a little burned out and it's been pretty hard starting the workouts when I get home from work.  Despite this, week 4 went pretty well.  I didn't have to skip any workouts, even with Thanksgiving.  My diet has been pretty shitty, though.  I'll work on that! This week was a straight Insanity week but I replaced the fit test and the recovery day with running workouts.

Let us venture forth!  Weeks 5 and 6 await!  These are running/Insanity weeks so hopefully more variety will get me out of my funk.

Day 45 - Max Interval Plyo

Hey friends, look what Shaun T. tweeted this morning:

That made me smile because I'm pretty sure I said the exact same thing a few blogs ago.  It's true, too.  I'm sure there are some people that can go full throttle through an entire workout.  I even saw a YouTube video of some psychopath doing the workout while wearing a weight suit.  No thank you!  I doubt I'll ever be able to get through the entire workout without a ton of breaks, but that's okay.  If I'm giving it my all and seeing results, then that is good enough for me.  Besides, I said from the get go that I am doing this more to improve my running and not so much to become an Insanity god.

Today's workout was Max Interval Plyo again.  I'm pretty sure I showed improvement, but I honestly can't remember how the last time went.  I suppose I could read my previous blog post on the subject but that would require some mouse clicks and my arms are tired from the workout.  So many push ups!  Speaking of, the main area that I know I improved is with the push ups, especially during the Level-3 drills.  I still have to sit half of them out but the first 16 were my strongest push ups ever!  Sometimes I do worry that my form might be off for a lot of the moves.  Shaun T. often mentions I should be feeling this in my butt or in my calf muscles or some other group, but it seems like my quads are the only muscle group that ever really feels the burn.  I don't know if that's a form issue or just a weak ass calf issue.

Now on to nutrition.  Yesterday I decided to do something that I should have done at the beginning: eat a ton of protein. I always have a protein shake after the workout but my daily protein still wasn't as high as it should be.  I was at Costco yesterday to replenish my protein shake supply when I saw the same company made some protein bars that have 30 grams of protein a pop.  I picked up a box.  Those along with the shakes bring me up to 60 grams of protein a day.  I read somewhere that you are supposed to eat one gram of protein for each pound you weigh.  I'll try that.

Tomorrow is Thursday which means round two of Max Recovery!  We'll see if I still find it tolerable...

Day 43- Max Cardio Conditioning

Hey dudes.  I came very close to skipping today.  I stayed up too late last night watching "Let's Play..." videos on YouTube because I am and IDIOT and a nerd.  So, I was tired all day and it has really thrown me off.  I'm glad I decided to do the workout.  It would suck to miss a workout when I've done the routine so perfectly so far.  I didn't really push that hard because I wasn't feeling great but I still managed to burn almost 700 calories.  It really goes to show how you must be committed to the program in all aspects of life, including sleep.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The cardio workouts (pure cardio and this one) are my favorite.  I like that I can take a break if one of the moves is kicking my ass and then go right in to the next one.  The variety also helps the time go by faster.  In the other workouts I often catch myself thinking, "Ugh!  Two more sets to go!" but the cardio ones are one move after another.  The end arrives before I think about it!

I'm off from work tomorrow so I can sleep in and catch up on my zzzzzzs.  I don't know what tomorrow's workout is. The calendar is wayyyy over there and I have two dogs on my lap right now.  I can tell you this much:  it is MAX something.  Oh, and say, "Hi!" in the comments.  It'd be nice to know if anybody is actually reading this.

Day 35 - Rest

I get one rest day before month two starts.  I'm an IDIOT and agreed to work part of my coworkers shift today so I'll be at work for 4 hours.  If I had remembered that the Seahawk's first playoff game was today I definitely would have come up with an excuse as to why I wasn't able to work.  I guess I'll record the game.

I'm a little disappointed in myself in the diet department this past week.  More than once I was over my calorie limit, usually do to booze.  I guess starting Insanity in December isn't the best idea with Christmas and New Years in there.  I do feel I need to double down on my efforts to eat right.  I read somewhere that you can't outrun a shitty diet.  Same is true for Insanity.  There is no reason to put myself through this torture if I am sabotaging my results.

I guess I should comment on how I've been handling the diet portion of the program.  Insanity does come with a nutrition guide that gives you certain "food blocks" that are recipes for meals you are to eat 5 times a day in order to meet a broad caloric limit that is based on the Harris-Benedict equation.  That seemed too inaccurate and wasn't really realistic for me to do with the career I'm in so I'm handling it different.  I do eat 5 times a day but they are meals or snacks of my own creation.  I log everything I eat in the free app Myfitnesspal as well as my calories burned during exercise.  I have Myfitnesspal set to have my calorie limits equal to losing about one pound per week.  I'm not sure if that's been happening since the muscle recovery and growth from the first month of Insanity has kind of thrown off my weight.  I think it will be more telling if my strategy has been working with how my weight changes during month 2.  We'll see how much I've lost so far tomorrow with my weigh in for the fit test.

Speaking of tomorrow, I'm scared!  Fit Test AND Max Interval Circuit.