47 Days of Insanity

I just finished my 47th day!  This has been a tough week.  Sunday I took too long of a nap so when I went to workout I was just tired.  I quit after about 5 minutes because my body just wouldn't do it.  Monday wasn't much better.  I did the Max Interval Circuit and had to quit 10 minutes early.  But I still did a long workout so I am not discouraged by that.  Today I decided to go back to the earlier workouts and I did the Pure Cardio and the Cardio Abs.  So again, I am not discouraged.  Some days you just have to realize that your body is tired.

I haven't weighed myself in a while.  To upsetting.  But I know I am losing inches and I feel pretty good about that.  My goal is still the 10 pounds.  I repeat that to myself as I am wanting to quit a workout.  I have only two weeks left until I finish the 60 days.

The Strange Ingrown Hair

While in Ethiopia I had a very strange experience with what I thought was an ingrown hair.  ** Warning - This is gross **  So during our second week in Ethiopia I developed a sore that was like a pimple on my back side.  And like most pimples, I decided it is best to squeeze it and irritate it so that it gets infected.  That is what I did.  After several days of me bothering it, it was very red and sore and the redness was growing.  It would be painful at times with like a pinching feeling.  I figured I was sitting wrong on it.  Yes, backside actually means my buns.  But we were sitting on hard, wooden seats a lot so I figured that is what was irritating it.  The bummer is that I couldn't really get a good pinch on it or see it very well so all my squeezing was not effective.

Finally, one day after realizing it was most likely infected and I couldn't pop it, I asked Steve to try to pop it.  He tried but said I should go talk to the nurse on our team.  So down I went to her room and showed her my sore.  She gave it a good squeeze and nothing happened.  She said it just needed to work its way out.  It might take another day.  But nothing deters my squeezing need, so later that evening while we were back in our hotel room, I had Steve squeeze it as hard as he could.  It was quite painful.  But finally he got it to pop.  A hard white rice size piece came out, like a hardened pus piece or something.  I was like, "Cool, let me see it."  So Steve put it in my hand as I lay there on the bed and lo and behold the rice shape pus started growing and then moving.  It was a worm!  A worm was under my skin, eating me!  Now, I like gross and weird medical stuff so I wasn't freaking out, I was excited.  So I took my worm and brought him out to the team of teenagers and college aged kids and showed them what came out of my body.  They were not impressed, but rather quite grossed out. One person told Micah it was his brother and Micah named him Satan.

It is now four months later and I still have a black spot where the worm came out.  I think it will be my reminder of the experience and how Steve is my hero.  Other husbands said they would never have done that for their wives.  But my husband bravely squeezed my worm out.  HERO!

Max Cardio Conditioning

For some reason I thought today's workout was going to be easier.  WRONG!  It was less jumping but it was still super hard.  I took lots of rests during the 50 minutes of working out.  I am sweating like crazy and my legs are shaking.  Time for my fruit smoothie with the protein powder.  But I have made it to day 39 which is quite an accomplishment for me.

Ethiopia Man

Back in July, the three of us went to Ethiopia with a team from our church.  This was my first time to Ethiopia.  Micah had gone on the team the previous year, and Steve had gone on a scouting trip a couple months before.  I wasn't really nervous, having lived in Kenya a long time ago, and having lived in India for years.

Our team of Americans joined with a team of Ethiopian believers who were ready to go out and share Jesus with Muslim communities.  We had two Americans and an Ethiopian translator and an Ethiopian disciple maker.  The disciple maker was from the community and had already planned homes we would be going to.  They would also be the ones to follow up with any who wanted.

Micah and I were teamed up the first week along with our two Ethiopian men.  I was excited to get started.  First we went to a hut that belonged to a believing family.  Then we went with the home owner to his neighbor, who were Muslim.  We were able to share with them about awareness of human trafficking and also the good news of how Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for our lives.  Then we went to a third house.  This small, dark hut was only lit by a cooking fire in the middle.  It was raining outside so it was dark and dank.  We couldn't see the faces of the people we shared with.  We had finished sharing the human trafficking information and I had begun to share the good news, when there was a commotion outside the hut.  A man was angry.  We didn't know what he was saying since we don't know the language.  I stopped talking and we all sat in silence.  One of the men in the hut got up and went out to talk to the angry man.  The door slammed as he walked out.  Our translator said to us, "It's okay."  I didn't know if I believed him.  The voices outside continued in anger.  Our translator said, "I think we should go."  We gathered our things and headed out.  As we hurriedly walked away with a man speaking harshly at us, Micah was worried about me.  He was thinking of protecting me.  I was thinking of acting like I wasn't scared so that Micah wouldn't be scared.  The truth is, we were both scared and wanting to protect the other.

And this is the first time that my son took the roll of protecting me.  I realized that he is now grown up.  My sweet, little baby boy is a man.  At that moment, with an angry, drunk man chasing us away, I was hit with the realization that my boy was a man.  

Month 2 Insanity

Yesterday I began the second month of Insanity.  I am on day 38.  So it took me a little longer to move to the second level.  Yesterday I did a fit test.  I'm not really impressed with my results.  Some of the tests were a little lower than when I started and some are a little tiny bit higher.  And my weight is just 3 pounds less than when I started.  But I have lost inches for sure.

The second level is intense, or should I say, Insane!  The workouts are an hour long now and the moves are a bit awkward and intense.  I have to modify some of the moves.  I don't want to blow my knees out by doing them wrong.

If this doesn't kill me first, I think I should be able to lose a few more pounds with the workouts.  My goal is 7 more pounds.

Made it to 30!

I have done 30 days of Insanity!  Very proud of myself.  I have only lost 3 pounds, but I have lost inches.  I didn't measure myself before starting so I don't know how many, but I can see a difference.  So I still have 7 pounds to go.  I now enter the week of recovery before I start the final month of MAX workouts.  The final month workouts are longer.  I think they are close to an hour long.  So this will be a bit more difficult.  Hopefully that is what I need to lose these 7 little pounds.

Day 24

I have made it to day 24.  I have lost 3 pounds.  I could easily gain that back in a day, but I am thankful to see the scale a bit lower.  I did the plyo workout today along with the abs.  I feel great.  My knees don't hurt as much as they did at the beginning.  And I rewarded myself with a smoothie with Zeal in it.

Fit Test after 2 weeks

I am a little over two weeks of Insanity.  I did the Fit Test today. So now for my comparison from the first day.

Switch Kicks    118 the first day     108 two weeks   (What?)
Power Jacks    35      53  (That's more like it!)
Power Knees    75     83
Power Jumps    30      32   (Two is better than negative 2)
Globe Jumps     7        8
Suicide Jumps    12     14  (I hate the name)
Push-up Jacks     11       16
Obliques       40        55

Overall I am pretty proud of myself.  I wonder if my first time on the switch kicks if I did just kicks and not the jumping kicks.  When I did the moves today I didn't look at my numbers from the first time. I wanted to see what I would do without the motivation to do more than I did the first time.  So next time I will look at my numbers and see if it helps.

17 Days of Insanity

This is probably the longest I have stuck with Insanity.  And the longest that I have worked out and not seen much progress as far as weight loss.  I may be wrong with that one, but it seems like I should have lost more weight by now. 

I did the Pure Cardio today and some of the Cardio Abs.  I am discouraged with the progress but I hope I will stick with it.

I Made It To 15

Fifteen days of Insanity!   I can't believe I have done so well at not skipping days.

Today I found the one workout that I was missing.  I found it on the Chinese site that is like Youtube.  So I was able to do the Cardio Power.  It has a lot more jumping but surprisingly I was able to do some of it.  And it also had a lot of push-ups.  I just do the push-ups on my knees.  I have decided not to push myself beyond what I can do.  It is better to do the girl push-ups and get a bunch in (I think).

I still have the big belly that I started with but I do think my waist is maybe a tiny bit smaller.  Go figure!  But I only started the ab workout yesterday.  I did half of it yesterday and about half of it today too.  It is only on the schedule once a week.

I have also been gluten free for about two weeks or a little more.  I almost gave in today and had a burrito but at the last minute I ordered an enchilada.  And the cookies at work tempt me each and every day.

The meal plan that goes with the Insanity workout is another option.  I would just need to go shopping and stock up on the items they suggest.  Mostly yogurts and bagels and maybe some salmon.  At least with gluten free I can still eat ice cream.  But I'm not losing the weight like I had hoped yet so I don't know if I should try something new as far as my meals.  Who knows.  I have only weighed myself once since I started the workout so maybe I will be surprised when I check next time.

Tomorrow is the fit test.  I hope to be pleased.

Day 14 of Insanity

I'm not really following the true Insanity workout calendar since I am missing one video, so I just kind of do these two videos over and over again.  Today was my first day to ad the cardio abs though. I wasn't able to finish the Pure Cardio.  I stopped about 5 minutes from the end.  So I decided to do some of the Cardio Abs.  I did half of them.  So together it is a complete workout.  Then I looked up the one video I am missing and found it on a Chinese Youtube type site, so maybe tomorrow I will do that.

I had hoped (of course) that I would have lost a couple of pounds by now, but I think my weekly milkshakes with Micah have hindered that dream.  But I would rather spend time with my boy, so pllllbbbbtttt.  

I Can't Believe It!

This is day 10 of Insanity.  I really feel good and horrible at the same time.  I feel horrible while I am doing it.  I feel good after I finish.  I did the plyo again.

Here We Go Again!

After a lovely day off of the Insanity workout, I am back at it today.  I start the new week off with the Plyo workout.  It was tough (it always is).  The push-ups are killers along with the following plank workouts.  Sweat is dripping onto the floor.  But I feel great.  

Day 5 of Insanity

Yesterday was the cardio recovery day, which was stretching and some strength training.  Today it was back into the cycle with the Plyometric Cardio Circuit.  It felt a little harder today.  Maybe I had too big of a lunch.  But I pushed through and finished it up.  The push-ups are the hardest for me.

And now it is time for my fruit protein smoothie!  I deserve it!

Day 3 of Insanity

Today I did the Pure Cardio workout.  What I really hated about this workout is when Sean said we had 30 seconds left in an exercise.  Thirty seconds seems like forever!  Ten seconds I can push through, but 30 makes me want to quit.  One thing I like is that the group on the video are also struggling and taking breaks throughout the workout.  When I can go longer than one of them it makes me feel great.

This workout really gets my heart rate up and makes me sweat like crazy.  My lower back muscles are feeling it.  Not like a backache but like a muscle that is tired.

So far so good!

Day 2

I did Plyometric Cardio Circuit and finished it!  I had to take 5 second breaks throughout the second half, but I did it.  I'm feeling pretty good about it.  And for my refreshing energy drink I am having chocolate milk.

I have had a cold for a week so I am even extra happy that I was able to finish this workout today.

Insanity again!

I am starting the Insanity workouts again.  My one and only goal is to lose 10 pounds.  In the last year I have gained 10 pounds and it is definitely harder to lose it at my age, so I have to get serious.  So mostly this blog is to keep me accountable. 
Day 1 Fit Test
Switch Kiscks - 118
Power Jacks - 35
Left Power Knees - 74
Power Jumps - 30
Rotations - 7
Suicide Jumps - 12
Push-up Jacks - 11
Plank Obliques - 40
I'm actually pretty proud of the results of the fit test.  It is a good starting point I think.  After the fit test I decided to start one of the workouts too, so I did the Plyo.  I didn't do the whole thing, but I got half way through it and decided to not overdue my first day.

There is a diet to go along with the workout also.  The diet is probably going to be harder for me than the workouts.  Especially with the holidays.  And I am told that at work we get A LOT of gifts from people and mostly those gifts are sweet.

Leslie, you've got this!  You go girl!