Insanity: Week 1

So we have finished Week 1 of Insanity and it was insane.

The workout:

As someone who thought they were in at least “okay” shape, I can say that this intense cardio circuit workout was not for the faint of heart… in fact, multiple times I felt like fainting and/or puking. The exercises alone aren’t that difficult themselves, but the repetitiveness and the fast pace is what gets you… this workout requires a load of endurance, and it aint a short video! By Day 3, I was more sore than I had ever been in my life (literally) but by Day 7 (the one rest day of the week) and felt almost 100% recovered from by previous days workout.

I will say that I don’t know if I would have stuck with this every day if it weren’t for that fact that I am doing this with my fiancé… for me, doing this with a partner has been the key factor that has held me to my commitment. (I’ve heard that Week 1 and 2 are when most people drop out of Insanity

The diet:

A pleasant surprise… sticking to the Insanity diet has been easier than I thought it would be! Although I’ve cut back my daily intake of calories by at least 20%, I feel like I am actually eating more throughout the day. With the Insanity diet, you eat 5 smaller meals a day vs the normal 3 large meal… so it feels like I am able to “snack” more often, although I can already tell, it is going to take me a while to get used to eating “large” dinners. My normal eating habits consist of my getting uncomfortably full, and I’m not going to lie, it’s been weird only eating to “satisfaction” and then stopping, but I think that my body will adapt with time. We have had our temptations (we did have a few cocktails this weekend!) but overall I think that we have done really well (I even brought celery and carrots and hummus to a baseball game instead of indulging in $1 hot dog night). So far, I can say that (for us at least) the key to sticking to the diet plan is planning and prepping ahead of time (more on that later).

Other fun stuff:

·         I mentioned that the start of the Insanity meal plan would bring more meat into our diets but after this first week, we have decided to return to our little-to-none meat diet. I thought that we would be needing a lot more protein to balance the energy expended with the workout but after really “doing the numbers” I realized that meat wasn’t so much of a necessity. Our protein shakes in the morning + farm fresh eggs + shit tons of hummus + our love for Greek yogurt = plenty of protein. (the one meat we are still eating at home is deli turkey for our sandwiches)

·         Speaking of protein, try going from a super fibrous diet (like I was eating) to a protein shakes every day diet… I won’t get into the details but let’s just say that “things” weren’t “moving” as easily as the were when I was eating mostly veggies and fruit. So on top of the protein powder, our Daily Vitamin and Krill Oil, we have added Dietary Fiber Gummies (yummy by the way)… and I am happy to say that they have successfully “gotten things moving”!

·         I have really, really weak knees

·         Testing chocolate milk as a recovery drink, so far, I’m loving it… the first day we started drinking it was the first day I wasn’t horribly sore afterwards!)