The title of this post is in regards to yesterday's Insanity workout--Pure Cardio. It's a quote from none other than the instructor himself, Shaun T, fittingly spoken at the end as he lay on the ground, dripping sweat, possibly rethinking his future as a fitness professional. I looked and felt the same way afterwards (minus the fitness professional part), but I'm still smiling! (On a side note, I was able to keep my heart rate to 75% during the warm-up, and complete it totally--the first time I've been able to do either! If you've ever done the Insanity warm-up, you know how difficult that can be.)
The workout itself is one of my least favorites because it really is bananas, but the video has me cracking up every time. He admits to the camera and his crew that he's nervous about the workout during the warm-up stretches. This made me very skeptical the first time around, but it's reassuring when you see others (including Shaun T) taking a break to get water or reset, making the whole thing seem more possible. If these incredible god-like bodies are having trouble, then by all means I should be, too. I'm actually really glad I decided to do this instead of P90X, because I like the honesty of it. Not sure the guy's name that instructs P90 (Tony something?), but he seems annoying.
I'm writing this post before I tackle today's workout--the Plyometric Cardio Circuit. Hopefully I can give it my all knowing that tomorrow is a break (Cardio Recovery--it's one of my favorites, and aptly named, because it's pretty much a yoga video in order to give your body a rest.) I wanted to get in a blog entry before I was too tired to do so, which is why there wasn't one after my workout yesterday! By the way, concerning my last post about getting things done earlier (and just done, period), I actually did really well yesterday. I was able to get up with my alarm and complete an itinerary I made in order to keep myself on track. I got A LOT accomplished.
It goes on like that for a while, but as OCD as it seems, it really worked! I don't think I could plan all of my days in that manner (what fun is that?), but for really jam-packed ones, I'll keep it in mind. Today was more of a lazy off day. I hung out with the dogs, caught up on shows, and did some more laundry--very relaxing.
And oh yeah! Notice the measurements at 9:15? Well I'm excited to report that since I've been doing Insanity (for a week and a day at the time these were taken), I've lost 1 inch in my chest (1 inch overall from January), .5 inch in my arm (.5 overall), .5 inch in my waist (2 inches overall!), 0 in my hips (but 3 inches overall!), and .5 inch in my thigh (2 inches overall). That's 2.5 inches in one week, and the inch in my chest and .5 in my arm are solely from this workout! I'm really amped now that I have numerical proof of my results.
I've also been doing really well with my nutrition and counting calories. I'm trying to make sure I have balanced meals (carb, protein, fat) and 6 pint glasses of water a day. One thing that's really helped on the water front has been to prepare some green tea I keep in the fridge. Green tea is good for you, and it's got enough of a taste to differentiate yourself from just drinking water all the time. I brew a concentrated batch in a measuring cup (about 10 bags for 3 cups of water), let it cool, and then I pour it into an old milk gallon, top it off with water, and stick it in the fridge. My roommates say it looks like a gallon of pee, but who cares! Yesterday I went outside and got some mint from my garden to flavor it--very refreshing.
Ok, so maybe it does look like pee, but I'll take it over the other stuff I drank yesterday. I've heard that coconut water (coconut anything really) is supposed to be crazy good for you, so I found this stuff on my last trip to Cost Plus World Market:
It was 2 for $3 so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I bought all 4 flavors (this one is aloe and wheatgrass, but there's also mangosteen and mango, goji berry and lychee, and passionfruit and pineapple). It looks like this out of the bottle:
Looks like aloe vera, right? Well it also tastes like it. It was... weird. Not in a horribly bad way, but I'm hoping since I tried the worst sounding flavor first, the other ones will seem wonderful in comparison. At least the dogs were excited about it...
I ended up just downing it so it didn't mess up the taste of my delicious post-workout snack. Apples with natural crunchy peanut butter and dark chocolate dreams--another find at Cost Plus. It's dark chocolate mixed with peanut butter, and it's amazing. Really gave me the dark chocolate fix I'd been after with a lot less calories (it's comparable to PB for a 2 tablespoon serving).
I actually think I eat more now that I'm trying to eat 5 times a day and keep it to a certain amount of calories. I've gotten really good (and my body, too) at knowing when I need to eat and how big the portions should be. Hopefully this is going to turn out to be a life-long, natural change, as I've begun to do better in the past and obviously dropped off the wagon. As the title of this entire blog suggests, I don't have a regular 9-5'er, so I pray that when that does happen my new exercise and nutrition regimen will marry with it nicely. I'm really trying to use this transitional time between college and adulthood in the best possible way, since I have yet to secure a job, by getting my personal, mental, emotional, and physical self together before I unleash it on the world. But if you happen to know of anyone that is hiring, I think I might be able to fit one in now! :)
The workout itself is one of my least favorites because it really is bananas, but the video has me cracking up every time. He admits to the camera and his crew that he's nervous about the workout during the warm-up stretches. This made me very skeptical the first time around, but it's reassuring when you see others (including Shaun T) taking a break to get water or reset, making the whole thing seem more possible. If these incredible god-like bodies are having trouble, then by all means I should be, too. I'm actually really glad I decided to do this instead of P90X, because I like the honesty of it. Not sure the guy's name that instructs P90 (Tony something?), but he seems annoying.
I'm writing this post before I tackle today's workout--the Plyometric Cardio Circuit. Hopefully I can give it my all knowing that tomorrow is a break (Cardio Recovery--it's one of my favorites, and aptly named, because it's pretty much a yoga video in order to give your body a rest.) I wanted to get in a blog entry before I was too tired to do so, which is why there wasn't one after my workout yesterday! By the way, concerning my last post about getting things done earlier (and just done, period), I actually did really well yesterday. I was able to get up with my alarm and complete an itinerary I made in order to keep myself on track. I got A LOT accomplished.
It goes on like that for a while, but as OCD as it seems, it really worked! I don't think I could plan all of my days in that manner (what fun is that?), but for really jam-packed ones, I'll keep it in mind. Today was more of a lazy off day. I hung out with the dogs, caught up on shows, and did some more laundry--very relaxing.
And oh yeah! Notice the measurements at 9:15? Well I'm excited to report that since I've been doing Insanity (for a week and a day at the time these were taken), I've lost 1 inch in my chest (1 inch overall from January), .5 inch in my arm (.5 overall), .5 inch in my waist (2 inches overall!), 0 in my hips (but 3 inches overall!), and .5 inch in my thigh (2 inches overall). That's 2.5 inches in one week, and the inch in my chest and .5 in my arm are solely from this workout! I'm really amped now that I have numerical proof of my results.
I've also been doing really well with my nutrition and counting calories. I'm trying to make sure I have balanced meals (carb, protein, fat) and 6 pint glasses of water a day. One thing that's really helped on the water front has been to prepare some green tea I keep in the fridge. Green tea is good for you, and it's got enough of a taste to differentiate yourself from just drinking water all the time. I brew a concentrated batch in a measuring cup (about 10 bags for 3 cups of water), let it cool, and then I pour it into an old milk gallon, top it off with water, and stick it in the fridge. My roommates say it looks like a gallon of pee, but who cares! Yesterday I went outside and got some mint from my garden to flavor it--very refreshing.
Ok, so maybe it does look like pee, but I'll take it over the other stuff I drank yesterday. I've heard that coconut water (coconut anything really) is supposed to be crazy good for you, so I found this stuff on my last trip to Cost Plus World Market:
It was 2 for $3 so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I bought all 4 flavors (this one is aloe and wheatgrass, but there's also mangosteen and mango, goji berry and lychee, and passionfruit and pineapple). It looks like this out of the bottle:
Looks like aloe vera, right? Well it also tastes like it. It was... weird. Not in a horribly bad way, but I'm hoping since I tried the worst sounding flavor first, the other ones will seem wonderful in comparison. At least the dogs were excited about it...
I ended up just downing it so it didn't mess up the taste of my delicious post-workout snack. Apples with natural crunchy peanut butter and dark chocolate dreams--another find at Cost Plus. It's dark chocolate mixed with peanut butter, and it's amazing. Really gave me the dark chocolate fix I'd been after with a lot less calories (it's comparable to PB for a 2 tablespoon serving).
I actually think I eat more now that I'm trying to eat 5 times a day and keep it to a certain amount of calories. I've gotten really good (and my body, too) at knowing when I need to eat and how big the portions should be. Hopefully this is going to turn out to be a life-long, natural change, as I've begun to do better in the past and obviously dropped off the wagon. As the title of this entire blog suggests, I don't have a regular 9-5'er, so I pray that when that does happen my new exercise and nutrition regimen will marry with it nicely. I'm really trying to use this transitional time between college and adulthood in the best possible way, since I have yet to secure a job, by getting my personal, mental, emotional, and physical self together before I unleash it on the world. But if you happen to know of anyone that is hiring, I think I might be able to fit one in now! :)
What are you using to count calories? As in, how do you know how many are in that apple?
ReplyDeleteGoogle and a lot of times bagged apples have nutritional labels. I have a bag a Macintosh apples now that say each one is 80 calories. If that information isn't available, usually I will just take the average of what a few different sites suggest.
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