Insanity Fit Test – Holy Cannoli

Hello everyone! I’ve been feeling great lately, and super duper in control, and Sylvia and I just started Beta round two this week with a couple of modifications:

• We’re going to run a mile on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and go as long as we can run sometime over the weekend.
• We’re going to substitute the Core Cardios on Monday for the Insanity Fit Test. This way we can track our progress!
• We’re going to try to up our calories a bit (or at least I am). Our metabolisms are speeding up rapidly, and we need to eat more to match, or our bodies are going to start burning muscle for fuel.
• I’m going to focus on doing more reps on the difficult moves so I don’t plateau and stay safe.

So, first I want to talk about something that’s kind of gross, but really important to talk about for other people in the same situation. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been smelling that my body odor smells a bit like onions gone wrong, either rotting or with something else nasty mixed in. I didn’t know what was causing it, either something that was stored in my fat being released or what. All I knew was that it smelled bad and WRONG. I have never smelled after working out; in fact, I could often go for a few weeks without washing my workout clothes if need be (I’ve since gotten better about washing them, I promise!). So, I knew something was wrong.

I did some research, and found that it could be caused by detoxing, eating too many onions (I eat onions most days because they’re a low sodium way to flavor things, but not in excessive amounts), eating too much spicy food (same as onions), or even drinking carbonated beverages (just weird…). None of them seemed to fit, and I eventually posted about it on Beachbody.

A trainer at Beachbody, Steve Edwards, responded to my post and expressed that he thinks my body is starting to go catabolic. When your body goes catabolic, you don’t allow enough time between working out for your glycogen stores (your fast energy cells, like rechargeable batteries) to recharge. When you work out like this, your body starts burning your muscle for energy (NOT GOOD), and the chemicals that result from the burning often are sweat from your pores. They can smell like onions, alcohol, or ammonia.

He explained that this is really common for people who work out extremely and don’t eat enough. This made perfect sense to me, since whenever I calculate what calories I should be eating a day, they always peg me at around 1950 to LOSE weight (2700 to maintain because I’m so muscular!!), and I’ve been eating between 1600 and 1700 a day. Also, right around the time that this started, I was entering Beta phase and working out harder, all while adding running into the equation. I’m going to try to eat lots of food between workouts to try to fix this problem, and up my calories a bit and hopefully that will help! I just wanted to mention it in case someone else was experiencing the same thing!

Now on to the title! On Monday, Sylvia and I did the Fit Test from Insanity, and it was just as brutal as I remember. That being said, I improved dramatically, even from the results I had 4 weeks into Insanity! Not only was doing two more suicide drills (burpees with a jump at the top) not a problem at all, my form was way better! I improved in pretty much everything, and even went from doing 20 push ups on my knees to 10 legitimate push up jacks! I do think my heart rate monitor results are hilarious. Can you guess then I was resting and when I was working?? (hint, there is a warm up, then 8 moves where you push yourself to the limit, then a cool down)

Sylvia also really improved for the Fit Test, and hopefully her knee will get stronger over the next couple of weeks so she can do the moves even more!

Yesterday, I started the day with a jog (which was actually kind of nice to do in the morning!), and then did Core Speed later in the afternoon. I FREAKING LOVE THAT DVD. Not only did I do about 10 one arm burpees (say WHAAT?), but I vastly improved my heart since the last time I did it, and I was able to keep up much better! Also, at the very end, you do two quick run throughs of the 16 moves from the top, and after the second one, we had a jog recovery, and I was hit with this huge energy surge! It felt so great!

So, that’s everything for the past few days! I hope everyone is doing great! Remember to stay healthy my friends!

Nailed it!

Hey hey hey! Just checking in and saying hi! I’ve been slowly but surely getting less sore as the week has gone on, so that’s good! My hamstrings were really starting to kill me there!

Today is a double day with Dynamic Core and a run, and I’m not really sure when the best time to run is. On Tuesday, I ran at like 2PM, which was only 2 hours before my usual 4PM work out and that was really tough. I barely made it through Core Cardio. But I think today I will try running in the evening, a couple of hours after I’ve eaten dinner. Normally, I have a burst of energy around 8PM anyway, so maybe I will go for a quick jog at the gym at that point 😀 I’ll report back later on how that goes!

Right now, I’m focusing on finishing Focus T25 (see!! It’s working!!). Yesterday, we did Rip’t Circuit for the second time this week, and I’m proud to say that I did much better yesterday! I tried to focus on pushing myself harder than I did last time so that I don’t end up plateauing. So, I did more single-leg burpees, more push ups, and more cardio than I think I’ve ever done. That did mean I had to take a few more 5 second breaks to catch my breath, but I’m pretty proud of myself!

Then, tomorrow is our last official day of Focus T25 (not including Stretch, which doesn’t really count), so this weekend is our final weigh in of our first round! I won’t be surprised if I go up in weight a little bit from a few weeks ago, due to all of the strength workouts and stuff this week, but I’m hoping that my pushing myself will show in my other measurements!

Then, we’re doing the fit test from Insanity on Monday, and going into a second round of Beta. Hopefully, at the end of our second round (which should take us up to our 3.2 mile race in April), we will be ready for Insanity! Dig Deeper!

I hope everyone is having an amazing and healthy day! Stay healthy!

Ugh… so much Rip’t!

Hello and welcome! Yesterday, I was getting back into the swing of things, so it was a good day for doing that. Rip’t Circuit was tough, like really tough. Poor Sylvia was dying the whole time (probably due to toxicity and dehydration), but we both pushed play, and that certainly says something! I pushed myself really hard and did surprisingly well! I’d say I 75% nailed it, mostly because I’m getting back into things and I should do better later this week!

Speaking of, in the last week of Beta, we have to do Rip’t Circuit THREE times 😦 We have to do it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for doubles. Ugh! So, when Sylvia and I were dying during workout yesterday, I pointed out, ‘Hey, if we suck today, we have two more Rip’t Circuits to get it right!!’

But we also had a serious conversation yesterday about what we’re going to do at the end of T25. We both tend to bulk up with strength exercises, so we decided a while ago not to go for Gamma phase of Focus T25, since that is mostly more strength training. For now, when we finish Beta phase, we’re going to just repeat Beta, incorporating some running into our workouts too. We’re training for a 3.2 mile race, but cardio workouts are our weak point, and we both want to get better at that. So, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I run a mile after my T25 workout and try to improve my time. On Sundays, I just try to run as far as I can at a leisurely pace. So far, I’ve only been running a few times, but I’ve liked it when I ran!

Who would have thought I’d ever say that??

But here’s the bit that has me really excited! We’ve been doing great on Focus T25, and after one more Beta cycle, we’re going to give Insanity another try!! I genuinely liked Insanity when I tried it before, but I was waaaay too out of shape, and eventually my body gave out. Sylvia and I are feeling much stronger in our ability to do cardio, so, this time around, I have a really good feeling about Insanity! By that point, it will be time to pick up the intensity, and we already own a copy of Insanity, so we won’t have to spend more money 🙂 I’m ready for my 60 day total body transformation!! 😀

Also, next week, we’re going to do the fit test for Insanity, and I’m curious to see where I’m at now. As you all know, I’ve become a burpee machine 😉

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great day! Remember to stay healthy, friends!