Rethinking the Site a Bit

Well, I am still doing the Insanity Workout on an ad-hoc basis as part of my complete workout plan: which now includes yoga. However, I am rethinking my blog. Rather than just talking about Insanity or Insanity for Vegans, I am just going to blog about what interests me at the moment. I believe that this will enable me to blog more often.

So stay tuned for a highly eclectic montage of the random stuff that is of interest to me at the moment. Gads.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. With the holidays, I was not able to fully re-engage with the workout following Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is the first Monday, of the new year, so here I go again. Maybe you too are starting the new year with a new diet, a new workout and a new prospective on life. If so, good luck!

A vegan diet is for sure a great way to eliminate some protein sources that bring in a great deal of unhealthy fat. I lost about 30 pounds doing absolutely nothing other than becoming vegan. Something to think about. A well balanced vegan diet can be very healthy. It’s good for you, good for the environment and improves the lives of animals. Although my workout schedule was a mess, I maintained my vegan diet, and as a bonus, I didn’t gain the typical holiday poundage.

The insanity workout is a great way to trim down and increase your strength. I am not a Beach Body coach, and I am not compensated by Beach Body in any way. I just love the workout. It is balanced, fun, and you feel like you have done something when you are done. Plus it works with a vegan diet.

So, if your new year’s resolutions have anything to do with improving your health, loosing weight, improving your numbers and just feeling great as well as feeling good about yourself, why not give this insane combo a try. Please let me know how it is going. When considering a fundamental change to your diet and/or workout regime, please consult the advice of a professional and/or your primary health care provider.

Good Luck

John

Insanity Workout Day 2.2

Well I ended up taking off a bit more time than I thought that I would, but I am back on my mission. Working out while out of town for Thanksgiving proved to bit more difficult than anticipated. For one thing I picked up an airplane bug. It was very mild and only lasted about 48 hours, but with everything else going on, I decided to focus on knocking it out quickly. By the time I was back home, I was off of a week boundary, so I waited an additional week.

As I said in a previous post, I completed the first month of the Insanity Workout. Although, I am in much better shape (at least from the prospective of this intense form of workout) I feel that I am just now at the point where I can begin the Insanity Workout. In other words, rather than moving on to month two and slopping through it, I am going to repeat the first month. When I get to month two, I want to get as much out of it as possible. As we say in martial arts, it is a journey not a destination.

Today’s workout was Plyometric Cardio Circuit. You may recall that I didn’t start off the first time through the first month pressing myself from a cardo standpoint. I was really just trying to find my way through the workouts. I was taking shortcuts and lots of breaks. My goal this time through is to drive my heart rate to 95% before I consider taking a break. Thanks to my heart monitor, I can do this. Today I kept my heart rate at 95%-102% for about 90% of the workout. I was working hard to get my heart rate up and I ended up taking about 4-5 breaks during the workout, but I jumped right back into the workout when my heart rate recovered to 94%. This was a truly intense way of driving this workout.

In general, I am trying to improve my diet. Many people think that Vegan’s are health nuts. Most vegans are actually animal activists and don’t think a great deal about what they are eating: other than eliminating animals and animal by-products. Surprisingly (to non vegans) one can eat poorly on a strictly vegan diet. I am trying to avoid this trap by trying to watch my fat and carb intake. Today, I actually ate less than my typical days intake prior to Insanity. I had plenty of energy, and I am going to keep this up and tune it along the way if needed.

What Does #Vegan Mean to You?

I assume that most of you have been exposed to the term vegan. What I would like to know, is what do you think it means to be vegan? There is no right or wrong answer associated with this blog entry. I am truly interested in what you think it means to be vegan. Don’t be worried about coming up with a crazy answer because I can assure you that I have been given many answers to this question. Therefore, if you read this entry, please reply with an answer.

Insanity Workout Day 20

Yesterday, I did the Pure Cardo Circuit with my teenage daughter. She is a serious athlete and a vegan too. I told her that I need to take breaks from time to time during the workouts. She made a comment that her friends frequently take breaks when they workout with her.

This was about the best workout that I have had while on the program: not too surprising. First of all, I have been improving with each workout as I become more familiar with the workouts and as I have been becoming stronger. Since switching to the mode where I drive my heart rate to 95%, I have been making greater strides. Second, this was the first workout that I did with someone, and that is certainly motivational.

My daughter did very well with the workout, but she had to take breaks too. She said that it was the hardest workout that she has ever done. Like when I first started, she had a hard time with the moves that were not familiar to her. We both felt great when we were done.

Insanity Workout Day 18

Today’s Cardio Recovery, like every Thursday, is an odd combination of an anticipated rest from the insanity of the intense cardio, yet a balance and abdominal nightmare. I constantly think about how I am not gasping for air (on the verge of collapsing) and yet there is no mercy. Don’t get me wrong, I love this stuff and know that is changing me for the better, yet, it is nuts.

Insanity Workout Day 17

Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs combo for the second time in three days. What was I thinking? Never the less it was fun.

I am keeping with my plan to push my heart rate, and I think it is paying off. As I have said, it will be a while before I can do this without the breaks, but when I think of it as a journey and not a destination it helps. When I do this combo, I do it back to back. I am guessing that the Cardio Abs would be easier if a did them at different ends of the day, but I feel that I am getting more cardio milage by doing them back to back.

As I wrote before, the jumping around tends to be hard on my knees. Perhaps this too will get better with time, but I don’t push my knees. When there are jacks or squats that start causing me pain, rather than sitting out, I just jog in place. At least I am keeping my heart rate up. Otherwise, the biggest challenge that I am currently having is the level 1 and level 2 drills. Those just destroy me. Since I am pressing my heart rate to 95%, by the time I reach those (typically later in the workout) I am totally maxed out before I hit the third rep. This is really my primary indication of resolve. Each time I try to dig a little deeper and find the energy to press on.

Insanity Workout Day 16

Ok. So I am officially back on track. Today’s workout was Plyometric Cardio Circuit. I love the heart monitor that I got last week. It has totally changed my approach to doing the Insanity Workout. Previously, I was conserving way to much energy. My thinking was to conserve energy to do more of the workout. This lead to a false sense of accomplishment. True, I was getting through the workout with progressively fewer breaks, but I was holding back. In other words, I was tuning the program for what I now consider to be the wrong goal.

Since I am repeating week three (due to my derailed week three last week), I decided that I would drive my heart rate to the 95% MHR limit that I set on my heart monitor. Today I drove myself to the point of getting to 95% during the warmup. I recovered during the stretch, and once again, I work up to 95% during the first (low intensity) circuit of the workout proper.  From that point forward, I repeatedly exceeded my 95% mark. While this forced me to take many more breaks than I was taking previously, I feel that the workouts were much more intense.

My plan at this point is to complete the first 4 weeks following this (“keep it close to 95%”) methodology. I am suspecting that I might need to stick with the first four weeks for a while to keep building up strength and stamina before moving on to the more difficult second four weeks. I am ok with this because my goal is not to merely get through the program but to get myself in shape. If it takes me longer the 60 days to get through the program, I am totally ok with that as long as I feel like I am making progress to my overall goal.

Insanity Workout Day 15

Last week I got derailed. When I started this, I knew that the workout would be hard, but I failed to think about the implications of doing a workout daily. I have been so busy at work, and that has lead to long work days. Thursday, Friday and Saturday ended up being train wrecks as far as scheduling a workout, and by the time I got home, I was ready to crash.

So here I am on Monday, and I am repeating week 3. Rather than doing the fitness test again (two weeks in a row), I did the Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs combo. It was great getting back into the workout.

This was a good opportunity to sync up my workout numbers with the actual calendar.

Unless I get feedback that people miss my talking about my meals, I am also going to stop posting the details of my diet. At some point I will provide a page that contains what I have learned about tuning my vegan diet to the Insanity Workout. Besides a little confusion at the beginning, I am finding that there really hasn’t been much need to change my diet.

Insanity Workout Day 14

Meal 1: Soy Protein Shake

Meal 2: 1 Whole Wheat Toast, 1T Peanut Butter, Oat Meal and Coffee

Meal 3: 1x Whole Wheat Tortillas, a couple of slices of Tofurkey, 1/2 C of stuffing, a Small Salad (greens, hummus, tofu, Sunflower Seeds, and craisins) and a banana.

Meal 4: Clif Builder Bar and Water

Today is double workout day: Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs. This circuit pair has occurred twice before, and both those times I only did Pure Cardio. Today, I happened to notice that these were separate programs on the same DVD. Not to be confused with Cardio Power & Resistance which is a single workout.

Pure Cardio was enjoyable. I took fewer breaks than the last time but more than the next time. The Level Two Drill and the Suicide Jumps just wipe me out. As the man says, the stuff is bananas.

Cardio Abs was new territory. Of all the workouts to put a workout after, why Pure Cardio? Besides being exhausted from the Pure Cardio my arms were spent from the Level Two Drills, so the plank work didn’t work out so well. This was not an enjoyable workout, but I think it will fall into place.

Meal 5: Vegetable Lentil Soup

Food Update: still pushing down the caloric intake. You may recall that last week I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need to bump up my caloric intake as much as I thought. I am trying to work my way back to were I was prior to the Insanity Workout. Still focusing on high quality, diverse protein sources. Although, I subscribe to the “drink a glass of wine” each day philosophy, I am dropping Monday and Wednesday to save those calories. You will also note that I dropped sodas. At first I felt carb starved, but I am over that now, and frankly, soda is a quality source of carbs anyway.

Supplement Update: I have added a second B-Complex at the end of the day following my workout. I have also added a Glucosamine and Chondroitin supplement to see if I can relieve some of the stiffness in my knees.