First week done!

So I just finished my first week of Insanity.  Can I do all the exercises yet?  No, but I do notice a slight improvement in my ability to do some of it.  I'm getting a little more air in my hops, I'm jogging a little faster in place, my feet are coming higher off the floor in my kicks, I'm moving a little faster.  Maybe no-one else would notice but I noticed a definite difference today.  And I was feeling a bit ambivalent about working out today but I threw my workout clothes on and went for it and I'm glad I did.  Tomorrow is my rest day but I may check out the power abs since that's coming up next week.  Wanna be ready.

In other news, I went to New Balance today and bought some cross training shoes and wow, what a difference they make.  Not just in my workout but in walking around in general.  I guess I needed more support in my shoes than I realized.  I also went shopping and bought a new pair of pants and a couple of tees for work plus a pair of shorts to work out in.  Now I have a couple of pair I can use.  I also went to Trader Joe's and to the library, just to round out my day of running errands.  Now I have to decide if I'm having chicken or shrimp for dinner.  Decisions, decisions.

Today, I did that thing we all used to do before Itunes and instant music.  When I drove into the parking lot of the mall where I did my shopping, a song came on the radio just as I arrived and I sat in my car and listened to the whole song before I went in the store.  It was awesome.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivFYVAntpw0 

And as long as I'm on an 80s kick, here's one more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qUFZwJb9GA

Time to eat!

Still Insane

So today is day 5 of the Insanity workout.  It's actually day 4 of the workouts, the first day I took the fitness test, which is about 30 minutes.  I'm still looking forward to going home every day and doing the next workout.  I haven't lost any weight, as a matter of fact, I went up 3 lbs.  I think that has to do with my salt intake this week, a lot of what I've eaten has a high sodium level.  Since this isn't just about weight loss but getting healthy and strong, I'm pleased with my progress.  I will tweak my food over the next couple of weeks, less sodium, more fresh food.  Today is the Pure Cardio workout, it's about 45 minutes long.  I will, of course, be breathing hard and sweating buckets by minute 2.  But just completing the workout every day is giving me a sense of accomplishment.  I'm already starting to feel the effects of it, not just feeling better but all those little projects and ideas I've had in my head thinking "I'd like to do that." is starting to come to fruition.  I notice that my patience for sitting on my butt for hours on end is diminishing.  Passive entertainment  is no longer holding my attention the way it used to either.  After my workout tonight, I'm going to pick a task and work on it until it's done.  Then I will start another project.  I'm hoping this keeps on because there are a number of things outside of work and home that I would like to do as well.  I want to take a first aid/cpr class at the American Red Cross.  On a completely different tangent, I'd like to learn to tango.  Maybe now, I'll have the energy for these things.  That would be nice.

Update

So since my last post, I have been eating better, exercising more, working harder and ignoring this blog.  I also went to Cloverdale for a few days, so my brother and I could work on the storage units.  We have a couple, a large one my brother had and a smaller one he rented when Mom moved into assisted living.  Both units had stuff from Mom's house in them and we needed to go through everything and consolidate.  Now that both of our parents are gone, I arranged to take a couple of days off work and fly to Sonoma County.  I got there Thursday morning and after driving to my brother's, we had lunch and then started in on the units.  My poor brother had caught a bad cold the day before I arrived.  I kept telling him not to push it but he worked very hard even though he was really under the weather.  We hauled a queen size box spring and mattress along with some other trash to the dump and returned back to the storage facility.  We then loaded up the back of the truck and hauled it down to the Salvation Army.  Here's what you have to understand about Cloverdale.  It's a very small town and if the traffic light is with you, you can go from one end of town to the other in about a minute and a half.  But it takes at least 15 - 20 minutes to get anywhere else.  And since the back of the truck was loaded, we stayed off the highway and took the back road, so it took even longer.  I entertained myself by videoing the drive, off and on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4YbsPxq1b0 .  It's kinda blurry, as one would expect from a video shot out the window of a moving truck.  But it's really beautiful up there and I don't mind the drive to the dump in such a place. Anyway, over the course of three days, we took one truckload to the dump and seven or eight truckloads to the Salvation Army.  We moved the bed, furniture, a refrigerator, boxes and boxes of stuff.  I hadn't realized that even the haphazard amount of exercising I was doing before I went would make such a huge difference in what I was able to accomplish.  I lifted heavy items, worked hard for several hours each day and even though I was tired and sore, I didn't feel lethargic and exhausted like I used to.

Something else that kinda hit me sideways was the level of emotion that was attached to dealing with our parents stuff.  I didn't cry or anything, it was more of a melancholy feeling but it lasted for days even after I returned home.  It was another reminder that that whole generation in our family is really gone.  My family tends to live a long time: Gramma was 103 when she passed, Grampa was 90.  My uncle was 93, my aunt 88.  Mom was 85, Dad was a relatively young 74.  So all those people who were there my entire life, it seems they went so quickly and there's an odd empty space where they were.  Add to that, the worry over my brother doing too much, plus his stress over a relationship with a member of the family that's very rocky right now, it was overall a tough weekend.  I knew I was right to worry about him, he had a bad case of pneumonia the week after I left.  He's doing better now, but it was a rough one.

When I came back, my intention was to start back up working out right away, I was so pleased with how much stronger I felt while cleaning out the storage units.  But it was several days before I actually did anything.  I would go to work, come home, sit down "just for a minute" and wake up a couple hours later.  I was more tired than I knew.  Before I went to Sonoma, I decided that it was time to commit to working out harder, so I ordered the Insanity workout.  I needed something that was tough, that was different and that, if I did it for the 60 days, I would be in much better shape than I am now.  I started that this week.  The first day was the actual fitness test, which was tough enough.  There are things that I can't do right now, so I modify and do what I can.  For example, at my weight, I can't jump in the air.  As a matter of fact, it had been so long since I'd jumped, I couldn't remember how.  So I braced my hands on the counter and gave a little jump, more of a hop really.  And that's what I'm doing.  The folks on the video are jumping in the air, I'm hopping.  My goal at the end of 60 days is to be able to do at least full perfect form repetition of each of the exercises on the fitness test.  I really want to be able to do more, but I will be happy if I can do it at all.  Anyway, Insanity is promoted as the toughest workout on dvd.  I don't know if it is but omg, it's hard.  I can't wait for tomorrow to do it again.