Insanity When Sick?

Yesterday I faced with the terrible challenge of doing insanity while having flu like symptoms. This was tough, I have been doing all the right things to stay healthy, vitamins, fish oil, plenty of rest, healthy food, hydration you name it. I sty (ill came down with fever and sore throat. I decided to take the day off. After couple of hours of deliberating I came across Coach Sean's blog on working out when sick. The thing that caught my attention was, moderate exercise is good even if you're sick. So I decided to give it a try. It was Cardio Power day so I decided to keep the intensity low. I've also changed my week a little bit. To help recover faster next day (today) I did Cardio recover instead of upper body training. This should help I think.

I'm glad I've done both. I'm still running some fever and have sore throat and will probably call in sick tomorrow. Not sure if I'll be fit to do insanity tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Week2 Day1 - Cardio Power and Resistance

Motivation Meter (0 - 5) -  4.
Sore -o- meter (0 - 5) - 4.
Nausea Meter
(0 -5) - 2.

Ups -
Downs -
Notes to myself - Push push, finish the sets

Day 6 - Plyo Cardio Circuit

It was a Sunday afternoon and I decided to hit up our empty gym hoping to end the week strong. I also decided to try out the plyo mat they have, see if that made a difference.
a. the plyo mat did not make much difference. Could be the concrete floor it was on. Given a choice I'll prefer doing these workouts on my carpet.
b. In the middle of the workout, I noticed my feet started hurting like really bad. Thannkfully I just loosened the shoe laces and that made a world of difference. Back to my progress

Motivation Meter (0 - 5) -  4.
Sore -o- meter (0 - 5) - 4. For later parts of the drill I tried using my glutes to launch, sure enough, I got pretty sore. But by using the bigger muscles you do relieve your lower back which is a good thing.
Nausea Meter
(0 -5) - 2.

Ups - Was able
to finish the first 20 minutes no problems
Downs - The last drill after the
stretch was HELL
Notes to myself - Push push, finish the sets

Day 5 - Pure Cardio

I skipped out a few days so I can't gather all my thoughts from the day 5 workout. However, middle of the workout (after the stretch) I vividly recall Shaun T saying, "Are you guys as nervous as I am about what's to come". I wasn't sure what he meant, until the drill came through. Holy crap! Pure cardio was INSANE. This has been the toughest by far. I checked back to look at my calendar and noticed there's a few more of these coming up next week. I can tell they're going to up the ante from here on.

Day 4 - Cardio Recovery

Loved it! It was not as intense and I kinda needed a mid week break. This workout routine was mostly stretching and some yoga. I think I finally found a substitute for P90X Yoga which although great is painfully loooog.

I'm going to skip the format for this blog, it simply doesnt apply. Although I do need the reminder to post my initial measurements

Day 3 - Cardio Power and Resistance

Since insanity does not emphasize strength training as much ( no weights etc), I'm guessing this is the substitute.
It was a fairly difficult workout, and the later half was technically slightly difficult to execute. Its harder to do push ups after 20 mins of sprinting. Here's my take

Motivation Meter (0 - 5) -  4.
Sore -o- meter (0 - 5) - 2.
Nausea Meter (0 -5) - 4. Got pretty bad towards the end of the workout

Ups - Was able to finish the first 20 minutes no problems
Downs - The last drill after the stretch was HELL
Notes to myself - Try to finish the drills. Take 45 second breaks instead of 30.

Market List, Meal Plan and more

So I finally spent some time coming up with my meal plan (based on the nutrition guide). Here's what I will be following for the first week at least.

Market List and more

Day 2 - Plyometric Cardio Circuit

I think I'm going to come up with a format to blog my progress. Here's a first crack

Motivation Meter (0 - 5) -  3.
Sore -o- meter (0 - 5) - 2. Surprising, could be the protein I'm adding to my oatmeal
Nausea Meter (0 -5) - 3. Got pretty bad towards the end of the workout

Ups - Was able to finish the first 20 minutes no problems
Downs - The last drill after the stretch was HELL
Notes to myself - Try to finish the drills. Take 45 second breaks instead of 30.

Day 1 - Fit Test

Yesterday was day1, fit test. Its a 20 - 30 minute exercise to gauge your fitness level. I did a preview of this last week just to test my knees (I'm still recovering my ACL surgeries in 2008). This time around the fit test seem slightly difficult given by 4 day binge during my vacation in Phoenix.
Here are the results of the test

Switch Kicks - 82
Power Jacks - 40
Power Knees - 60
Power Jumps - 18
Globe Jumps - 6 rotations
Suicide Jumps - 10
Push Up Jacks - 18
Low Plank Oblique - 30


So far these are just numbers and don't mean anything as far as how I'm tracking towards my goal. I do hope to see the numbers go significantly up.

Insanity - Decide Commit Succeed

So right before my vacation to Phoenix, I decided to do Insanity. Here's why
A. Its 45 - 60 minutes every day (P90x can be up to 90+ minutes)
B. Lots of Plyo - my biggest weakness that I hope to transform.
C. Diet program is lot easier to follow than P90X.
D. No equipment necessary.
E. I may be able to wrap it right before my second vacation to New York in May.

The Why's and What For's

Oct 2009 on my son's first birthday while the party was heating up and everyone was on their toes, I found myself running out of breath. While my son was blossoming with new levels of energy, I was 30, 35 pounds overweight and at my lowest lows. I needed to get back in shape, I needed to start exercising, I needed to be a role model for my kid. And so I joined a gym...

April 2010, six months later, my wife surprised me on my birthday by inviting all our friends over. I looked at the pictures the next day and thought to myself. The few days at the gym wasn't paying off, my diet was still terrible and I was still, 35 pounds overweight.

September 2010, I realized my biggest issue was, a lack of plan. How could I create goals when I lacked a program? How could I create a program when I didn't know what I could achieve? I start digging around and came across P90X. The information was limited so I decided to youtube it, holy smokes, people with incredible results.

After doing some research I decided to pursue P90X. Day after day, week after week, I continued to push play. I finally finished p90x on Jan 23 2011. Dropped 30 pounds and a decent amount of body fat. Went from 0.5 to 15 pull ups in 90 days.

As much as I enjoyed P90X, I was not able to make the same time commitment again. I started looking for something shorter with equal or greater intensity. That's when I heard of "Insanity".