Day 3 - Hills, Hills, Hills

Yesterday, instead of doing Insanity I went running with my BFFF Todd.  We decided to take a jog through a local park.  I've ran the park multiple times before, back when I was in shape.  I remember it never being an easy run by any means.  Even when I was able to run 5 miles on a treadmill, the 2 miles at the park always seemed harder.  Needless to say I was curious about how I would do after being away from running for around 4 months now.

The park has a total of 4 large hills; in fact, of the 2 mile distance, I would estimate that 1/4 of the run is uphill.  We started around 7:10pm and made it back to our cars around 7:40pm - a total of about 30 minutes, with two walking breaks. My goal is to get back to my old time of 18.5 minutes, with no breaks.  I obviously have long way to go.

Day 2 - Cardio Circuit

Yesterday's workout was a bit crazy; 40+ minutes of it too.  I won't go into all the details, but it was a good deal different from the first workout.  For the circuit workout, you go through a series of movements multiple times before breaking.  One example of this:  I was given exercises like suicide drills, heismans, high knees, butt kicks, jumping jacks, and mummy kicks. You are given about 30 seconds for each exercise with no breaks - the first round is at about 50%, primarily used as a warm-up.  After you complete a "circuit" you're given a 30 second break, and you do it again at about 75% effort.  After another 30 second break you do the circuit a last time at 100%.  Through this video, we went through two separate circuit sets.

I feel like I'm keeping pace better than before, but I still can't make it through an entire workout without stopping.  I think as I progress I'll be able to not take as many breaks, but I expect extra resting to be a normal thing.  Heck, the instructor takes breaks sometimes.  I'm no fitness trainer.

So along with my exercising, I've been trying to control my eating a little better too.  I'm not doing as much "calorie counting" as I did before, but that's primarily because I want to do something that can be a lifestyle change.  I don't want to count calories my whole life.  I keep track of how many calories are in my food to a degree, but that's mainly because I need to re-teach myself the goods and the bads of my eating habits.  I'm trying to stay in the neighborhood of 1500 to 2000 calories a day.

As another tidbit - I recently read that drinking ice water can help you burn extra calories (not many).  It makes sense that it takes energy for your body to bring ice water temperatures up to your normal body temperature.  A site I was looking at calculated 8 glasses of ice water to burn somewhere around 70 calories.  Not much, but still not bad considering it takes zero effort.  I've also started taking One-A-Day Energy pills.  I'm not sure that I can tell a huge difference yet.  I do know that yesterday I was feeling extremely tired at work, and wasn't sure why - later I realized I didn't take my One-A-Day.  About 30 minutes after I took it (and after dozing off in my desk chair for about 2 minutes) I felt great for most of the day - whether I should attribute that to the energy pill or the cat-nap, I don't know.

As a final note, I tried a peanut butter Nature Valley granola bar this morning for breakfast.  Ah-Maze-Zing, and only like 190 calories.  I plan on buying a box of these when I get off work.

Day 1 - Fit Test

For my workouts, I will be using a program I found a few months ago called Insanity.  It's pretty intense compared to what I'm used to, so I'm still struggling with even getting through one workout without stopping for a break.  The program consists of 10 videos, designed to span 60 days.  Today was the first video, Fit Test, in which you create somewhat of a baseline for yourself so you can continue to compete against your base reps.  You're given an exercise and have 60 seconds to complete as many reps as you can before you drop dead, with about 45 seconds breaks in between.  Here's how my day went:

Fit Test Exercises (Not me in the video... yeah I know, duh):  Click Me

• Switch Kicks - 67 reps (2 kicks = 1 rep)
• Power Jacks - 58 reps
• Power Knees - 107 reps
• Power Jumps - 30 reps
• Globe Jumps - 8 reps (4 movements = 1 rep)
• Suicide Jumps - 9 reps
• Push-up Jacks - 20 reps
• Low Plank Oblique - 14 reps (2 knees = 1 rep)

As is painfully obvious, I'm lacking in the exercises that require any sort of jump movement. I hope to improve these numbers by the time I do this video again - we'll see.  If you're really curious about my diet, you can follow it in depth at Daily Burn.  Just search for ctote.