Pictures, measurements, and fit test results are posted! Well, this is week 2 of Insanity. I have not skipped a work out yet. I actually bought Hip Hop Abs too so it should be here some time this week. Colin is home so my stress level has gone way way down. I'm working 3 nights this week and then drill with the good ol' Army this weekend. But next week, I'll be down to 3 a week only!! It's amazing how much free time you have when you're not working over time. This week has definitely gotten better. Let's see so I last wrote 5 days ago and I have done Insanity every day since. I can finally do the warm up without pausing it and I only take breaks during the schedule rest times--enough time to catch my breath, take a drink of water, and check my heart rate. I'm sticking in the 160s-170s so that's excellent. I'm sore every day but every day I put on those damn videos and get to it. I'm becoming fond of it I think.

This is also week two of the clean clean diet. So last week I had the Starbucks last Sunday, little indulgence on the 4th of July with some turkey croissants, chips, and couple bites of cake. Then this Sunday, like I said when I started is my day to eat whatever! I ended up having a maple bar for breakfast, ate clean the rest of the day, went to a Shakespeare play and then had a few beers at Old Chicago. Of course at Old Chicago convinced me to split mozzarella sticks and I convinced him (his idea originally) to split their "Little Big Cookie" single serving. I went way over my calories for they day, but I didn't indulge that bad. At the end of the week, I was still under.

I'm pretty sure my scale at home is lying to me. It said I was 114 lbs... which means I would have lost like 5 pounds the last few weeks. I weighed myself a few weeks ago before starting this at work on a reliable hospital grade scale and was 119.5. According to that scale I'm 116. So there's some progress being made with a healthy change.But like I said, weight loss isn't my goal. I don't want to lose the muscle I have so we'll see where my body fat is next week. I talked to Colin and have decided to incorporate some hip hop abs videos and try to lift weights 2-3 times a week to keep my muscle I've worked so hard for.

I've got some great recipes to add, so I'll be sure to make a new page for that. Insanity through Sunday, Sunday rest day/eat whatever in limits day, start again next Monday! Next Monday is also the next fitness test to see if I've really made any progress or not and some new pictures. Should be good! It's getting way easier to say no to bad foods and alcohol. Thank goodness I'm kicking those cravings in the butt.

On another note, surgery is scheduled! August 12th I'm going under the knife...joy. I'm worried about recovery and recovery time. Who knows how long/what I'll feel like. What I've heard is recovery time is about 1 to 2 weeks and strenuous exercise should wait until after 4-8 weeks of recovery depending on. I'm not excited to be out of Insanity commission for that long. The more I can get in shape now and be healthy, the faster and hopefully easier my recovery will be. Depending on my pictures and measurements after my recovery, I'll see if I'm going to start Insanity from day 1 again, or start at month 2. My goal is to do Insanity, Insanity Asylum, and Insanity Asylum 2 all before the year is over. Big changes for a healthy life!

That's it for now. Keep trucking through my work outs, get some sleep, eat well and next week we'll spice it up a bit and add some things to keep the progress coming. I must say that the MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness are helping me keep on track too :) Almost 5 am, hope everyone is sleeping. Until next time!

-Nic

This picture definitely represents what I feel very day after Insanity. But, working out sore muscles makes the soreness disappear for a while. Feeeeeels good.

And one more good one... baby steps! That's what I'm working on, baby steps towards the overall goal of a healthier life style.