Amanda has a girl!

Congratulations to Amanda! She had a baby girl! Haley Harper. Amanda used to work for me, when she was in high school. She gave us a couple scares, hanging it with the wrong guys and silly people. And now she is a beautiful teacher, wife and mama. Wow. W2G Amanada! I'm so proud of you.

I'm ready for Memorial weekend--I just need some time to clean my house, sleep, play with the kids and maybe even scrapbook some. While doing all that, I need to double up on some workouts, so I don't get behind when I am in Vegas next week. Tonight was Cardio Resistance (my least favorite) and I went ahead and worked in the abs. I'm happy to say I did quite a bit of leap frogs and V-push-ups, more than ever before, but maybe that was because I was mad at my husband and I had all the adrenaline.???? As far as abs is concerned, there was one exercise at the 8 minute mark that I literally could not do. But for the most-part I really liked the work-out.

Jury Duty is over! Let the party begin.

Finally finished jury duty today. Thankfully, it was a pretty cut and dry case and all the jurors were on the same page. It makes me appreciate this great country we live in, while at the same time it makes me want to run out and fix the things that are broken with the judicial system;-)

I had enough energy to muster through Cardio Recovery. It was much more difficult than I remembered it. I'm going to try and double up on some workouts so I don't get behind when I go to Las Vegas next week--ya think I'm up to it? We shall see!

Day 10 Plyometric Cardio

During my time during jury duty this week, I was able to finally read "Letters to God." What an insightful story. And before I forget it, I want to write my own letter to God...

Dear God,

Thank you for my boys-all three. Waking up to their grins and coming home to their hugs every day is such a gift. I treasure these moments and hope that my boys will always find joy in the little things. I pray that Nolan becomes a little less like his mama and doesn't take things so seriously and I pray that there is no serious illness with Carter, I'm not quite convinced that there is nothing wrong with him yet, but I may be wrong. I mean look at the picture, how could anything be wrong with this adorable love bug?

Thank you for this wonderful time in my life, I almost feel guilty that my life is going so well and others are having difficult times. I pray for my parents, that they learn to laugh again, that they are able to enjoy these retirement years, that they bring you, God, back into their hearts and their daily lives and that they start to take better care of themselves.

Thank you for my job and the wonderful & creative people I get to work with every day, ecspecially for my BFF!

I pray for my sisters as they look for new jobs, run their businesses, take care of thier kids + my parents and start thier crazy summer.

Thank you for this wonderful country that we live in, I pray that our judicial system works the way that it was intended, and give myself and fellow jurors the wisdom we need for judgement in this case.

And thank you for giving me the strength to make it through my tenth insanity work-out!

Amen.

Day Eight & Day Nine

How about those biggest loser's??? I'm kinda disappointed that Mike won. Of course loosing that much weight is awesome, but he just wines and cries too much for me. I was all for Daris and my second hopeful was Ashley. Well, congrats to everyone. One day-I'm going to look like Ali from season 6? one day-I'll get there.

Yesterday--I think it was cardio resistance. I don't remember much, except that I did finish it. & I was excited that I did about 5 v-pushups!

After finishing my second day of jury duty, running Nolan to a ball game, only to be cancelled by the time we got there, I managed to do pure cardio tonight. I have to say, that pure cardio is my favorite. It's not intervals where you do the same thing over and over (except the warm-up), every minute is something different. My arms no longer feel sore, but stronger--not sure if that is mind games or not.

I'm doing OK on working out, but I've got to get on track with eating right! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I just need to remember that in my moment of weakness!

Day Six: Plyometric Cardio

We had Nolan's bday party today. It is a month early, but he got to invite all his school friends! We had a bakugan theme at USA Karate--the boys loved it. I wanted a cupcake for dinner, but I told myself, I need to eat something that will make me feel full! So I ate a hamburger (lean meat), cottage cheese and watermelon and it was yummy!

I attempted to work out--but 10 minutes into it, I got a crazy bad headache and I don't get headaches. I took ibuprofen, but 30 minutes into it-I'm running on the floor and my head felt like it was going to explode. I had to call it quits with 10 minutes to go. I kinda feel frustrated at myself, but at the moment I really thought I wasn't going to make it!

Now, I've got to get my tired almost seven year old off to bed!

Day Five: Day of Rest

OK-I took my day of rest a day early. But I swear to you I have NOT sat down in five days and tonight I made the mistake of sitting down at 8:30pm, when I started a movie for Nolan and his buddy. I never made it back out of the chair!

Day Four: Pure Cardio

It was suppose to rain today, so I thought for sure Nolan's baseball game would be cancelled and I'd have plenty of time to come home and get the house picked up for Nolan's sleep over tomorrow. wrong! no rain. game was across town. picked nolan up from school-he forgot to bring his glove. had to go back home. get glove. go poddy. pick up carter. made it in time for the game. got cremated. came home. have a new neighbor with kids. happy to meet neighbor-but it was not the right night to talk outside forever. before I knew it, it was 9:00 and the house was still a mess and I still needed to work-out. I chose INSANITY and I plan on getting up real early to pick up;-).

Pure Cardio was great, it felt refreshing to do cardio. The only thing I really had a problem doing was these frog jumps--my knee felt like it wanted to give out-so I only did two and did push-ups until Shaun was ready to move-on. I also can't keep up when he does 8 push-u[s, run it 8 times then jump up and do it all over again--in the time he does 8, I'm lucky to have 4 finished--but I do my four and keep truck'in along.

Day Three: Cardio Recovery

OK--the name Cardio Recovery is totally misleading! Totally! It's not Cardio, but its still H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

It hit me today that Nolan's beday party is in three days and I haven't done a thing...hmmm, better get going!

Day Two: Cardio Power and Resistance

the sweat is still dropping off of me--fresh from finishing my second workout of Insanity. I'm starting to see a pattern--the first 20 minutes was great--the second 20 minutes was extremely challenging. You do a type of V-pushup which I have never done before-I would do five and then go back to a traditional pushup. & then there were these knee jumps and halfway through, I heard a crack! My knee didn't hurt, but it felt funny and I was really scarred, so I just bypassed those and did double of the belt kicks (which I like anyway!). Then there were these global jumps--which I somehow didn't figure out the pattern until the very last set. I recommend walking it the first time instead of trying to keep up and then you might catch on much quicker than I did.

Of course I'm still having issues with eating! I did great yesterday & I did great with my meals today, but we were in an all day meeting with chocolate and caramels and chickfila right in front of me allll day. I had two caramels and three pieces of chocolate--(they were bite size!) Why can't I just say, NO? I've done it before!

Here's to a healthier tomorrow and looking forward to Cardio Recovery. Also tomorrow, we've got to get the house cleaned for Nolan's sleepover this weekend. A wonderful friend at work shipped us three bags of clothes, most she had never worn. We divied them up at work--and now I've got to clean out my closet so I can make room for these! How fun.

Ditto Day One!

OK-so traveling 5 days out of 7 proved to be tougher than I thought in terms of eating right and working out. So we are starting all over again with today! Just finished Cardio Plyometric again! Second time seemed harder than the first. At first it was great, cause I didn't have to keep looking at the screen, but the last section-I was a goner. I just kept trying to do my own thing, so at least I kept moving.

Excited for day two tomorrow!

On a side note, Nolan had two double hitters today! So glad the other team over threw first base so he was able to get to second! He is on cloud nine! Go Red Sox!

Day Two-Plyometric Cardio

Day Two down, just 58 more workouts to go!

I woke up to a wonderful Mother's Day with breakfast in bed, the boys made me my favorite, apple cinnamon pancakes! Not on the Elite Nutrition plan, but worth breaking the rules for today.

I'm starting to see a trend here, because the first half of the work-out was great, but the last twenty minutes-I was barely making it. Although I did finish, but not at the same speed as Shaun T and his buddies.

Conclusion: If I can do this--you can too!

I've got to run and finish packing! I have NO idea what on earth to bring with me on this photo shoot and it's making me stress out over clothes! Which I usually do not do! However, I have to look professional, wear shoes appropriate for machine rooms and hoistways + standing on my feet all day + traveling, and being cute all at the same time. I don't think I'm coordinated enough to do all that in one outfit, day after day.

Day One-Fit Test

I did say, I was going to do INSANITY despite my crazy life, right? Cause I attempted to make a humpty dumpty birthday cake for my two year old--& lets just say I'm glad it was just practice, plus we had baseball practice, park, library, CCA, laundry, etc! I had a window and I needed to decide if I was going to clean house, take a nap or work-out. Because I had to report to my blog, I chose working-out! I don't think my house is going to get clean before I go out of town, such is life.

Day One Review
Of course, I was ready for the workout to be over as soon as the warm-up was done! But I pushed through it. The first half was doable, but it took everything I had to make it to the end.

Kicks, 76
Squats, 37
Knees, 85
Knee jumps, 16
Square thingies, 6
Suicide, 13
Push-ups, 7
Knees, 40

I can't wait to see the how the numbers will change in two weeks.

Why INSANITY?

My goal for this blog is to track the INSANITY workout for real people, "like me." When I was looking to purchase this workout routine, the only reviews I could find were written by people who worked for Beach Body. Thus my idea for this blog was born.

INSANITY finally came in the mail yesterday and I thought, "I'd better wait to start it, since I'm going out of town this week," and then I thought, "I'm going out of town next weekend, I should wait 'til I get back," and then again I thought, "I should wait until after jury duty is over." But that is how life is, there is always something crazy going on and if I keep post-poning it, it will be a year later and I'll still be fat and out of shape!

To avoid another year of zero or negative change, I'm going to try my best to fit INSANITY workouts into a normal crazy busy lifestyle and record how it works.

My husband kinda looked at me like I was crazy, I know he was thinking, "You think you can really do this?" However, I ran a half marathon last December and in my humble opinion, "if I can run for over 3 hours straight, I can do anything!"

I was going to the gym five days a week all of Jan & Feb, but I was frustrated with zero results and I haven't work-out a whole lot since. I keep going up and down on the scale, but as of today, I would like to loose 41 more pounds!

My goal for this blog is two fold:

• to give other people like myself, a "real" view of the INSANITY work-out


• to keep myself accountable for 9 weeks

Let her roll!