Self-motivation and SOLDIER DOWN!

If the self-motivation begins to slip

Whether you had the self-motivation to begin with or someone instilled it in you, when you get to the point when you just don’t care anymore there is not much which will change your mind. The trick is to prevent the slippery slope of self-doubt, exhaustion and boredom before it leads to you throwing in the sweat towel. This feeling of motivation leaving my exhausted body has happened more than once during the past months, but I refuse to quit. There are too many friends, relatives and people who really DON’T CARE but are forced to read my posts who know. At first, your own motivation alone may not be enough. If you have started a fitness plan (INSANITY or not) without telling a sole, you have more self-motivation than myself. What I lack in self-motivation I gain in you knowing and waiting for me to quit. When I can barely drag myself in front of the TV and press play, knowing the hour of exhaustion that is to follow, I think of the feeling I get when the timer reaches < 5 minutes and how good I feel the morning after: the now familiar aching feeling which means the day before was a successful workout. If like me motivation comes and goes (“My healthy diet starts on Monday!!”), push through the days when you want to stop: It’s a lot harder to start over.

Guest piece from Insane Girl II at No. 46

I got sick on day 39 of INSANITY. Right slap bang in the middle of it. An influenza virus decided to pitch up and have a humdinger of a party in my sinuses, throat and chest making the daily ritual impossible. Shaun T, forgive me. Listening to my housemate’s distinctive INSANITY noises from the sickbed provoked feelings of guilt, but participating may have prolonged or worsened the illness. My advice? When you get sick, STOP the programme and wait until you feel human again. Your body is a battlefield during infection so be sure to give it the support that it needs, not make it work 5 times harder. Perhaps light exercise may speed up the viral fight but INSANITY isn’t quite light exercise, is it?!

Getting back into INSANITY after 4 days off has proved difficult- mostly due to residual phlegm but also because of feelings of frustration. It feels like the fitness that I’d built up over the past 5 weeks has wasted away during my bed-bound days. And I probably won’t get the fit test results I hoped for next time around.  But perseverance must prevail! Illness is one of those inevitabilities in life and I was unlucky to catch it during this training. You just have to gradually build up back to your pre-illness level in order to recapture the lost fitness over those missed days. Easier said than done, but it’s the only way to move forward!

Another side thought- this was perhaps the worst bought of ‘flu that I’ve had for a few years. Did the “death by Shaun T” day 36 (fit test plus max interval training) make the ‘flu effects worse?  It seems that prolonged periods (> 90 mins) of intense activity elevate hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, and these have negative effects on immune function. The workout certainly didn’t make me sick, but trying to fight through the initial ‘flu-like feelings might have hampered my white blood cells efforts during the first stages of the infection. In conclusion, stay very far away from sick people to ensure an optimal uninterrupted INSANITY programme!

Those weird girls at number 46

INSANITY IS a spectator sport

It wouldn’t surprise me if a fair few neighbours have branded us as insane. If any of you have done INSANITY, you know it’s not pretty. You know those gym goers, the ones with more mouth work than workout, and minimal sweat? This isn’t us. We look like we have run fully clothed through a shower. No amount of dry shampoo can help you now. Its hair washing daily I’m afraid. Rosy isn’t the word for the shade we are and the occasional burp due to excessive air gulping can surely be heard from at least 2 houses down. I won’t even go into the grunting noises. What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is it’s not sexy. We have our living room window and curtains open every time, because without doing so we would collapse in a heap (it’s HOT!). We look ridiculous, we know, but we just DON’T CARE! We have had multiple passers-by doing double takes and stopping outside our window. Some laugh (most laugh), some shout encouragement and one creepy man on crutches after we pulled the curtains closed shouted “MORE!!” The rare times I have entered a gym, the fit people far outnumber the overweight. For those of you who are scared to enter the gym before getting to a reasonably fit level, I understand, but remember: we all have to go through looking our worst to look our best.

Week 1 completion!

Day 42. I have managed to complete what must be the hardest week of INSANITY. Could I keep up 100% of the time, most definitely NOT. I’m hoping the improvements in fitness will come, but when Shaun-T is stopping for breaks you know it’s bad.

Avoiding Injury

The likeliness of injury or illness is relatively high when you are doing such intense exercise. Whether you are on Day 1 or Day 50 of INSANITY, there may come a time when you physically cannot go on. For me, the further into the program I went, the more I got into the routine of daily exercising. Even on the recovery day, I now feel like I should be doing something. Three days into month 2 (Day 38), I noticed pain running along the inside of my shins. Self-diagnosis points to inflammation of the connective tissue caused by the frequent and intense periods of exercise and the repeated stopping and starting involved in interval training. The predictable advice: stop the activity that is causing the pain. My willingness to stop and let my legs heal completely is hampered by the time constraint I put on myself and the fact the pain was not huge. If like me you are aiming to finish before a certain date, illness and injuries are a huge inconvenience. 

It may be obvious but before you start, ensure you have trainers which can take high impact and tie them properly! I noticed a need to do additional stretches before and after the DVD to help release the tension, particularly in the calves, and reduce the chances of injury further. In addition, it is easy to go for the high jumps but forget about the landing. Land softly and controlled (as Shaun-T says “Keep your form!”), even when you are tired. The clue is in the sound; if it sounds like a 10kg bag of potatoes hitting the floor, you are NOT controlling the landing. If you start to feel discomfort that points to impact, try swapping moves for ones which are reduced in impact but as similar as possible.   

The first milestone and progress

Could Day 36 really be the only and final nail in the coffin?

Day 36: Shaun-T is attempting to kill us.  What possesses him to combine the Fit test with Max Interval Circuit In one sitting? The advice I gave on not preparing yourself by watching before you do, still stands. If I had watched it I may have debated splitting up the Fit test and the Max Interval Circuit with a few (or 10!) hours rest.  Although “Death by Shaun-T” has a good ring to it and may even make front page news, doing both back to back is not going to kill you. We took a 15 minute break between the two. Yes, I had to stop a fair few times, and I challenge anyone who says they did it without stopping at least once, but it’s doable (just).  Is it really as hard as they say? YES, but not quite as bad as I expected. Only now do I understand the true meaning behind the name “INSANITY”. After completing this day, I know there is room for improvements. If I can make it through without stopping as many times, push harder, the visible changes will happen. If they don’t, abs are just not meant for me!

Progress! 

We feel FIT. The graph shows my Fit Test results, with a marked improvement between the 1^st and 3^rd Fit Test. Below are the photos taken at the beginning of Insanity (Day 1) and just before Month 2’s Fit Test AND Max Interval Circuit (Day 36) for both my housemate and myself. With no change in diet, my housemate (first set), clearly has lost weight and toned up. As you can see, the changes for me are not exactly obvious (bottom set). As a scientist, I refuse to fabricate the evidence. No doubt the internet is filled with before and after pictures with the ‘after’ taken when water retention is lower. We decided to take it on Day 36 and so we did, even though it may have been a ‘bloated’ day. If  we were on a strict diet, the improvements may have been greater; again this was down to our choice not to calorie count. If you want faster results I would definitely suggest cutting everything and anything that we know is bad…. But as was pointed out in a recent lecture on ageing and caloric restriction; it may be possible to live to be 100, but only if we cut out all the things that make us want to live to see 100. We are excited to see what Month 2 can do!