a plain thing.

Although I might not feel much of the (so to say) developing hip injury. I do feel something if I lift my leg high up. Hip injuries can turn into nasty chronic pains. So Insanity isn’t something healthy for me to do 6 times/week… Instead 4 times might even be too much… I’m thinking of doing it slowly (see long term goal! (making workouts a part of my life)) so I’ll do the workout twice a week or so and combine it with pilates (core strengthening!) and belly dancing (I miss doing this xP).

Lesson learned: Insanity is too injury-prone for you.

Thing to do: combine it with less injury-sensitive workouts like pilates.

Things done: bought a Pilates for Dummies DVD and a PVC (durable) yoga mat with high density (manduka black mat(lifelong guarantee)). Most sites talk about a thick (+1cm) pilates mat but the ones I found, and weren't dense at all. 

It actually went great.

I didn’t have any weird groin feels except for when I had to do the hip flexor stretch. However since I’m still wary of developing a hip injury I’m planning to do Insanity every other day (4/week instead of 6).

To prevent is better than to recover.

During insanity of day nineteen I felt some weird feeling in my groin. It was like a tendon got stuck on my hip head bone. Nooos!

So I figured out I had to rest…it’s actually difficult to rest xD i can’t help but feel bad. However I never want any other injury again. Walking is so essential!

Since I have the deluxe edition of Insanity I'm planning to extend each of my two Insanity month with 2 weeks and do a deluxe recovery week at the very end. Finally, It will be a 91-day Insanity work-out.

Instead of only doing 4 weeks, I'm going to repeat the last two weeks with a little change: instead of cardio abs, I'll do the insane abs (!). And my deluxe recovery week will consist of Max Interval Sports Training...

I don't have a scale at home. And yes, I was curious when I saw one.

And d*mn. I believe I gained weight. Ever since then I feel kinda shitty. Moreover, I'm not quite sure how reliable my measurements are, since I took them after my evening meal instead of in the morning....However, it's normal/possible to gain weight during the first weeks. A friend had the same thing. Let's keep those fingers crossed, and hope that I'm getting visible results after Insanity. I'm only on my 16th day for God's sake >_<.

Lessons learned: Take your measurements after you woke up. And don't let the scale determine how you feel about your body. (fat weighs less than muscles!)

Thing to believe: Results will come in the 2nd month. Now my more developed muscles are hidden under my layer of fat.

Another post-workout thing I make. It's super okay to change the ingredients ;)

In order of adding:

Previously, I mentioned I would find a short-term purpose. My long-term is to make working out a part of my lifestyle. My short-term will be...having a flat stomach like the picture below. And I have to fix this ....by....the end of Insanity . xD I think it's possible with my physique.  I might repeat month 1 twice and month 2 twice though. So in four months max. Meaning I need to have a flat stomach in January. 

This was the first fit looking flat stomach in my tumblr feed. xP Dunno what the real source of this image is. Contact me if it's yours.

Having a flat stomach does not only involve exercising but also eating clean though... :x

I noticed there are a lot of photos of skinny (unfit?) stomachs around. They look kinda nice, but fit bellies are way better xD

By the way, do you know what's sexy? It ain't a flat stomach, skinny body, fit body or whatsoever. It's confidence.  I once had a patient who had an unhealthy perspective of her self-worth and surroundings. She thought me and the doctor were perfect. Otherwise, we wouldn't do medicine. (WHUT???) I almost wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her. "BE MORE CONFIDENT! It's NOT your body that's making you less attractive. It's not your work that's making you less attractive. It's your godd*mn attitude. You must APPRECIATE yourself! Come on! Get a hang of yourself PUH-LEASE. Instead of pointing to other people and doing SH*T for nothing. Work on getting some self-confidence, girl!"   But I didn't. It isn't professional x) and the doctor was sitting right next to me and taking the leading role in the conversation. 

Sigh. She doesn't know how much I struggled and still struggle with my self confidence. BUT at least, I'm working on it.

Some people don't seem to know that if you want to change your surroundings (incl people), you need to change yourself. That's the only thing you can change. 

If you skipped a day. It's okay. As long as you don't quit. Skipping and continuing the training after the setback is better than quitting and going back to zero. Don't let your hard work disappear into nothing. You can do it.

I'm actually changing the time on which I'm doing my Insanity. Because my internship has started I need to change my night modus to morning modus. So in the next days I'm slowly going to learn to get used to getting up at 6:15/6:30 so that I start the day with Insanity.  These transitional days I'm planning to do them in the evening. Today was the first. And boyyy, I felt I declined. I couldn't really keep up. I don't know if I'm only imagining things or that my endurance worsened. There are a lot of reasons why I might have declined. Following are some reasons: 

Full stomach: Probably not, I waited 3.5 hours.

Too litle sleep: might be...I slept 6 hours for the past couple of days, but I couldn't sleep longer than that

Getting sick: I do feel a little sick. I hope it's not going to be a full-blown flu or whatsoever. (The week before last week I also had the same feeling but I rested enough so it would not turn into a real cold I think.)

Eating too little: Nope. my average daily caloric intake is 2100cal. Actually a little too much ^^; I should eat 2000 from what I've calculated...

Drank too much water before/during the training: One sip of water is OK, but maybe two to three sips were too much...?

Cardio Recovery, Yay! It ain't that intense as the other exercises but my muscles burn during this session though! :)

I don't really have problems with sore muscles. Why? I think it's because I stretch. After the cooling down stretch of Shaun-T, I do some extra stretches of muscles he did not cover (like the head, some extra arm stretches etc (check the crappy bottom drawing for part 1 of my upper body stretch)) In the past, I noticed that my sore muscles would go away if I stretched after running, and they would always appear when I did not. So maybe you're the same. (Not everyone is the same though.)

Btw, sore muscles are not a sign of improvement. It's actually a sign of bad muscle recovery. Some might just like the feeling because it makes them feel like they have done something. Well yea, that's how you like it...;) AND a lot of people still think and say that stretching prevents injury. However, this has not been scientifically proven. I still advise to stretch though. You will get more flexible x) Maybe sit in a lotus position after a while xD? 

Lotus position: Image taken from www.minddisorders.com

I might draw the part 2 lower body stretching later on. Depends on whether people want me to :p

I don't really look forward to another Insanity session when I wake up x) It takes at least some scrolling around on Tumblr, checking the latest news, replying to the received messages, facebooking and preparing myself mentally, before I can drag myself out of bed. Off to put my hard contact lenses in. H*ck. I hate putting them in. Sometimes it goes perfect, but other times my one eye is crying from the lens cutting into my eye (sounds so disgusting xD). However, I'm too blind to do Insanity without them. Glasses ain't fun.

Importantly, despite the reluctance to begin the day with Insanity. I DO IT. Phew. I need to be proud of myself.

The tenth day consisted of another pylometric workout. I still notice improvements in my endurance :). Unfortunately, I feel tired when the warm-up starts =_=. Not enough sleep? And apparently, I lost a couple of cm only in my waist area already (WHUT?). I can't really see it, but I can measure it :D.

Btw guys, don't strain yourself to go over your limits. It's better to go a little slower than to hurt your own body. You DON'T know how much it sucks if you get an injury. Because you CAN'T exercise as much as when you're still uninjured. Otherwise you will permanently damage the injured part, if you keep going at your sick pace. 

Unfortunately, I know how much it sucks to have a knee injury. I WANTED to run, but my knee died when I ran 500 m. DIED. It began to sting earlier but it DIED at 500m. And I'm not exaggerating. (I was stupid enough to participate in a color run and run. I thought it was okay, since walking didn't hurt anymore. I was too eager...) 

The Color Run in Utrecht (Photographer: Floris Heuer Fotografie)

Now, I think my knee is quite okay now. I haven't had any troubles and I think I know how to keep my knees soft when landing etc. I should probably check while I'm at it...

Pure Cardio today and I could almost finish it till the very end! I definitely feel an improvement in my endurance. I don't see any change in my body size though. (Isn't it also too early yet?) Then my brother asked me: "Why are you eating so many nuts? It's fat, good fats, but still..." 

Nuts contain good fats. Heck, your body NEEDS fat. Every (muscle) cell needs that cell membrane which is composed of fat to function well!

However, I'm eating at least two hands of nuts per day x) According to my FitnessPall App, I'm eating 30-60% fat per day (and around 20% proteins and 20-50% carbohydrates). Maybe I should try to cut the fat a little and eat more chicken ;)

So let me show you what I most often eat post-workout:

So what's this?

-Curd (it had some thick kind of yogurt taste) -Handful of nuts -Fruit -Pure chocolate

*and mixxx...

I vary with the things I put into the curd. The almonds can also be cashew nuts, or a mix of different nut types (all bought at Aldi), sometimes I add chocolate (85% - pure (Lidl/Aldi)), but I always add fruits like apples, banana, berries, strawberries etc. The (straw)berries are frozen (more nutrients!). I like to buy them at Jumbo because they are the cheapest there.

Yesterday I felt quite shit. I actually wanted to skip the rest day because I had two last week. In the end, I rested because my mom wanted to go to Eindhoven (some Dutch city). I felt quite fat in the evening especially because my little nephew and niece wanted to go to the McDonalds xD. Btw, my nephew calls the regular hamburger crabburger. I was like: “Huh? Are you sure they have a crabburger?” “Noooo, I want the crabburger! They have it!” It’s that I miraculously thought of Spongebob that I could luckily make the connection otherwise I’d probably ordered the fishburger :p.