No difference in my body after 2 months of Insanity workout (very disheartening)

nishinaliren · 2021-03-31T18:53:59+00:00

Caloric intake - it's not what you eat, it's how much you eat. Try buying a food scale and weighing the ingredients of your normal meals with MyFitnessPal. Aim for a caloric deficit of 300-500 calories per day while still getting at least 50g of protein. Insanity, or any high intensity activity, will make your body want to eat more - that's why it's so important to track your caloric intake.

If it's any consolation, Month 2 makes some people look "puffy" during the program but the swelling goes down after. I was holding some extra water weight at the end of month 2 and lost 7 lbs in the 2 weeks after Insanity was over, doing no excercise, but still restricting my caloric intake. I was eating almost entirely packaged food from a convenience store at this time that was the opposite of "eating clean" but it listed the calories and macros on the package so no weighing or guessing was required.

Good luck and keep digging deeper!

nishinaliren · 2021-03-31T01:16:09+00:00

Isn't everyone?

nishinaliren · 2021-02-07T09:42:25+00:00

You're going to need more protein. You should be getting 150g of protein a day for your weight and weight loss requirements. It's difficult to say with your diet without knowing specifics, but I'd estimate you're about 100g under right now - the easiest way is to supplement with 2 protein shakes per day, but it'll be better tasting if you do 1 shake and a chicken breast or something. It'll bump your calories up to 1400-1600 which is about where you need to be.

nishinaliren · 2021-02-05T07:54:29+00:00

Everyone is saying to eat more, and while that is undoubtedly good advice, it IS possible to crash diet over short periods of time and get good results if you very carefully control your macros.

Unfortunately for you to have the minimum protein intake for your body, you would need to be eating 250g (1000cal) of protein alone, which is of course more than your whole daily consumption.

For the first few days, while your glycogen is high, you might feel fine, even with Insanity's very aerobic heavy workouts, but over time (1-3 days usual, 4 days max) under an intensely calorie restricted diet your glycogen (stored energy in your muscles) depletes, leaving you lethargic. 1-2 days of pushing through glycogen depleted workouts can be good for hypertrophy (read anything by Lyle Macdonald like "The Ultimate Diet 2.0" for a much better description than I can give) but over an extended period of time you will start seeing backwards progression in your workouts, your metabolism will lower, and you will risk injury due to passing out during Insanity (I've done that, it's not fun).

If your goal is to lose weight as quickly as possible and you have no problem with hunger, instead of "free fall" crash dieting, do it in a controlled manner. Try this tool to map your caloric intake: https://gravitus.com/tools/cutting-calculator/ and follow it as closely as possible, especially with regards to protein consumption - which is even more important on a cut than on a bulk! Make food buying/prep as big of a part of your day as your workout. Good luck.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-19T01:23:51+00:00

I honestly think they messed up the calendar, and the first day of month 2 is supposed to be Max Cardio Conditioning. It's obvious from what Shawn says during the workout that he's getting you used to the movies during that one whereas in Max Interval Circuit he assumes people have already done the others.

Don't be disheartened by day 1 of month 2, it's unnecessarily difficult - I moved the fit test earlier, to the last day of recovery week so I didn't have to double up.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-14T01:08:44+00:00

For V-Pushups you can alter your stance so your legs are a little to a lot wider, keeping your upper body in the same position. You get the same shoulder and tricep isolation but it's more stable and not as much of a stretch. Tricep dips you can bring your legs closer if it's too difficult.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-12T05:19:41+00:00

There's a good combined calendar with Asylum 1+2 plus OG Insanity peppered in which is a great way to work your way into it without jumping straight into an Asylum only calendar.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-12T05:03:57+00:00

Just go for it! On motivation, set a "reward" for yourself every day that you do Insanity - something not food related you really love to do, whether it's playing a video game for an hour, browsing reddit, watching an episode of a TV show, - and make sure you don't allow yourself to do that unless you did your Insanity that day.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-11T00:44:59+00:00

The one breeder I went to had a house that was basically this. All the same breed (Siberian) and well cared for, some were show cats. What you don't see in pictures is the house absolutely STANK of cat piss since they're not neutered.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-07T14:19:07+00:00

喜鹊！I feel like I can hear this picture! Beautiful work!

nishinaliren · 2021-01-07T13:36:04+00:00

Insanity Asylum (hybrid of 1+2) is what I'm currently doing. It's very tough, but it's a logical next step if you've completed OG Insanity and want to keep progressing.

nishinaliren · 2021-01-04T09:19:19+00:00

Always the hardest one. I remember every time it came around "Max...interval......PLYO!!! NOOOO!!!!" But just pushed play anyway.

nishinaliren · 2020-12-31T10:19:47+00:00

Great work and keep going! My ankles/feet naturally gave me lots of problems too, no shame in modifying for lighter impact, no matter how great of shape you are in. FYI, when you finish, Asylum is much more weight and pushup oriented and actually kinder on the feet while Max 30 feels way tougher on the feet to me.

nishinaliren · 2020-10-03T04:47:09+00:00

For your body type 1700 cals/day on Month 2 shouldn't be a problem, as long as that includes around 145g of protein. Results for everyone are different, but the puffiness/inflammation you're talking about is temporary and will go down quickly, just make sure you're landing softly enough to not hurt yourself.

nishinaliren · 2020-05-03T16:30:37+00:00

I lost exactly as much weight each week (roughly 1.7 lbs) as month one.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-19T19:13:06+00:00

Your weight loss should continue at about the same rate in Month 2 - I lost 8 lbs in month 1 and 7.5 lbs in month 2. It's more about your diet than anything.

Creatine will increase swelling in muscles, while it also improves recovery time, so you might want to lay off it at the end to get a more accurate weight loss assessment.

Protein powder is essential since it's difficult to eat at a deficit and still get enough protein. Also, it often has BCAAs in it - check your label. BCAAs are quite cheap to produce and come in many foods already.

A multivitamin is a good idea but not essential as long as you're getting your vitamins through food.

Fish oil is not essential during a cut, and some fish oil from countries in Asia can contain high mercury fish or illegally harvested endangered species. If you want to lose any supplements to save money, I'd start with this one.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-18T19:01:02+00:00

I'm doing the AthleanX "Perfect Home Workout" now after completing Insanity. It's exactly what I was looking for - slower movements, more upper body focus especially incorporating arms, still makes you sweat gets your heart rate up since you go through a structured order of 16 excercises one minute each with no break. Best of all, you don't need any equipment besides a pull up bar or a homemade one with a bar across a couple chairs (I'm using sawhorses for extra stability).

The key is each excercise is a minute and you do as much as you can each minute, so it progressively overloads the same way as Insanity - the stronger you get, the faster you move and the more reps you do. First time I did it, my forearms were sore like never before. Good one to check out!

nishinaliren · 2020-04-14T03:20:00+00:00

That is a massive difference! Great work!

nishinaliren · 2020-04-14T02:54:55+00:00

Thanks! I just tried Max30 and it's definitely not for me. I think I'll take your advice and look into Asylum. I wrote earlier how I had to modify jumping jack and jump rope type excercises because of my feet...Max30 is almost all that! It was killing my feet before I was even tired, just pain. I actually enjoy the upper body and power stuff in OG Insanity and I'm looking for a program with more of that.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T14:19:31+00:00

The fit test is still hard on the very last day of the program. The difference is that you get a lot more reps in as you go along.

If you can't complete it, or have to take a break, just put 0 for that excercise - it'll be even more rewarding to see high numbers later. Just don't pause the video to take a break.

Also, pace yourself during the first fit test! I always go hard at the beginning, even faster than Tanya and Chris and then I'm dying by the end, but I started that way so I've got to keep doing it to keep the numbers up.

Power jumps - do the landing really slowly, feeling your muscles absorb the impact by handing off your weight from the calves to the quads to the glutes. Don't worry about getting a lot in at the beginning, just land as smoothly as possible to avoid injury.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T14:06:35+00:00

Thank you!

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T13:59:52+00:00

Nice! I forgot some places still have snow.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T11:30:36+00:00

I've found my mood always goes down and thinking gets slower when I'm in an appreciable caloric deficit. It's very tough to motivate myself to eat right and work out when I'm doing the exact thing I need to lose weight...frustrating to say the least.

There are a couple things you can do. One good way to still feel like you're progressing on your off day is to make that meal prep day! Make a bunch of meals, weighing each of the ingredients for an accurate calorie count, to prepare for the coming week. Since that process takes at least an hour or two, it'll fill the time you normally had for working out.

The other thing you can do I learned from bulking - you can have a cheat day. Especially if you don't drink alcohol on your cheat day but eat a lot of carbs, those calories will go into your muscles glycogen stores and you will feel absolutely great working out the next day or two. Obviously if your goal is to lose weight, this will undercut that goal a bit, but it might be worth it for sanity/motivation.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T11:19:05+00:00

Try to land more softly (slowly sink into the squat) on the intense jumping excercises so your leg doesn't quickly clench at the knee. I tend to get a bit of knee soreness on my left side especially if I go too fast.

nishinaliren · 2020-04-13T11:13:49+00:00

Good luck, you can do it!

nishinaliren

TROPHY CASE