Weekend Fitventures

As you saw in yesterday’s post, this weekend I really did my best to get back on track, fitness-wise. I’ve been progressing right along with Insanity, and last week I started the brutal month #2 (seriously, it makes month #1 look like a playground game for kids). I’ll be honest – the first day, I pushed play and then heard Shaun T announce that he was going to kick my butt… and I hit pause so I could have a little freak out before continuing. It actually helped a little bit that I did that, because I ended up more scared of it than I actually needed to be! But it was definitely no cakewalk. For example, according to an Insanity forum I read, Wednesday’s workout of “Max Core Plyometrics” has you do over 200 pushups! While I still can’t really do v-pushups (the month 2 incarnation is actually one-legged v-pushups!), by the end of the week, I could actually get all the way through the pushups sections of the workout (if I slowed them down and sometimes switched the really hardcore versions to regular military-style pushups). I am really excited to see the fitness gains I make this month.

Unfortunately, the weight loss so far isn’t quite steady. I lost 5 pounds in the first two weeks of doing Insanity, but since then I’ve plateaued – my guess is from the crappy diet I tend to eat while traveling. Last week, I got to work from home, and I was hoping that all that healthy eating would help jump start at least another pound or two of weight loss, but no such luck – still steady. However, I’ve heard that a lot of the weight loss for women tends to be concentrated in month 2, so I am really looking forward to that!

But just in case Insanity wasn’t doing it for me, this weekend I bumped it up when I emailed friends to make weekend plans. In the email, I flat-out stated that I was getting a bit concerned about my weight, and suggested that perhaps people could join me for some active meetups – a free pilates class in Central Park, kayaking on the Hudson, and picnicking on Governor’s Island (yeah that’s not exercise, but at least I could pack healthy food instead of relying on a restaurant). I ended up getting takers on the pilates class, which was actually a 20 minute run followed by a 30 minute pilates class on the Great Lawn – super fun!

After the workout, we went to brunch at Josie’s, a cute little organic restaurant on the UWS, where I’m pretty familiar with the menu and find it easy to order healthy food. Being in the company of friends instead of coworkers made me comfortable enough to ask my friends to keep the bread basket away from me – and just the knowledge that I’d feel piggy for disobeying my own request kept me from straying. Victory!

Post-brunch, I headed home for my Insanity workout – making it a super fit day. I did go out that night, but I mostly stuck to wine and champagne, which are a bit lighter than the heavy beers I love, and were perfect for celebrating my friend Barry’s completion of the third and final exam in the Chartered Financial Analyst series. (He won’t get results until August, but at least he can stop studying all day and night!)

On Sunday, as I already posted, I went for a morning run that felt fantastic – I am so excited that summer is here and I can hopefully get motivated to go for more weekend runs along the gorgeous Hudson River! I spent the rest of the day mostly lounging around and feeling kind of guilty that I wasn’t using my weekend day a bit better, but sometimes it’s nice to just get that kind of a break. However, by early evening, I geared up for my Insanity workout for the day. I had been putting it off and dreading it all day, and as a result, it ended up being not nearly as bad as I was expecting. The moral of this story seems to be that the more I fear/loathe Insanity, the easier that actual workout will be!

And to prove to you just how “not that bad” Insanity was: after finishing, I glanced out the window and saw that the sun had again come out and was making a beautiful sunset along the Hudson. Since I already had my Vibrams on for Insanity, I decided to make use of that (seriously, they take me like 5 minutes to put on – it’s not trivial!) and go for my second run of the day – and very first barefoot run ever. I planned to only go for a mile, since I’ve heard you’re supposed to do very short distances when you first start barefoot running, but I ended up circling around quite a bit and doing 2.2 miles before heading home. It felt great! I was a little confused on technique (should I keep my form the same, or should I run on my tiptoes like I’m a dancer? Both felt natural to me so I alternated between them), but don’t have any soreness today, so I think I’m good. Perhaps someday I’ll even do a barefoot marathon!

How was your weekend, and what were your FitVentures? Happy June!