Insanity
Insanity should arrive soon, and as soon as the boyfriends job’s move is all settled we will be on it!
Insanity Day 1
Is going well! I know it’s not ideal but as I have 8 weeks till Paris I’m going to have to go straight on from month 1 to 2… but I did some of the recovery week core cardio and balance today seeing as I did the fit test a few days ago. Normal service resumes tomorrow!
Insanity
Just done the fit test (Day 1) and I did more than I did the first time I started it a few weeks ago. Yay :P Hyped for this!
Insanity
Right - I am restarting this with Alex on Monday from the beginning. We wanted to just restart the second week but to be honest I could have done better with the food and such so we’re restarting Monday so we have time to prepare food and such.
Also I am now getting a food allowance each week into my bank from my mum so it’s easier to buy my own. Yay :) (And so she doesn’t keep forgetting to pay me back as I always get my own in town after college.)
So restarting and really serious.
Good times.
Although Tuesday is my amazing boyfriends 18th so I’m going to Prezzos for dinner… but apart from that ;)
Insanity week 1 review
Woke up this morning and actually liked how my body looked :o taken a progress photo to upload after all nine weeks. Oh and I’ve lost 1kg / 2lbs :)
Absolutely love it so far. The workouts are really awesome and aided by my heart rate monitors they’ve all been logged, along with everything I’ve eaten.
Unfortunately I can’t seem to find my original start picture but I have taken one today as a Week 1 picture and will upload all 9 on the last week. Looks like progress to me!
Calories Burned During Insanity Workouts (+ General)
Gym Machines Predicting Calories
I had an ask about this but responded privately and thought I might make a post as it’s an important thing to talk about. Lots of people use machines in the gym and put in maybe their age and weight (or maybe not even that) in order to see how many calories they burn. These are highly inaccurate. I saw somewhere that most machines are set up to a woman of height 5 foot 8 of weight 140lbs. So if this is you… great the machines may be quite accurate… TO A POINT (but we’ll get to that in a second), but most people are NOT that. I am only 5’4 and 105ish lbs… so I burn nowhere near as much as that woman described by the machines! Machines are still inaccurate though and here is why…
Heart Rate
Based on these machines… the very fit girl next to you who is barely breaking a sweat warming up (because she is used to this exercise) is burning the same calories as you… busting your ass sweating like a bitch? No of course not! Heart rate, weight, height and gender (and age) influence how many calories you burn in a work out. Heart rate is one of the most important factors. Burning calories is literally raising your heart rate. The best thing to do therefore is ditch the predicted gym machines and buy yourself a heart rate monitor. Mine was about £30 from Amazon and is brilliant (it’s a Beurer one if you’re interested.)
Heart rate monitors can take details such as your gender, height and weight and monitor your heart rate with the chest strap. This is picked up by the watch and you can record this for a set length of time. Mine will tell you your max heart rate, average heart rate, how long you were within your desired training zone, calories burnt and fat burnt. Depending on where your heart rate was at as to how much fat is burned too (some of my work outs burn the same number of calories but one burns more fat!)
So although nothing is completely 100% accurate… heart rate monitors are the way to go.
Insanity & this!
I’m doing insanity and using my heart rate monitor to track my calories. There is no point guessing as you will literally not have much clue! Especially if you’ve paid for these work outs and not just downloaded or watched online (like I have) it is definitely worth buying a heart rate monitor to help you accurately log your workouts! So because of my low weight and shortness I burn between 100 and 200 calories in an insanity work out.
The eating plan in insanity however is not affected by exactly how many calories you burn. There is a formula to work out roughly how many calories you should be eating during it which comes in the booklet or pdf if you have an online version. (If you don’t have this feel free to email me at sophs-madinalake@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll send you a copy!) You use this formula and multiply it by a factor depending on how active you are (and they suggest which one to use for insanity workouts.) You should eat this number of calories regardless of the workouts.
Are all those calories really from a work out? Should I eat them back?
There’s a lot of debate about eating work out calories back. Here is my simple but to be honest clearly logical opinion. You burn calories just from living walking breathing doing nothing. I burn at my stats around 1400 a day doing nothing and 2200 ish from being active (my day to day activity.) You think “ooh look an extra 400 burned… I’m hungry so I could eat them yay!” and sites like My Fitness Pal have this bit a little bit wrong. No you shouldn’t eat all these back because SOME of those “work out” calories would have been burned anyway just from being alive. Of course how many you burn during the day will fluctuate but no… you shouldn’t eat all of them back! It makes sense when you think about it!
So there we have it. That’s my views on burning calories and fat and eating them back. Any questions feel free to ask and reblog this so more people are educated about weight loss!
