Insanity Review & What I've Learned

   As I promised, here is my review of Insanity. I definitely have a love-hate relationship with this workout program. The workouts were beyond challenging  and left me exhausted no matter how many times I had completed the workout. 

I’m going to be honest here, the reason I started Insanity was to lose weight. I was not a fan of the number I saw on the scale. It was the middle of the summer and it was ridiculously hot outside which took running off the table. I did not have a gym membership so I figured Insanity would help me drop pounds quickly without much thought. 

 First let’s talk about the workout plan. Insanity is a 60 day program broken into two different phases.  I absolutely loved the first 30 days. The workouts were 30- 45 minutes tops. By the time you completed the warm-up you were already 1/3 done with the workout. Let me assure you the warm-up is no joke! I was dripping in sweat by the 9 minutes each time.  

Onto the second phase. When the second round of workouts started, the workouts doubled in length. This phase is called the Max phase and it is no joke! The quick 30 minute sessions turned into 60+ minutes/ The moves were twice as hard and there were fewer breaks. At the beginning, I loved how these workouts challenged me daily.  However, once I got to week 2 of the max phase I was burnt out! I am not sure if it was due to starting back to work, the length of the workouts or a combination of both. As you can tell from my weekly recaps, it was very difficult to keep going toward the end. Ultimately, I am proud that I powered through to the end and hope the results show!

Now the physical results! This is where I am my own worst critic. I will let the numbers and pictures talk for themselves. The number one thing I wanted to change was my weight and guess what? The scale did not budge. Yes, this was very frustrating. What was motivating was the inches lost! I lost 4.25 inches total from my arms, waist, hips and thighs. know I have gained a lot of muscle and lost fat. 

The before and after. I debated long and hard about posting these since I did not get the results I wanted. However, in effort of being slightly transparent I wanted to share. 

 Looking back I have a few things I would change about my approach. I thought Insanity would be easy and the weight would just fall off.  One factor that I did not consider was my diet. After the first 30 days of Insanity, I realized that I was a lot stronger and faster but my body was not changing like I would have liked. Then I realized that it was not my workouts that were slacking it was my diet!  I love healthy food and eat pretty clean during the week.  But I have a huge weak spot for sweets and have become a habitual snacker. I’m not talking about  a scoop of ice cream after dinner but a whole peanut butter marshmallow sundae fit for a family of four. Think I’m kidding… I’m not.  It’s a wonder I could even maintain the weight I was at!

For the last 30 days of Insanity, I really worked on my diet. Minimizing my fat intake and increasing my protein. Thanks to a change in diet I started to see changes in my body. The biggest thing that I learned was  not matter how hard you try you can’t out train a bad diet.

On the scale, my weight stayed basically the same and I am okay with that. I can tell that I gained muscle and lost fat. I also learned a lot about my relationship with food and how it affects my body. This is something that I am going to continue to develop moving forward.