Starting Week 4 with a Boom

Where my week starts is a matter of opinion. Insanity schedule says today, my personal schedule says Saturday (two days ago), and honestly, I work out 7 days a week so where a week starts and ends is subjective. But, according to Max 30, Week 4 started today. So, the morning started with Cardio Challenge. This was the official last time I do this program in my current schedule. And I think I did excellent! I was off to a slow start in the warm up, it was just a rough sleep night, but by the time we got into it I was really cooking along. I started to hit a wall around the 15 minute mark, and by minute 25 I was flailing a bit, but I pushed through and overall I'm pretty damn pleased with myself today. A- for the workout. This workout is truly excellent, and really exemplifies why I love Insanity (and the Max 30 workouts especially). It's no non-sense, and it does exactly what it says it's going to do. We're going to work our asses off for 30 minutes. Every move is completely doable, but also can be made harder or easier simply by adding effort. And unlike Insanity, you go go go. Insanity was more go go (note the lack of the third go). Insanity is fast, this is just, well, faster. Not in effort so much, both require you to push yourself as hard as possible. But Insanity you'd do the 3-minute warmup 3 times. By the third time, I always got board. This is a 2:30 warmup done twice. Then, no stretch (which I have mixed feelings on). You just sip some water for a blink of an eye and then go right into it. Stretching is important, but after pushing myself for 9 minutes in the old Insanity warmup my blood was pumping and then my energy got zapped by a 5 minute stretch and mounds of personal anticipation. If I finally got my body ready to work, I want to work! Not lose that energy! Max 30 does exactly what I'm looking for here. Final thought on this workout: there's no way this workout will ever not be hard. I have no doubt the Max Cardio workout I start next week is going to be more challenging (which, frankly, I'm dreading) but I originally thought that after I started the Max workouts I wouldn't be able to go back to these and still progress. Nope, no way will that ever be the case. Cardio Challenge and its sweaty brothers will make an excellent addition to my next program for the first half, and I'll definitely be getting a pump from it. No question at all. So, let's review the weekend. Diet was pretty good. Not excellent, but it was the weekend. After my last checkin I mostly ate fruit during the day because we had a date night planned. We ended up trying sushi burritos, and they were excellent. Basically a giant sushi roll rolled inside out (seaweed on the outside) and it was great. There was a lot of carbs in the rice, my fried shrimp wasn't too healthy, nor was my eel sauce and cream cheese. But hey, it was cheat day, and I didn't come away feeling stuffed either. Moderation. Sunday was pretty healthy. Ate leftover turkey bacon and eggs for breakfast, had some fruit, a spinach/turkey/ham/cheese wrap for lunch and a few leftover hot wings for dinner (six, I think). No sides with that last one. So, how did my workout go yesterday? Well, it was the Bas Rutten All Around Workout, and I felt pretty excellent. Bad news, I did all my pushups on my knees. The pushups stands from the day before wrecked my chest, but I wanted to push and knee pushups were the way to do that. Also my punches were a bit slow for the same reason. But I did do excellent, and came out soaked. Also, I finally did all of the jumps at the end. First time I've done that with no breaks. I could probably jump higher, and I will when I see this workout again in two weeks, but I did all 55 jumps and felt great (read that: terrible) at the end. So, awesome! The wife and I met up with my mom a few hours later, and the three of us plus baby then did a 3+ mile walk. It felt good to get some extra cardio in. Also since I've been walking more at lunch, I went out and bought new walking shoes (yup, they make walking shoes) and they are super super comfy for walking. It was great to break them in. They completely lived up to expectation. I'll be trying them out again today. Now, the weigh ins. My goal for today was 226.7. I weighed in yesterday before the walk but after the workout at 226.0, so I'd already overshot. Then I worked out this morning, and after that my weight was....226.0. So, I totally overshot my goal, but I also didn't budge from yesterday. Yes, I know there's a ton that goes into this, and yes, I know I hit my goal and then some, but I can't help but wonder if I could have shed a tiny bit more if I'd skipped out on those six hot wings last night.\ Oh well, what's done is done and what's down is down, and what's down is me! So, this makes Wednesday's goal 225.5. I'm sloooowly approaching 200 again. Hoping to get there sooner than later, but forward motion is forward motion and I'll take what I can get. Got another walk scheduled for today. I'll let you know how that goes. Also, totally forgot to practice Spanish all weekend. I'm not slacking, just got busy, but I'll get back on that today as well. Bring it.