DAY 29: CORE CARDIO AND BALANCE & MEAL PLAN!

Today was the first day of a completely new workout! I had no idea what was coming and that absolutely thrilled me, after a whole month of the same workout, and often dreading what was to come, i was so hyped for this workout!

This is like a halfway point, as we now have a whole week of 'RECOVERY'...yeah right, as if this is going to be any easier....and it wasn't! It seperates the '40 minute workouts' from the Month 2 '60 minute MAX workouts'. 

Really, this isn't a recovery. I still sweat like hell, but it is slightly easier than the likes of Plyo and Pure cardio, and we don't have no repetitiveness either, yay. The warm-up isn't a 3 set killer, it just consists of Switch Heel Kicks, Mummy Kicks, Football Shuffle and Over the Log. They're all quite nice exercises to do, the only difference is we're being asked to do it slower, and that's the harder bit, how do you jump slow?! Please..someone inform me!

After a quick break we have 8 High Knees into 8 Power Jacks followed by 8 Fast Feet into 8 Alternating Hooks. I like these as i feel bad ass punching the air infront of me.....weird huh?

As usual we have to stretch, always my favourite part. It lasts about 4 minutes, and the stretches are pretty much the same as Month 1 just a little bit deeper than previous. A lot more focus is put into the hip flexors and the hamstrings...which i love by the way!

For the workout, i can't lie..it was exhilarating, but i'm not it's number 1 fan that's for sure.
I was sweating the same and pretty out of breath, more fatigue than actual exhaustion. My muscles were crying especially at the end where we had Hip Flexor Burners.
Lemme explain a little:
You lift your knee to hip height, bent knee and keeping your elbows and arms in a defensive kind of position. We then tap our leg to the floor bringing it back up to the same position for approx. 30 seconds. Then, without lowering your leg, hold your knee up and pulse up and own for 30 seconds.
PAINNN.
Then, again without lowering the leg, YES IT'S STILL UP...stretch your leg out and bend, out and bend. For another 30 damn seconds.
......
AND SWITCH LEGS AND DO IT AAAAALLLL AGAIN.

Other exercises in this workout, i'll go through a little day by day. Because i've got to do this for 6 days, i may as well explain a few exercises each day rather than block up a post with a 2500 word essay on my likes an dislikes of Core Cardio and Balance!

MEAL PLAN

I had a bowl of muesli to start my day today, i wasn't feeling anything hot for some reason, woke up craving some cold milk!
For lunch i made some brown rice and chicken breast, tossed together with some onions, garlic and chillis. This is my go to meal, and i love how many different flavours you can add to make it slightly varied each time, i'm a spicy person so 9 times outta 10 i'll have chilli in mine.
Noodles became my dinner and i'm rather annoyed, i had to leave the house pretty quickly and genuinley couldn't grab anything. The cafe at work was closed, there are NO shops on the way to grab some fruit or something, so i sulked and ate noodles feeling them go to my hips instantly. Hence why i refused to let myself rest during my workout and put double effort in. Won't be doing this again, felt crappy as soon as the noodles hit my stomach i swear!

A. 

DAY 26: PURE CARDIO AND CARDIO ABS & MEAL PLAN

Last time i do this dreaded workout! Wahoooooo. However, i can stop 'wahooo-ing' realistically because i'm pretty damn sure that 'MAX CARDIO CONDITIONAL & CARDIO ABS' that my calendar has to offer in the next few weeks is going to be double energy, double time and double pain. So i should probably prepare myself for that. 

One thing i do like  about Pure Cardio is we don't have anything repetitive, what i mean is every drill you do, you only do once! Thats still about 15-20 drills for one minute each without any water breaks. So it's still very very tiring. I'm starting to love the fact that i'm not dying by the end of a workout though, yeah i'm knackered but i don't feel like i used to, i feel energized and ready to go (not to do another workout, just good in myself) 

Doing Cardio Abs straight after is beneficial but because you gotta do another warm-up, it's a bit like torture to your legs. Shaun T and his posse are bone dry definitley have had a nice sleep and a day between the two lots of filming! So i kinda feel boss doing it straight after AND getting through it...yeah, WHAT?! Shaun T, don't see you doing this!

The C-Sit position is good to keeep your core solid. Although your sitting in it at one point for a good 3 minutes doing a variety of leg/arm moves and twists, once you sit up and rest, hell can you feel the burn!

MEAL PLAN 

In a bit of a rush again today as i had a hair appointment early this morning, so an apple and a cup of coffee had to suffice for me unfortunatley. I promised to have a good lunch though which i did. 

A jacket potato filled with chilli con carne and a side salad graced my stomach for lunch, i got this while i was out as i was so hungry by the time i'd sat in the hairdressers for 2 and a half hours, making it home just wouldn't do!

Because i don't normally eat a lot of normal potato, i was quite full for the majority of the day, so for my evening meal, i had some broth my gran had made me a while ago, defrost and re-heat..it still tastes amazing. Her broth is pretty much made up of vegetables, chicken stock, lentils and bits of chicken breast. But seriously, it's soooo good.

A. 

DAY 25: CARDIO RECOVERY & MEAL PLAN

 Last time i'm doing Cardio Recovery for this round of Insanity. Sad times, actually it's dawning on me this is the last time i'm doing any of the Month 1 workouts! Jeeebus, time flies when your doing Insanity. It really does, it certainly doesn't feel like i've been doing this for a month now. 

Anyways, Cardio Recovery as you all know is one of my fav..yeah you still work up a little bit of a sweat but it's more about focusing on your core and stretching. With the recovery workout i think the best tip i can give is really focus on your breathing, not so much to get your breath back, but to train your breathing to exhale when your exerting energy and inhale on a recovery move. This gets oxygen to the muscles that need it the most depending on what exercise your doing. 

I think with Month 2's version of this since it's called 'MAX RECOVERY' i think they'll vamp up the cardio side of it, so you will be sweating a lot! And incorporate some harder more taxing stretches, by this point i presume if you've never been into fitness or didn't really workout, the Month prior will have you in good enough shape to cope with Month 2's exercises. Well that's my theory anyway!

MEAL PLAN

 A day off work means my meals are always timed well and i can prepare them as i go, yeah..meal prep saves time if you do it the night before. But there's just something so much nicer about a freshly prepared meal that you can eat right away!

Breakfast was a menagerie of fruit today! Some of my fruit was about to spoil so i took advantage and made a big fruit salad with apples, bananas, kiwi, melon and grapes.  A big bowl of fruit with some natural yogurt spread on the top get's me going for the day i can assure you.

Lunch was a fairly small affair of tuna steak, broccolii and side salad of lettuce with chopped cherry tomatoes. I was in a bit of a hurry with lunch as i wanted to get into town before it closed!

My evening meal had a bit more thought, diced chicken breast with soy noodles, onions, garlic, chilli and peppers all tossed together with some sweet potato fries (home-made...with low-cal spray might i add) finished me off for the day and i slept a happy bunny!

A.