About a month ago, Mike came up with an insane idea.
We should work out together! We should do Insanity.
It would be insanely good for us. We’d look insanely amazing. I’d lose an insane amount of weight.
We got up the very first Monday of our workout at the insane hour of 5:15 a.m.
Now see here, I know that I could use a little more sweat in my life. I quit running after my knee surgery, and since then my best plan for losing weight has been to cut back on the adult beverages and a good ol’ fashioned gut-cleansing stomach virus. So yeah, I know I’m not in the best shape ever. But I do chase after kids and I do spend 3 hours once or twice a week busting my butt unloading an 18-wheeler full of big boxes. I knew I was in trouble when 10 minutes into our very first workout I felt like I could vomit and then die. It was insanely hard.
Because it was so hard, and because everyone in the video has insanely ridiculous abs, I kept at it. For over 3 weeks I’ve been working out 6 days a week.
The most insane part of all? Every week when I weigh myself I’ve gained. In fact, I weighed myself yesterday and I weigh the most I’ve weighed other than being pregnant or post-partum. This was not the insane result I was going for.
I have no idea what the deal is. My clothes don’t fit differently and I don’t feel insanely stronger. My arms do look more toned … but no matter how my body fluctuates I always like how my arms look. Sorry, but that’s an insanely lame consolation prize for having to listen to Shaun T. mispronounce the word “important” every day for a month.
I struggle a lot with my body. On the one hand, I want to look good. I weigh more than I should and it’s not going to get any easier as I age. More importantly, I want to model a positive body image for Elena. So no matter what conversation I’m having with myself on the inside, I go to great lengths not to bad mouth my body on the outside. But as much as I want that smoking hot body, I want the good things in life even more. I like butter, bread and beer. I like cream, both the liquid and frozen varieties. I refuse to spend a life not enjoying those things so I can wear skinny jeans.
But, dude. If I’m going to sweat buckets and squash my girls into a sports bra that looks like a torture device 6 days a week and have nothing to show for it but extra pounds? That’s insane. I’ll have a few less Dark & Stormys and pray for well-timed stomach bug instead.
Side note: I may be a whiner, a bitcher and a massive complainer … but I am not a quitter. So I plan to finish out Insanity, even if Shaun T’s voice becomes my violent trigger for the rest of my life. I’ll let you know if those insane abs ever do appear.