Daily Insanity

Rule #1: Try to devote 45 short minutes a day to Shawn T.

In 2011, I was looking for a high intensity workout that I could do in my hotel room. With a little research, I discovered that Insanity had a lot of the features I was looking for:

1. Mostly cardio. (I like to lift separately.)
2. Track & Field-inspired exercises
3. Short - 45 minutes
4. Varied
5. Challenging

I can vouch for the results. Even after sticking with it for one week, my husband remarked on how my face was looking less round (with all the appropriate 'but you are always beautiful' reassurances, of course).

It gives you a lovely burn in your lungs --- athletes, you know that feeling --- and energy for the whole day. You drink a gallon of water and sweat like crazy, both of which are really good for your skin. Bonus.

The problem is that I just keep falling off the wagon. There's really no good excuse. I'm going to fix that starting now, though! It's really not that hard to press Play on the DVD. With all the tv I watch, there is surely 45 minutes to spare.

Here's the shoes that I use:



Reebok Realflex seem to work perfectly, both on the road and at home. Plus, they are the absolute easiest to pack. Low weight, collapsible and springy.

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Testing and Tinkering

Before I can really flesh out the categories for this blog, I need a nice quiver of posts. So, this is the first.

According to the seven rules of high-power blogging, I'm supposed to talk more about you than me. I really have no desire to be high powered OR a blogger, so I'll just assume all of you are smart enough to learn from my wins & errors as I blab about them.

Wait, I'm supposed to say......

You really want to read about how I'm trying to get fit!!!! Why? I cannot fathom. But clearly someone reads the Internets-tube-network and finds it useful. I can't begin to psychoanalyze the blog-following masses.

Wait, I'm supposed to say...

My posts will be super valuable for your health and well-being!!!!! Even though you'll probably be sitting on your tush while you read it. Well, let's just see where this goes.

About Me

I'm pretty busy and common sense, but not very disciplined about exercising. My dad was a weight lifting instructor, and I was a 3-sport athlete in my teens, but the body has been sagging in some alarming places for a few years now. Plus, when I do really well for a week or so, I take the rapid progress as an excuse to drop the whole thing. (Hey, this is easy! I don't even have to try! Back to pizza.)

I'm a librarian, so I can check out the research behind the claims. That might interest you.

I've also been tinkering with my post-college fitness routine for nearly a decade here, so I feel like I have all the knowledge I need on some level. Somewhere in this cluttered mind hides the genius solutions for getting ripped. That's the premise.

I read countless fitness magazines on airplanes. They just haven't quite manifested in results yet, but by golly, they will. I need to capture the low-threshold behavior changes that are really going to work for me long-term. I'm old enough to know that small steps are the key.

This is my hypothesis. Maybe I just need a place to store all those tips. And a public record of my work. Definitely not original notions, but hey, everybody is doing the exercise journal thing now. Why not use this zany old blog shell to share what I find out?

[shrug] Let's give it 60 days, and see what happens.

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