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I did it! I have completed the first month of Insanity and survived. I am into the Recovery week and it’s time to take stock of this past month and my progress.

Insanity is one of Beachbody’s newest workout programs. It is being billed as THE toughest home workout program ever put on a DVD, and with good reason. The workouts are insanely tough.  These are workouts that you can’t think about too much, you just have to do them. If you start thinking about them, it would be easy to find excuses to not work out! I would wager that this program will see more drop outs than a lot of others. You have to be committed and stay committed, not only to finish the program, but to finish some of the workouts!

The Fit Test

The program starts with a Fit Test, as do most of Beachbody’s more advance programs. The program is set up to repeat this Fit Test every two weeks, so you can really track your progress throughout the program. This is a good thing, because it helps to keep you motivate. The Fit Test consists of doing 8 different moves for 1 minute each, doing as many as you can in that minute. Here’s are my numbers for the first and second Fit Tests:

• Switch Kicks: 120  -  125
• Power Jacks:  60    -  62
• Power Knees:  89   -  103
• Power Jumps: 34   -  38
• Globe Jumps:  9     -   11
• Suicide Jumps: 15  -  16
• Push-up Jacks: 16 -  22
• Low Plank Obliques: 32  -  73

Boy, quite a bit of improvement there, isn’t there! I’m impressed with myself! All kidding aside, I really  am impressed with how well I’m doing. It is awesome to know that I can keep up with the majority of the people doing the workout on the video, and even better than some. It is reassuring to know that they are collapsed on the floor, laying in a puddle of their own sweat, just like I am, by the end of the workout.

The Workouts

So, what are the workouts themselves? Here’s the line-up for the first month:

• Plyometric Cardio Circuit - explosive cardio intervals (approx. 40 minutes)
• Pure Cardio - intense and extreme cardio (approx. 40 minutes)
• Cardio Power and Resistance - MAX intensity intervals of strength, resistance, sports drills and plyometrics (approx. 40 minutes)
• Cardio Recovery - not the recovery you may be expecting (approx. 35 minutes)
• Cardio Abs - high-intensity ab and core workouts (approx. 20 minutes)

All of the workouts start out with 9 minutes of warm-up drills (except for the Recovery and Ab workouts.) By the time you are done with the workout, your heart-rate is at its max and you are dripping sweat. You then go into a wonderful stretching section that last about 5 - 6 minutes. Then comes the real work - the main work-out. The workouts themselves only last anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. That doesn’t sound long, does it? And it really does go by fast, but by the time you’re done…well, you’re DONE! You then finish the workout with another great stretch, and some of Beachbody’s Results and Recovery Formula. Boy, does that stuff taste good after these intense sessions!

When I began the program, I was dead by the end of the warm-up. My legs were worse than my cardio, I will say. My legs just couldn’t keep up with all of the plyo moves. After the first month, I will admit that there are still days that my quads are dying, but I can now make it through the whole program. I am ready to stop by the end, but I make it through.

Core Cardio and Balance is the workout you do throughout the whole Recovery week. Again, it may not be your typical recovery workout, because it still does get your heart rate up and is pretty intense. But it’s not as intense as the main workouts. My average heart rate only got up to the mid-140s, instead of the mid to upper 150s.

I have to say that I’m not looking forward to the second month. The workouts get longer - all of them are 50 to 60 minutes. With descriptions like “The interval circuits get even harder”, and “Your legs will be begging for mercy”, can you blame me? But I will do it. As I did with this month, I won’t even think about what is coming. I will get up in the morning, get dressed to workout and just do it. If I wait, if I think about it, I will chicken out. None of that for me! As Shaun T says, Dig Deeper! Keep Pushing! I can and I will. And I’ll check in here at the end of September and let you know how I did.

Are you ready to go Insane with me? Insanity hit the Beachbody store last night and so many people flocked to buy it that the Beachbody store went down! Have no fear though, they got it up and running and the program is flying off the shelves!

Do you think you have what it takes for this program? It is not meant for beginners. Shaun T’s extreme new program takes intense cardio training and cranks it to the max! This energetic, vigorous, advanced program includes 10 DVDs, nutrition guide, fitness guide and diary, wall calendar, plus a motivational CD. I grabbed the Deluxe package last night, which includes 2 more INSANE workouts, plus a bonus workout—FREE! Who wants to go Insane with me?

Insanity Sneak Peek



We often think of “value” as being able to get more for our money, right? Food is no different: we’ve been conditioned over time to believe that getting more is better, regardless of what it is. We often feel cheated if we don’t get a huge plate of food at a restaurant, even if what we get is of excellent quality. We also feel like we’ve gotten a great deal if we get more food “for free.”

How many times have you heard (or said) things like this:

• “Man, don’t go to that restaurant! The food tastes good, but the portion sizes are small. It’s a ripoff.”

• “Hey, Burger Bubba has their triple burgers on sale for $1.99 - I don’t want to pass that up!”

• “Super-size me!”

• “Thirty percent more - FREE!”

• “I’m gonna have that twenty ounce sirloin tonight…” (Note: that’s a pound and a quarter of meat!)

Buying more food - as in groceries - for your money is a good thing, as long as you eat right (ideally, five or six reasonably portioned meals and snacks, spaced out through the day). Value is also in the food itself: it’s a good value to buy food that’s rich in nutritional value and without chemicals, fat, and other junk.

But there’s no value in buying a huge burger, fries, and a massive soft drink. You’re just buying a couple thousand calories of fat, sugar, and sodium. And while a lot of people joke about it (hey, I used to!), those aren’t food groups. They’re the things that are making us fat and giving us a load of health problems the size of the Exxon Valdez. It doesn’t do anything positive for our emotional state, self-esteem, or sex lives, either.

And at restaurants, don’t order something huge and think you’re getting a great “value.” If you sit there and stuff yourself - because of course you don’t want to leave any of that good stuff on your plate, right? - the only value that comes out of it is the interest on the national debt to pay for the health care you’re going to need because you’re becoming obese.

But I guess you’d be in good company these days. Consider this: in every state but one, the obesity rate is twenty percent or higher - with thirty-odd states having obesity rates at thirty percent or more. And in one state, forty-four percent of the children of the age of ten to seventeen years old were obese. That’s almost half the kids in that state!

So, when you’re at a restaurant and place your order, ask the server right then for a box. And when your meal comes, before you take a single bite, take half of it and put it in the box to take home with you. So in one fell swoop you have 1) saved yourself from feeling like a stuffed pig, 2) set aside a full second meal of that yummy stuff that you ordered, and 3) made your money go twice as far.

And the fast food stuff? Avoid it like the plague. And if you do find yourself in a situation where there aren’t any alternatives, try to be smart about what you get, and don’t use it as an excuse to “indulge”. Your body can do without those sorts of treats! Is it hard? Sure it is, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that I succumb to temptation now and again. But fight it and do the best you can.

Most important, go through your pantry and refrigerator and get rid of all the junk. Throw it out. “Holy cow!” you say, “That’s just like throwing away money!” No, it’s throwing away stuff that’s making you fat and miserable. Get rid of the junk and replace it with stuff that both tastes good and is good for you, and eat it in reasonable portions frequently through the day.  Get your money’s worth from the quality of the food you eat, not just the quantity.

That, my friend, is value.

We wanted to let you know that with the redesign of the Team Beachbody site (which looks fantastic, btw!), some of our links may be broken. We are slowly going through the site and getting them fixed, but if you see a 404 Page Not Found error message, it just means that we haven’t gotten to that link yet.

In the meantime, here are the links to the important pages:

Our Beachbody Message Board Thread - Get Fit with Fit Club Today

The Beachbody Store

Team Beachbody Club Membership Comparison  and Sign-up Page

Team Beachbody Community Page

Thanks for your patience as we get these changed over.

Jan and Mike

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

Energy drinks have taken over the soft drink market in a caffeine-fueled frenzy. By listening to the ad campaigns, you’d be sure that this has everything to do with your health. Now instead of leaving the convenience store with a gut bomb, you can grab a Monster can of Adrenaline that promises to Redline your performance until you’re partying like a Rockstar. But do energy drinks really give you wings? Or are you more likely to experience a fleeting glimpse of euphoria, only to come crashing down like Icarus? This week, we take a deeper look at energy drinks, 911 style.

Since Red Bull entered the U.S. market in 1997, energy drinks have been chipping away at the soft drink and bottled water companies’ stranglehold. According to an article in The New York Times, energy drinks have now surpassed bottled water as the fastest growing category of beverages. This isn’t to say that they’re hurting the soda companies, because pretty much everyone now makes an energy drink, from Hansen’s to Steven Seagal. Despite a slew of drinks with far more provocative names such as Who’s Your Daddy?®, Cocaine™, Jones Whoopass™, and Beaver Buzz™, the industry leader is still Red Bull, with sales over $3 billion last year.
Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part XIV: Energy Drinks – Do They Really Give You Wings?

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

Last time we discussed why Jamba Juice® isn’t always the healthy beverage chain it’s cracked up to be. We took a brief look at why something that is “100 percent fruit” might not be healthy, even though we’re pretty sure that whole fruit is healthy. Today we’ll look at juice, both the kind you buy at the store and the kind you can make at home. Then we’ll compare them to regular fruit.

Minute Maid® and other mainstream junk

First, let’s talk about what you buy in a store. Almost everything that you can find in a store in the United States is pasteurized to kill potentially harmful bacteria. While this is safer for a big company afraid of lawsuits, it also eliminates many of the most important nutrients of the fruits and vegetables used to make the juice (this is the same for other pasteurized items as well, like milk). Enzymes, in particular, are destroyed by the high temperatures associated with pasteurization, as are many of a fruit’s or a vegetable’s phytonutrients. Most commercial juice is fortified with vitamins to restore some of its nutrients, but many of the most vital elements are lost, and the resulting item is often little more than vitamin-fortified sugar water. Even “100 percent pure” juice that’s pasteurized has lost most of its nutrients.
Continue reading Nutrition XIII: Juice, Juicing, and Fruit – The Differences

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

Today, our oh-so-basic nutrition class hits the mall, or at least the strip mall, for a look at popular beverage chains. These range from places we know may not be healthy, like coffeehouses, to juice bars that market themselves as the pinnacle of nutrition. Certainly, beverages named after a cornucopia of healthy fruits must be good for you, right? Let’s take a deeper look at that Mangorangoberry Pizzazz you were considering for lunch today.

Most of the drinks we’re discussing fall under the smoothie category. We’ve been conditioned to consider this word synonymous with healthy, but many of these drinks are quite the opposite. Smoothie’s not a word you need to strike from your vocabulary, but like most things you put into your body, you should pay attention to the ingredients. Some of these beverages are great, while others are little more than ice cream in a cup. Here’s a quick rundown on the types of smoothies you’re likely to encounter and when, or if, you should drink them.

Bottled “smoothies”

A smoothie used to be a blend of various whole fruits with, perhaps, a bit of protein powder and/or other ingredients that were healthy, didn’t taste great, and were best hidden in a mixture of yummy fruit. Nowadays, it can be almost anything. In stores, however, most of ‘em still follow that traditional blend. They also have the nutrition information listed on the side, so it’s easy to see what you’re drinking. I guess this is why you’ll almost never see a Peanut Butter Blast™ at your local market, but you’ll often see spirulina.

Analysis: Most of these drinks are pretty darn healthy, and it’s obvious when they’re not. Just make sure to read the nutrition information on the label.
Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part XII: Jumbo Juices and Crappuccinos

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

Today we discuss the most popular drink in the world: coffee. I don’t actually know where these statistics come from, but since we mainly want to discuss one ingredient, caffeine, I’ll lump coffee, tea, and other caffeinated beverages into the same discussion so that we’ll be sure to address something that’s pertinent to almost all of you. Coffee and tea have been around for the entirety of recorded history, so no matter what science tells us, we begin this edition with some time-tested knowledge that people don’t go around dropping dead over the stuff, nor will it get you banned for cheating when you win at the Olympics (unless it’s too much).

Coffee and tea are probably the most controversial substances we consume. Unlike, say, soda, candy, chocolate, and fast food—which we know are detrimental to our diets—studies swing both ways over the benefits and dangers of our morning cup of java. But whatever the outcome, we drink the stuff with an almost ritualistic glee. If you drink neither coffee nor tea, you’re an outsider in almost any culture on the planet.

Coffee, tea, and other caffeinated drinks
First off, let’s talk about the difference between tea, coffee, and other drinks laced with caffeine. Coffee and tea are both very simple products made from mixing ground-up plants with hot water. So they’re both 100 percent natural, contain approximately zero calories, and have a few nutrients. What they do contain is caffeine. A lot of it. Coffee has nearly twice as much caffeine as tea, but the amount varies by type and the brewing process. As a general rule, trendy green teas have less caffeine than black teas, which have less than coffee. Figure that for each cup of coffee or tea you consume, you’ll get between 50 milligrams and 200 milligrams of caffeine.
Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part XI: Coffee, Tea, and Caffeine

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

This week, our oh-so-basic nutrition class takes a look at bottled water. We drink it because it’s safe, right? Or do we drink it because it tastes good? What if someone told you that your tap water was held to a higher safety standard than your bottled water? Would that get your attention? If not, then how about this: what if I told you that the refreshing bottle of Aquafina® you just paid $2.75 for at the Stop-N-Rob came from the municipal water supply of Detroit?

The bottled water industry is still relatively young in the U.S. and has only recently come under a somewhat underpowered microscope. Even so, the findings are far from pretty, and a much further cry from that pristine glacier-fed mountain spring you thought you were shelling out three bucks a gallon for. But before you go dump that case of Dasani® you just bought into Fido’s dish, read on.

First off, the odds are with you, health-wise. The findings of a recent 4-year study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) showed that 78 percent of the brands tested were safe. This means that unless you’ve been extremely loyal to one brand on the list, you’re probably okay. Still, knowing that 22 percent of the companies out there have chemical contaminants in their water higher than the state limits isn’t too reassuring.
Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part X: What’s in Your Water?

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

This week, we’re going to address why we should drink water. You know, water, “like in the toilet.” This line, borrowed from the film Idiocracy, isn’t so far from the way many people think about drinking plain water. In the comedy, the world’s drinking water is replaced by Brawndo, a Gatorade-like electrolyte drink. We will deconstruct Gatorade at a later date, but today, I want you to understand why this is not an option. You can hydrate yourself with other liquids, but every time you do, you’re chipping away at the chances of following a nutritional diet.

It’s likely that the only reason you think you need to drink water is to stay “hydrated,” but you might not truly understand what this means. Let’s delve into the meaning behind hydration and just why you need to drink so much plain, “boring” water.

1. Your body is made up primarily of water. When you’re properly hydrated, about two-thirds of your body is water—muscle tissue is even higher, at around 70 percent, while fat is less. Muscle powers your body and fat protects it. Put two and two together, and you may infer that water is vital to the things that make your body do stuff. When you don’t drink enough water, your body declines into a state we call dehydration. Get too dehydrated, and your body will not function properly, which isn’t too surprising when your body’s low on such a vital nutrient. (Your body can be as much as up to 65 percent water!)
   Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part IX: 10 Reasons to Drink Water
   

I’m a regular Facebook user and enjoy reading my friends’ status updates and commenting on them. I enjoy the games and interaction and find it a great way to connect with people. I also enjoy having the opportunity to encourage and inspire my friends on their fitness journies. I even was able to enjoy a wonderful moment when a friend posted her Before and 30 Day photos from ChaLEAN Extreme. She saw incredible results in the first 30 days of the program and I was so proud of her!

But there is something that really saddens me, too, and that’s what I want to talk about today. As I mentioned, I love it when my friends post updates on their fitness routines. Whether they just ran for the first time, completed their daily workout, or are thinking about getting on the treadmill that day, I love to see my friends being active and taking care of themselves. What breaks my heart is when other friends respond to those posts with statements like, “I could never do that!” or “I ran today, too - to the kitchen for some brownies!” One in particular that really struck me was this statement, “I wish I could be like you.” This was posted on a friend’s update who had gotten up, done her exercise and felt great for it.

The truth is, that person can be like her friend! Unless there is some crippling illness holding her back, the only reason she can’t be like her friend is because she thinks she can’t! Do you get it? It’s all in your head! We spend so much time bad-mouthing ourselves, that we get to the point that we really believe we can’t do the kinds of things we see all these people around us doing. I know it! I used to be one of those people! Do you know how many times I said things like “I could never give up ice cream! It’s my main food group!” or “I can’t live without bread! I love it!” or “I hate running!”

Guess what? I am still that person! I still love ice cream, I still love bread and I still hate running! But instead of telling myself “I can never….”, I tell myself, “I can and I will!” I can do this!  I recommit myself every day to a healthy lifestyle. Some days are easier than others. Some days I’m more successful than others, but the main thing is that I’ve stopped telling myself  “I can’t.”

You can do this, too. It really is all in your head. The first step - stop trash talking yourself. Start talking positive. Start saying, “I can and I will.” You may be thinking at this point that I’m crazy, that it can’t be that easy. But it is. The human mind is an amazing thing. You can talk yourself into just about anything! You really can.

So start today. Take baby steps if you have to. Imagine yourself exercising, such as getting out and walking today. Imagine yourself not eating that ice cream tonight. Imagine yourself having a nice big salad at lunch with chicken and veggies on it. If you don’t succeed with whatever it is you imagined today, that’s okay. Keep doing it! Practice makes perfect, in this just as in anything! Tomorrow, try again, and again. Keep doing it. Pretty soon, you will find yourself wanting to get out that door and take a walk. You will feel like you have to do it before you can get other things done. Give yourself a pat on the back and then add something else to that imagine list. Also, write down those goals. Whatever they are, big or small, write them down. Get them on paper, tell others about them, make yourself accountable.

Do you know what I do every night as I’m falling asleep? I picture in my head the slender, shapely, strong, healthy person I want to be. I started that at the beginning of my weight loss journey. I turn this way and that and see myself the way I want to be. I picture myself in clothes that fit and feel comfortable, and I feel the pride of a job well done. When I wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, I see myself for what I am, yes, but I also can see in there the person I am becoming. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am getting closer and closer to becoming that person. You can do this, too. Start now to be the person you want to become. You can do this!

If you’d like to follow me on Facebook, I am Jan Hildenbrand Hicks. On Twitter, you can find me as FitClubToday. And if you’d like to find out more about how you can get fit, or just hook up with me to help motivate and encourage you, contact me today!

I officially finished off my first week of P90X and wanted to give you my impressions of it, rather than a full blown review (which I’ll save for later).

First off, if you’re not already in pretty good shape, you’re going to be in for a rough time. The workouts are all about an hour (an hour and a quarter on the days when you do abs), and Yoga X is ninety minutes. So having enough stamina to make it through is important: if you don’t already exercise consistently, I’d strongly recommend starting with Power 90 like Jan and I did.

Second, you’ve got to follow the nutrition guide if you want maximum results! I can’t stress this enough. People get hung up on the workout aspect, but if you don’t eat right you’re simply not going to capitalize on your investment. You also need to eat enough: P90X isn’t a weight loss program, it’s an extreme fitness program. There’s a big difference. You need to eat a lot to keep your body fueled.

As for the exercises, the toughest ones for me are chinups. There are lots of chinups! There’s a good reason for that, though: they build muscle like crazy, but you really have to apply yourself.

But the workout that’s toughest overall in some ways is Yoga X. I have a lot more respect now for people who do yoga! A lot of it looks easy until you try it, and by the end of this workout I’m
sweating like a pig. But don’t blow it off: flexibility and core strength are critical to the overall progam.

So, there are a few thoughts for now on P90X. More to come later!

By Steve Edwards, Director of Results, from the Team Beachbody newsletter

Note: Every week I will be posting articles from the Team Beachbody newsletter. These newsletters are full of interesting, insightful articles focusing on bringing you the best nutrition and exercise information out there. As a Team Beachbody member, you receive this newsletter for free every week in your inbox. If you aren’t a member, click on the Join Team Beachbody link to join now!

Since all great things come in threes (or is it celebrity deaths?), we’re going to complete our sugar trilogy with a look at the worst food in the world: soda pop. Forget about brands; whether it’s Coke, Dr. Pepper, or even Hansen’s Natural, it’s all junk. There are different degrees of “junkiness,” but this is Nutrition 911, so we’re sticking with the bird’s-eye perspective. The taste might make you happy, but from a nutritional point of view, soda’s only place in the world is to make people fat, sick, and unhappy.

Alarming statistics

In America, we drink a lot of cola (or “un-cola”). A lot. On average, we each drank 52.4 gallons in 2005, and this figure includes infants, healthy folks, prisoners, etc., meaning that the average soda drinker actually gulps (their word) more than this. Carbonated soft drinks are the biggest single caloric source in the American diet. Teenagers in particular are hooked on the stuff and get an average of 13 percent of their daily calories from “pop.” If this doesn’t scare you, it should. In terms of sheer amount, these statistics could be alarming if it were any one food. A proper diet should have some balance and diversity. And soda pop is the antithesis of “any food.” It’s bad food.
Continue reading Nutrition 911, Part VIII: Pop Goes the Diet— The Worst Food in the World

About a week and a half ago, Mike and I got our first order of Shakeology. We ordered the chocolate Shakeology, because I will take chocolate in any form I can get it! I was a tad dubious of what it would taste like at first. I mean, after all, how could something so good for you, taste good! I had heard from a lot of people that it was delicious, however, so I knew we had to try it.

Well, they were right. Wow, were they right! I can now say, I am officially addicted to chocolate Shakeology with 1 tablespoon of natural peanut butter blended in - oh, and ice. I need to have the ice so it’s nice and cold. I can’t wait till it’s time for my daily Shakeology. It’s filling, it’s delicious, and I have to literally stop myself from slurping it down so that it last longer.

What’s so good about it? First, it is nice and rich and chocolatey. Second, it tastes great on its own, but also with other mix-ins. I’ve tried it with coffee mixed in, banana and cinnamon and peanut butter. I think frozen strawberries would be yummy, too, but I haven’t tried that one yet. Third, in one class, I can have all of the fruits and veggies that I need for that day. So on those days when I just haven’t been able to get in all of my fruits and veggies, I know I’m still covered, because I’ve had my Shakeology. In fact, it has all kinds of good stuff in it, including real food sources of vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, plus protein and phytonutrients to help rebuild muscle, maximize cellular health, eliminate toxins, and keep blood sugar from spiking.

Now, I’ve got to run! It’s Shakeology time! I think I’ll try those frozen strawberries today!

Today was a real milestone for me - I ran a 5K and completed it in good time with no problems.

Sure, many people may see a 5K as not that big a deal. It’s certainly not the longest race in the world. It’s considered a “Fun Run” - not real strenuous and something that a lot of people can do regardless of their fitness level.

But it was still a milestone for me because last year when I ran this race, I walked at least half of it. The course is hilly, with two rather steep hills, and last year, they killed me. Mike and I had been training a little bit using the Couch Potato to 5K program, but we were sporadic in our training and never really finished it before the race. So on race day,  I was sucking wind, badly. I was glad when it was over and it simply confirmed my feelings that I really don’t like to run.

Fast forward a year. We have now completed Power 90, Power 90 Masters Series, and ChaLEAN Extreme. Mike is starting P90X and I’m working through my second round of ChaLEAN. Have we been training as far as running is concerned? Not really. We’ve tried to get out at least once a week, if time and the weather permitted. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. But when we did get out and run for the first time, we were able to run 3 miles without stopping. That was amazing to me! With no extra training, only the fitness we’ve obtained using the Beachbody programs, we were in good enough shape to run a 5K.

Today, Mike and I finished at 27:52, a few minutes ahead of the 10 minute mile pace we had set for ourselves. We made it in good form, with lots of energy, and I even came in third for women in my age group! How cool is that! So yeah, it’s a milestone, and I’m thrilled with what we’ve accomplished so far.

Next on the agenda? A 10K. I’ll let you know how it goes!