Two, and three.

Last Week: My measurements: 36" chest, 32" waist, 35" hips. Who knew that I was an hourglass shape? I didn't. Weight on Day 1: 130.6 pds. Damm's measurements: 39.5" chest, 37" waist. Different from the secret numbers he posted because I decided it would be better to measure when we weigh ourselves, which happens to be in the morning. Weight on Day 1: 180.4. Meself. Weight: 131.0 Measurements: Chest 37" (different clothing, not different size), Waist 31.5" (Whoopee!), Hip 35.5". Damm. Weight: 180.8 Measurements: Chest 39", Waist 37.5". So not a lot of change yet. And yeah, my waist measurement is smaller, but we're doing the measurements by hand so there is room for error. I hope we'll see a bigger difference next week. Today and tomorrow we're off, and we'll be starting back up on Sunday.

Today we repeated Plyometric Cardio Circuit. Here's what I said about this workout the first time I went through it: My floor has never looked so appealing. And I never thought I'd be one of the "yellers." In exercise lingo (not another lingo!:) that means you yell when things get hard. Oh bother. Another pun. Anyway, Shaun T's Basketball Drills had me yelling. And grunting as good as those humongo body builders do. And as good as Tim the Tool Man Taylor:) This time? Still incredibly hard, but there was the possibility of completing all the exercises. Does that make sense? I'll put it another way. I had to take breaks, but I can foresee not having to take breaks. Last time the thought of completing it was INSANE. Tomorrow is our weigh-in and measurement day. After that we have a 2-day break, not 1, because Damm has Guard Drill and I'm not getting up at 3 a.m. to do a workout. Only crazy people do that. Which makes my teenage self absolutely, completely c...

Day 5 is Pure Cardio. My little brother Alden has also been doing the INSANITY thing and we've been corresponding about our experiences via that great invention-texting. And he asked me if we had done Pure Cardio yet. I texted back no, I hadn't, and why was he asking? He texted back: Hahahahaha. (or something to that effect) Of course that sent warning signals. And this morning I discovered why he had laughed. Pure Cardio was hard . Same warm-up and stretch but instead of 3 minutes hard 30 second break it was 13-14 minutes non-stop. Of course I had to stop. Several times. And by the end I was gasping on the floor, trying not to throw up. There might be another contributing factor to that, though. You see, yesterday was ice cream day. I firmly believe in the concept of a "splurge" or "cheat" something once a week. Or once every two weeks, however you decide you want to do it. And yesterday was my day. This morning I was wishing I had waited until Thursday, be...

Today is Cardio Recovery Day. I gotta tell ya, I like this day. What I find interesting is how my previous training is helping/not helping during this series. Plyometrics? Never did it. Too hard to motivate myself to do it solo. And I wasn't convinced that it could benefit me in my running. Hahahahaha. As we get older we get wiser. But leg work? I've done massive amounts of leg work. So many of the resistance moves Shaun T. employs I've done before. That's not to say they're easy, but I have an easier time doing them. Upper body? Yeah I trained with weights but only recently did I start to incorporate pushups. I want to start doing pullups at some point as well BECAUSE I have come to a groundbreaking realization: For practical upper body strength, pushups and pullups are all you need. All the other stuff is a great addition but it's like flowers on the cake. Gorgeous, and if they're made with sugar tasty, but not actually vital to the cake's existence. A...

Day 3 and we're both beginning to hobble around like old arthritic persons. BUT. We see improvement. Today was Cardio Power Resistance. The warmup felt like a workout but the rest of the workout I was-almost-able to keep up. Same thing with Damm. That left us both concerned that we weren't pushing hard enough but once the post-workout glow faded and the soreness set in we decided that we had, in fact, worked hard enough. Did you know that there was such a thing as Moving Pushups? I didn't. Or globe jumps? Or V-pushups? There is a whole world out there that involves pain and lots of it but it's totally ok to subject someone to it because it's exercise. And people volunteer for it. And come back for more. I'm sure there's an entire essay/paper/book on pain and why we inflict it on ourselves that I could write. But who am I to complain about pain? I've run 2 marathons, 2 half-marathons, and at one point really really wanted to become an ultra-marathoner. I ...

Physics 216L lab final study guide It is important to study for the lab final! As a reminder, it counts as 20% of your overall lab course grade. It is closed books and notes. You will have up to 2 hours to complete it. You should bring a calculator. The lab final is comprehensive, covering material from all 11 labs. There will be about 30 – 35 questions or about 3 questions per lab. It is primarily multiple-choice with some short answer. It will be conceptual in nature, similar to the in-lab material and homework assignments. Study the homework, if you can do the homework problems and are comfortable with the lab work, you will be in good shape for the final! It is important that you know the basic formulas and how to apply them. These would include, but are not limited to: Coulomb’s Law, F=kqq/r^2 Electric Field, E=F/q. The electric field points in the direction a positive charge will go. Electric potential difference, dV = -W/q . The electric potential difference, dV, is the work don...

You might not be able to make it out but the girl... playing the cello.... SHE HAS A BABY ON HER BACK. Aithne was entranced by the lady juggling here. Wulfa pushing Miniorc. Orclette. She's weaving the clothes right there. It was cool. Yes I know other people make stuff all the time but I thought it was cool. Another secretly taken picture of Wulfa. That dog... looked so tired. Pictures cannot convey his tiredness. Miniorc was... very attentive as you can see here. The baloons were air-spinny-things and spun. They were cool. There were dogs everywhere. Most of them cute. Just a random shot. Another random shot. All in all I think we had fun. Wulfa will have to write a bigger post later explaining.

About 20 seconds before this picture was taken... there was a fat 8-9 month old sitting in the MIDDLE of that broken glass bottle that his sister so kindly dropped near him. He was very shocked to be suddenly jerked straight up and dropped un ceremoniously onto the couch. All he had was a slight prick on his right leg.

My thoughts on the Plyometric Cardio Circuit? My floor has never looked so appealing. And I never thought I'd be one of the "yellers." In exercise lingo (not another lingo!:) that means you yell when things get hard. Oh bother. Another pun. Anyway, Shaun T's Basketball Drills had me yelling. And grunting as good as those humongo body builders do. And as good as Tim the Tool Man Taylor:) Damm's thoughts were that he didn't push as hard as he could've BUT this time he was standing at the end of the workout. And as soon as he actually sat down he couldn't get back up:) We aren't going to change what we eat yet. We were already ingesting good-for-you foods. According to the caloric needs calculater Damm should be eating around 3,000 calories working out 6 days a week and I should be at 2,400. I'm already at 2,000-2,200 because I'm still the main food source of the Little Man. Not sure where Damm falls on the calorie count. Anyway, not upping ou...

The insanity workout isn't insanity... it -is- very hard. Well relatively hard... its hard if you are doing it at the videoman's pace. It is hard for me when I'm stopping to ... you know... breathe. I now have the beginnings of a rather special blister on my foot thanks to that workout. And everytime I sit or walk my legs complain. I felt like I should have pushed a little bit harder as I felt fine about 5 min after the workout. But during the workout I was dripping sweat and out of breath and my heart rate was up(not sure where but up.... I suck at checking it on my wrist and we don't have a monitor yet.) All in all the workout is 40 min in the morning that I wasn't doing previously. Wulfa's wrap up on the thing to come.