Insanity. Check!

I, Jen Phan, have officially completed Insanity! Although, I was two and a half weeks behind hehe, but whatever! I completed the calendar and did all of the workouts. Honestly, when I did the last Fit Test, I felt soooo good! And I was even doing Core Cardio and Balance 10 minutes before it too! But to just think, “Okay, this is my LAST workout of Insanity, I’mma give it my all.” And so I did. I have definitely felt stronger than my first Fit Test.

My experience with Insanity… Man out of all the home workout programs I’ve done from Beach Body, Insanity probably gave me the best results. But out of all the home workout programs I’ve done from Beach Body, Insanity is probably my least favorite. No, not even part of my favorites, I just hated it. Haha, I’ve never felt so dreadful to workout in my life. Which is weird and funny cause now that I’m done with Insanity, I feel so motivated to workout. I can’t wait to get home from work and put on my workout gear and do some jumping jacks or lift weights and pushups. Is that weird? Well anyways, back to my experience with Insanity. The first month I was doing really well, I still dread to do the workouts because I was so used to my 25-30 minute workouts with T25 and P90x3. But I still did all the workouts and didn’t miss a singe day, I was following the schedule on point. Then… When I got to the second month. First of all, I was NOT aware that the workouts were going to be longer, not 10 minutes longer but they were 57 -59 minutes long! Literally, after Max Recovery, I just had to take a break. Second month was TOUGH, I mean like I said, I fell behind 2 and a half weeks. And unfortunately, I didn’t follow the meal plan. I should have, but I just wasn’t motivated to go grocery shopping and prep the meals. Usually what motivates me to workout is to peek at the workout list. When I read the list of what the workout contains, I know that I am capable of doing them and in my head I just think “Oh, I can do that, and I can do that, alright, I think I got this! Lets do it!”

Overall, even though Insanity gave me semi good results, I would never do it again. I rather do a workout where I feel so motivated and actually enjoy doing. The best workout I’ve ever experience and literally gave me amazing results, would be Blogilates. Maybe I’ll talk about my experience with Blogilates in another post. But long story short, I followed Cassey Ho’s meal plan and did her workout, I lost 4-5 lbs in a week! SHE helped me get close to my weight goal, I was able to get down between 116-117lbs because of her. You guys are probably thinking, “if you got such great results from her why not do her workouts again?” Well, first, I wanted to see what my other options are and try a little bit of everything. I hear so many good reviews on so many different workout programs and I just wanted to give it a try and I’m an sucker when I see the workouts on infomercials. And second, I was just annoyed of going through youtube video to another to do the workouts in one day. You’ll never know when you lose internet connection or if the loading takes too long. I rather just have the videos all together in one and do the workouts. Alright, this post is supposed to be about Insanity so I’ll just stop here.

If anyone else would like to share their experience or thoughts of Insanity, drop me a comment 🙂

Lemonade Cleanse

So almost a year ago I gained a few pounds. Last summer I was about 117lbs. Then few months later I gained about 5lbs. Then I gained another 5lbs, total of 10lbs. Big difference for my body. And of course, Thanksgiving was around the corner, and I definitely wanted to splurge a little and didn’t want to not eat some certain foods cause that’ll just upset my family. When I’m eating with my family and having a family dinner, I want to enjoy my meal and not complain or say “Oh I can’t eat that cause I’m trying to eat clean.” I mean, I’m sure there are food that I could eat clean or can make it more healthy, however my family aren’t into that. When they eat, they want to eat good with the fatty stuff. So I thought maybe I’ll lose some weight and just gain it back for Thanksgiving, make it even. But I wanted to lose weight QUICK. Only method I could think of to lose weight ASAP, is the Lemonade Cleanse. The Lemonade Cleanse is a cleanse where you don’t eat any solid food and only consume this drink containing lemon, cayenne pepper, grade b maple syrup, and water. In the morning right after you wake up and at night right before you head to bed you drink laxative tea. The taste wasn’t actually that bad, to me it was pretty tasty. The sweetness from the maple syrup and citrus from the lemon then the kick from the cayenne pepper really gave me energy. Taking a sip of it you first taste the sweet tart flavor then bam! The cayenne pepper sneaks you up behind the throat and you feel the burn. Now did I lose weight from this cleanse? Of course I did! I was pretty much starving myself for 7 WHOLE DAYS!!! I lose a total of 13.4 lbs in ONE WEEK. Now, before you guys start thinking of going to the super market to buy bags of lemon, cayenne pepper, and think of where to get specifically grade B maple syrup, I warn you this is a very dangerous cleanse. I would only suggest people this cleanse if they need to lose weight for a photoshoot or if you just want to lose weight for an even but don’t mind or expect to gain weight back, because that was what happened to me. The Lemonade Cleanse was a cleanse that I sort of regret doing. I say sort of because now I feel like I learned my lesson. Yes before I used to be “oh lose weight the healthy way, eat clean and workout.” But because of the weight gain I was just desperate and crazy, yes crazy, to lose weight ASAP.

Here is what you need. To make one serving:
-1/10tsp of Cayenne Pepper ( I didn’t have a 1/10 tsp so I just put less in 1/18 tsp)
-2 TBS of Grade B Maple Syrup
-2 TBS of fresh lemon juice
-10 oz of water

First, let me tell you my experience with the cleanse. People say that the first three days are hard, but for me, every day was hard. Right after work I would go straight to my bedroom and lock myself in there so I can avoid food and the smell of it. During my lunch break at work, luckily there’s a quiet room where I would just hide and drink my lemonade and take a nap til my 30 minutes were up. And because I was drinking the laxative tea twice a day, whatever came in just went right out (duh it’s a cleanse, it’s cleansing my body). Every day I was losing weight and because of the weightloss, I got wicked excited and it just motivated me to continue the cleanse. It felt so good to have clothes feel a bit lose on me and to just wake up with a flat belly. I was contemplating in doing the cleanse for an extra 3 days because supposedly it’s supposed to be a 10 day cleanse but I just couldn’t, I love food and I was content on where I was at after the 7th day. So after the cleanse you’re supposed to consume only liquid for the next 2 days, either 100% orange juice or 100% grapefruit juice, as in freshly squeezed juice! Not that Sunny D crap. On my second day after the cleanse I actually snuck in a grapefruit, but I don’t think it made much of a difference. Now the aftermath of the cleanse… They say you either gain more than the weight that you lost or you’re able to just gain a couple of pounds back but still less than what you lost. Unfortunately for me, I gained more than what I lost. I gained almost 20lbs! Yea, so much for telling people “Oh I’ve lost 60lbs”, I had to say “Oh I lost 60lbs but gained 20lbs so in total I lost 40lbs”. I guess to some people losing over 30lbs is good enough but I had a goal and my goal was to be 115lbs (I’m 5’3″ for those who are wondering). After the cleanse, when I was welcoming the food back into my body I thought to myself, “Oh, I’m just eating this and that, I’ll probably just gain 2lbs so I’m still good.” But no, I gained 10x as much as I thought I would.

My review and results from the Lemonade Cleanse
BTW I snapped a picture of myself right after I woke up and weighed myself.
So please don’t mind my messy look.

In my opinion, I think the Lemonade Cleanse just messed up my whole body and maybe confused it. Cause after the weight gain, I tried to lose weight the semi right way. I was working out to T25 in the morning before I had to go into work and was eating about 1000-1200 calories a day then I worked out to P90x3 after work with my brother and I was still no where near the weight I wanted to get back to (117lbs). But then I heard and see that I put my body in starvation mode? Maybe that’s why I wasn’t getting back to my weight? I don’t know, I’m not a nutritionist or a personal trainer so all this weight loss and trying to be healthy and fit was something I learned on my own. I had no personal trainer to help me and I did not sign up for those weight loss system like weight watchers or Jenny Craig.

So there you have it guys, my personal experience with the Lemonade Cleanse. Like I said, I highly suggest people to NOT do it unless they need to lose ASAP for an event and are okay with gaining the weight back, unless you have self control. If there are any questions or anything please leave a comment.

BTW the Lemonade Cleanse was not part of my weightloss from my previous post of “Ask My How I lost Over 50lbs”. I did the Lemonade Cleanse AFTER the 50lb weightloss.

And the photoshoots I did after my weightloss.

Forgotten

Oops! Seems like I have forgotten the fact that I had an account here and only did one post, which was the first day I opened the account haha.

So I have to say, 2014 has been a really interesting year. It’s also the year of the Horse which is my zodiac sign! When I get the chance I’ll update the events from this year that I happen to find interesting.

What I’m currently doing with my life at the moment? Work, workout, eat, sleep, repeat. I received a new position at work this year, I went from being a teller to a Member Service Representative/Loan Originator Boston Region Floater to a Member Service Representative/Loan Originator. Since there were only 4 branches in the Boston region and one was going to be shut down and all branches just recently had a set staff, they no longer needed the floater. As for the workout, currently doing Insanity, and I have to say, ever since Insanity I HATE working out. Yep, I said it, I HATE it. Like, grrr! I think it may be because I loved my 30 minute workouts haha. I am over 2 weeks behind, but I have 7 workouts left!!! I just want to finish it and get it over with so I can finally say, Yes, I’ve done and completed Insanity. Ugh, just 7 more workouts to go!!! I’ll talk about my workout experience on another post/day.

Eat… I must have gained about 15lbs since last year. What can I say? I love food. Love love love! My brother thinks that I’m a glutton. I honestly think so too. All I can do is think about food hehehe. 😀 I’ll also talk about that in a later post.

Sleep… wish I can get more. I run on 4-5 hours of sleep a day, well, during the weekday or days that I go into work. 😦 it’s so bad, and the reason why I get so little sleep are stupid reasons! Lol, like staying up and doing surfing on the internet. Or playing Candy Crush til I’m out of lives.

But because it’s 2014, supposedly my year, I seriously need to make some changes. I’ve been applying for a new job, one that I applied to is going to make a big life difference and that is something that I’ll also talk about in my next posts.

After I complete Insanity and feel stress free, I’ll be able to post more and update my life. Til then, I’m gonna try to motivate myself to complete the last 7 workouts of insanity! Ughhhh D:  😥