It’s been a while now that I’ve been talking with my friend Brian about joining this craze called Insanity. He’s been doing it for a while and has always been telling me to do it too, but I’ve always been reluctant.

Finally, I gave in. He showed me the fit test, so I could have a look at it and my, I was sweating only by watching it!

It seems it’s a maximum intensity interval training (MIIT?) in which you basically push yourself to the limit, and then have a brief rest. You’re supposed to follow Insanity for 60 days.

Somewhere along the way I convinced our friend Oummou to join us, and then I injured my knee again. They started, and I didn’t. You can imagine the amount of teasing and jokes I’ve had to endure ever since! However, I made a promise that I would start as soon as I was back from Paris, allowing Friday 13th to rest, maybe go out a bit, and because I don’t trust starting anything on Friday 13th. So here I am!

As part of my commitment to this, I’ve decided to track my progress… and to share it.

Now, some of you might be a bit shocked at me sharing this information about myself, and to be completely honest with all of you, I am shocked too. I’m not sure I feel 100% comfortable sharing weight and body measurements with all of you, but I think it’s important for me to keep track, and be held accountant – otherwise I know I will just simply pretend I’m giving it my all (and if you’re a cute guy, just forget about the actual numbers and think how hot I’ll look in 60 days!)

Most of the people I know don’t believe me when I tell them I need to lose weight, or at least, they lie to my face and tell me that I don’t. I guess it’s not something you can easily see, especially when I try to wear clothes that hide the parts I’m not happy about, and enhance those parts I think are awesome. I’m not going to share the usual photos of before and after, mainly because that’s not how I roll.

You might be wondering why I’m doing this and maybe thinking I’m doing it for a pat on the back. You might be right. I’m also doing it because whenever I see fitness blogs, I get quite discouraged by the amount of incredible thin and half naked bodies out there. True, the before and after photos are a different story, but many of those feel too good to be true, or too dangerous to even try. I’m doing this a bit as an experiment, to see if it works, and maybe to encourage others.

Or maybe just for the pat on the back!

In order to try to keep it a bit more accurate than just the weight, I decided to take a few body measurements, again, to see what happens.

So, here it goes. Let’s begin the experiment!

Day 1 (before first session)

Height: 170 cm
Weight: 77.5 kg
BMI: 26.8 (overweight)

I am quite tall, but that’s no excuse. I would be quite happy with that body weight if it was muscle weight, but unfortunately, it isn’t!

Measurements
Neck: 36 cm
Shoulders: 112 cm
Chest: 104 cm
Bicep: 28 cm
Waist: 96 cm*
Thigh: 110 cm

While I know these are not accurate either, as I am measuring myself (and probably doing it wrong), they’re just an extra help to keep track of progress!

*In other to be healthier, this is the one that matters the most to me. I am probably at high risk of having heart problems, of diabetes, and who knows what else, so we need to reduce this no matter what (in theory, under 80 cm in diameter!)

In Insanity, they keep track of your progress by means of a fit test, which you have to do every week, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve done my first one today, and I’m exhausted.

We have to take into account that my flat isn’t the right place to do this kind of workout – I had to put the coffee table on top of the sofa, to get some space, and every time I jumped, the whole flat would shake, so I was a bit afraid of the shelf behind me falling down. I can almost hear Brian saying that I’m full of excuses so to prove my point, here’s the shelf I’m talking about:

Yes, the radiator is straight. The issue is that the floor isn’t, so the shelf is leaning to its side. Every so often, we straighten it up again, but there’s no solution to it (except moving to a new flat!)

Here are my results from the first fit test (you need to do as many reps as you can in one minute):

Excercise	Number of reps
Switch kicks	56*
Power jacks	30
Power knees	64
Power jumps	17
Globe jumps	7
Suicide jumps	8
Push-up jacks	0/11**
Low plank oblique	17***

*Did 56 in total, 28 with each leg!

**I tried doing the push-up jacks and realised that it wasn’t going to happen, so instead, I did normal push-ups, from the knees (unfortunately, I didn’t manage to dig deeper).

***I’m not sure if you count each side as one, or if one of each sides makes one rep. So I did 17 on each side (34)

I am quite happy that I managed to do 8 suicide jumps (burpees), even though I know that’s hardly and achievement.

In the future, I definitely need to work out in a different place, maybe try the park or something…

That’s it. I’ve started Insanity and I already feel crazy for doing it. One day done. 59 to go (actually, 62, since you start and finish on a fit test). I feel already healthier! Ha-ha

Tomorrow I’ll be helping out at the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton Bike Ride, volunteering during the early morning and wishing the cyclists a great journey

Finally, I’ll share some photos from Paris very soon, so stay tuned!