Insanity 43 - Day 1 of Refresh Week

Good Morning World, Good Morning Universe

Happy morning everyone, yes I am back. Well I was back last Tuesday but was suffering from serious jet-lag. I am now back to work and back on track.

As I haven't been following the Insanity workout when I was on holiday. I only worked out a few times on my three  weeks off. I have built a 'Refresh Week'. It's never good to jump right back into a heavy workout or workout program (month 2 of insanity). You well over stress your body and increase the chances of injury. So I will have to work my way back in.  

Refresh Week:

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
Fitness Test	Core Cardio & Balance	Pure Cardio	Core Cardio & Balance	Insane Abs	Max Cardio Conditioning	Rest

I didn't actually put on much weight during my holidays. However that being said I can feel and see the differences. The great thing about having fitness in your life. When you fall off track for small amount of time. As long as you keep your diet pretty good, when you jump back into working out again your body will adjust pretty fast. Burning off the fat that you built up during your travels. 

The human body is so amazing.

Refresh Week Fitness Test Results + Previous Results

Exercises	Week 1	Week 3	Week 6	Refresh Week
Switch Kicks	104	97	122	106
Power Squats	55	54	58	54
Power Knees	105	92	120	117
Power Jumps	15	25	51	20
Global Jumps	6 Sets	8 Sets	9 Sets	8 Sets
Suicide Jumps	20	19	21	19
Push-Up Jacks	33	39	40	36
Low Plank Oblique’s	40	46	60	64

Looking at the results you can see my fitness level hasn't dropped that much.

Today's Motivational Features

I really missed making my daily motivational quotes and/or images. Today I have only posted one but expect a lot more during this week to make up for the day's missed out.

1#

Last Night

Gut = N/A cm
Tighten Gut = N/A cm

Before Workout

Gut = 89cm
Tighten Gut = 86cm

After Workout 

Gut = 89cm
Tighten Gut = 85cm

Happy Training, Happy Fitness.

Facebook Album - My Workout Motivations Updated
Facebook Album - Discovered Inspirations and Motivations Updated
Facebook Album - Workout Motivations Updated

Stay Brilliant, Stay Beautiful, Terry Masters.

Dealing with Stress

So for a long time now I have been dealing with a lot of stress and normally I would say a small amount of stress is always good for you. It keeps you on your toes but like most things to much of anything is bad for you.

So why have I been over stressed? I decided to do some research into what can create stress but also how to combat it. During my search I came across a lot of helpful tips on how to combat stress, which also highlighted the main causes for stress.

The first part to solving anything is accepting their is something wrong. In my case what has been stressing me out the most is;

1. What I do for a living (work) isn't  meaningful enough to me and it's not what I want to do
2. Fear for leaving my current job and not getting another one
3. I create many 'To Do Lists' and never complete them properly or at all
4. Procrastination when I know I should be using the time for something more important
5. Erratic Sleeping patterns
6. Poor eaten pattern 
7. Over indulging on alcohol

Now that I have outlined what has been stressing me out, I just have to find a solution that will fix each one.

1. Create career plan, decide what you want to do based on what you like and what your good at.
2. Anything worth doing comes with risk but if its important enough make that change and embrace the fear. Do the research, make plans and fulfill them.
3. Never overlord yourself with to much in one go and make time to get tasks done. Its all about prioritizing whats important and whats not. So create prioritizing color indicator for each task with time and date and appropriate reminders.  
4. use sundays to schedule your week ahead and make time for relaxation and entertainment
5. Creating a strict sleeping routine and stick to it and everything else will follow 
6. Manage my meal times and make sure they health.
7. Stop drinking

These are things that I will have to incorporate into my weekly scheduling not that I haven't already. However I haven't structured to my work schedule and days off and that's where it all goes wrong. This is why I shall use Sunday as the day where I alternate my week ahead schedule, plan and prioritize my to list that week. 

It's all about taking control and finding the best way to relief stress. There are many ways of releasing stress so the best way is finding what works well for you and adapting it into your lifestyle. Others ways of dealing with stress are;

1. Physical exercise
2. Mediation or me time
3. Stress Diary - To help you keep track, reflect and make the appropriate changes to keep stress to a minimum
4. Learn to say 'NO',you come first.
5. Accepting the things you can't change
6. Volunteer work can be fulfilling and rewarding, helping those less fortunate then you are can help put things into perspective 
7. Avoid unhealthy habits and people/individuals that stress you out
8. Connect with people
9. Be positive
10. express yourself more rather then bottling it all up

An one of the most important things to remember is to remember what helps you. Keep it fresh in your mind with reminders. The last thing you want to do is to fall back into the same bad habits and behaviors that resulted in your high stress levels to begin off with.

Below are some links i got a lot of helpful advise from;

How to Mediate
10 Tips dealing with Stress
Dealing with Stress
Steps to do with Stress
Stress management
NHS - Ten Stress Busters
BBC -  The Consequences of too much stress
BBC - Learning How To Relax

Stay Brilliant, Stay Beautiful, Terry Masters.