Big girls VS Insanity?

If you can't do regular pushups, do "girl" pushups.

*ahem* That would be modified pushups. There are plenty of girls who do military style, no need to call it something that makes us all look weak.

I lol'd at the title for this topic. :laugh:

That said, you don't look that big to me, not like you're saying so. So there's that

Now, if you've never worked out before, don't just jump in the deep end for the sake of kicking your own *kitten*. Take it easy, go for some walks, maybe a jog, and get used to the activity. Build up your fitness before you go from 0 to 60 and too sore and discouraged.

The hallmark of someone who knows what they are doing is that they pace themselves, and understand that results don't come with going all out at the start. Results come from first learning about fitness and weight loss, then planning out how to get there.

Try reading the book New Rules of Lifting for Women. The routine is kind of convoluted, but all of the information in the book about fitness and how to reach your goals is excellent.

I'm not big but I'm doing it but I definitely think you should give it a try! It will definitely get you results!

... your results will vary. Like I said before, learn about this stuff before you bust your *kitten* and get discouraged. You can and will achieve your goals without a doubt, but you have to learn why. There's nothing special about insanity or any other routine out there. It's just a bunch of pushups and situps and whatever.

For example, this girl who is guarenteeing you results... she has a bodyfat percentage of maybe 20%. She is slim and her muscles show through, and if she were to gain an ounce of muscle you would see it. Your bf%, admittedly, is higher (this is temporary ). How on earth can anyone compare your experience with a program like Insanity to hers? For one thing you won't "see" results until you lower your bf%. Furthermore, bodyweight exercises like in Insanity would be a breeze for her compared to with you by virtue of the fact that she probably doesn't weigh much with her bf%.

NONE of this is to judge you, we talk about this kind of thing all the time on this website. I just want to explain clearly that you need to concern yourself with first learning about exercise and diet from a reputible source like the one I suggested, and then focus on what YOU need to reach your goals, and what it will be like as you work to get there. You see what I mean?

Once you understand WHY Insanity might work for you, and you're sure that your fitness level can keep up (this is just for safety/health reasons, you said you were worried you might die lol ), then I would recommend you give it a shot.

I did Insanity for two weeks ( I was NOT invested in my weight loss then so I was basically trying it to say I was trying it)
I was also at my heaviest (225ish) and supremely out of shape.
I worked out on hardwood floors in tennis shoes and I may as well have been ice skating, I was POURING sweat.
My big motivation was to just get through the workouts to the best of my ability. I started off barely able to do ANYWHERE near the amount of reps or at the speed as the athletes, but I wanted to make sure I did it.
Somehow, I managed to lost about 5 lbs (still eating crappy) in those 2 weeks.
I wish I had stuck with it, but I got back into walking/running with lifting now

hey

i just started insanity a couple of weeks ago and i love it.

i actually started up because i couldnt sleep one night and caught a glimpse of Tony Horton's 10 minute trainer. I did that for a while and enjoyed it. Didnt lose too many kgs, but lost a stack of inches. Then (by way of clever marketing on beachbody's behalf) i got hip hop abs and i LOVED it! Again, didnt lose too many kgs, but the inches kept dropping.

I pretty much got hooked on home work out dvds and bit the bullet on insanity.

not regretting it one bit.

however, if you've not done any form of intense home exercise before and you jump straight into insanity, you could be setting yourself up for failure.

it's high impact, and honestly could do more harm than good. there could be potential issues with your knees and joints and it could very well be a case of 2 steps forward, 3 steps back if you get injured.

my suggestion would be to start with something simple like Hip Hip Abs. I absolutely love it and i still do it on the rest day of Insanity. It's a heap of fun, and I still burn as many calories doing stacked workouts with it than (compared to Insanity).

whichever way you go, you're doing the right thing by even wanting to start some serious exercise and like I said, if you are overweight as you say (let me echo a fellow members post by saying you dont look overweight at all!!) the high intensity stuff could be a problem (initially).

when you trim down (and you will trim down) and get that hunger for weight loss / improved health (which almost every insanity participant craves) then definitely do it and be sure to keep us posted.

of course, all that exercise is pointless without a healthy diet. but thats another thread im sure

PS: I was obese at once stage also, so I know what youre going through.

I lol'd at the title for this topic. :laugh:

That said, you don't look that big to me, not like you're saying so. So there's that

Now, if you've never worked out before, don't just jump in the deep end for the sake of kicking your own *kitten*. Take it easy, go for some walks, maybe a jog, and get used to the activity. Build up your fitness before you go from 0 to 60 and too sore and discouraged.

The hallmark of someone who knows what they are doing is that they pace themselves, and understand that results don't come with going all out at the start. Results come from first learning about fitness and weight loss, then planning out how to get there.

Try reading the book New Rules of Lifting for Women. The routine is kind of convoluted, but all of the information in the book about fitness and how to reach your goals is excellent.

I agree, you'll probably do it once or twice or for a week and give up (that's what I did, but why, maybe you can do better than me). Give it a try, but if it becomes too difficult don't give up all together.

I'm going to recommend against it.

Not that you can't do it. You can. Insanity is as much a mental challenge as it is physical. If you believe in yourself and reach in and keep pushing you can totally do it. It's very scalable, like a previous poster alluded to you can modify every single exercise and still get meaningful results. So long as you push yourself, you WILL improve.

And your size is nothing outrageous. I first did insanity at 295 and was fine. I've done it twice more since; clearly I'm a believer. Btw I'm MUCH happier doing it every other day rather than staying "on program". I did it on program the first time mainly to earn the shirt, and by the end, my knees were making their displeasure known. Doing it every 2nd day I have zero issues. Of course, I'm 40 plus pounds lighter now, too.

And I'm pretty proud of that damn shirt, let me tell you. So proud I never wear it (can't buy a replacement, don't wanna wear it out, lol). And, seriously, I am pretty fit now. Seriously. Not lean, not yet. But FIT. I cycle like a BEAST and I owe it to insanity.

Which is why I steer people away from it who are in your shoes. Insanity is a CARDIO CONDITIONING program. A hard one. If you dig deep and put in a consistant effort it will give you tremendous wind. But it's not a fat loss program. It's just not. Yeah, you'll lose fat on it. You'll get stronger, too. But it's not what the program does well. It's...inefficient for weight loss. Tremedous effort goes in, not much weight loss comes out (generally speaking, there will be exceptions). At 295 I had lots to lose. Know what I lost in 60 days? 10lbs!

Having said that my 15 day pics showed SHOCKING improvements.

So for my money I say pick on something a little less intense and I think you'll see better fat loss. Assuming that's the goal.

Now if conditioning is the goal, or you fancy taking on the challange of "the hardest workout ever put on dvd" than embrace it. You will make huge gains in performance and learn a lot about how strong you really are INSIDE, and those are certainly worthwhile goals.

Just the .02 of a 3 time insanity veteran who wants others not to make the same mistakes he did. Best wishes either way!

Well I'm about 260lbs at 5ft 5in now. I started insanity a few months ago and I just had to modify some of the moves. I was 275 when I started doing insanity. So as you can see in that month it worked and I lost 15lbs.

I fell off from doing it for a couple of months due to moving from one state to another but I'm starting it back today. I'm still at the weight of 260lbs, so I believe that I can do it so can you.

I did notice that every week the moves got easier for me to do with less modifications. I never made it to the 2nd month workouts, But I believe that you can do it.

This is good stuff but hey everyone, pay attention, exercise programs do not make you loose weight. They only burn calories, some more than others. So at most they can help, but with higher levels of activity come higher levels of caloric needs to sustain it, and you don't want to run yourself into the ground just to run a super deficit.

In the end the rate at which you loose has everything to do with your diet, not with your exercise regiment. Its kind of ridiculous when people claim that a certain routine had them loosing weight without (much more importantly) mentioning what their calorie intake was.

I ate extremely clean with Insanity, kept it at about 1800 a day, saw very minimal scale movement but dropped inches. The diet is the biggest part of any success story!

Honestly, I began Insanity in pretty decent shape around 20% BF and I absolutely hated how hard it is on your joints. I would strongly recommend something else to get you started in your fitness journey - the last thing you would want to do is put more pressure on your body than need be! Diet should be #1, and incorporate strength training and cardio, from there you can always change it up but keep it simple and safe!

As a big girl myself, I've done insanity. I've never once been able to keep up. But by going at my own pace and keeping proper form I've burned about 350 calories in just one 40 minute work out. To me that's huge. So if you're going to try it, just don't feel discouraged when you can't go as fast, if you can't squat as low.. Cause as bigger girls.. we can't without hurting ourselves! Good luck with your weight loss journey!

Absolutely agree with this. I can't keep up with them, and I stop more frequently than they do. But when I'm done? I feel amazing because I'm sticking with it and it makes me feel awesome. :flowerforyou:

This is good stuff but hey everyone, pay attention, exercise programs do not make you loose weight. They only burn calories, some more than others. So at most they can help, but with higher levels of activity come higher levels of caloric needs to sustain it, and you don't want to run yourself into the ground just to run a super deficit.

In the end the rate at which you loose has everything to do with your diet, not with your exercise regiment. Its kind of ridiculous when people claim that a certain routine had them loosing weight without (much more importantly) mentioning what their calorie intake was.

This is, of course true but understand my point. Insanity is SO intense even most fit people can't just jump in and keep up. If you want to keep up your body is forced to become more conditioned. The program is optimized to to that well (long, intense intervals and very short rest breaks). But until you start to become conditioned you have to keep stopping to rest including quite possibly flopping on the floor gasping for air like a fish out of water, during which you aren't exercising. When the a single exercise of the program calls for 3 rounds each of 16 pushups, 16 floor sprints, 16 wide runs, and 16 oblique pushups followed by a jump with arms overhead, and you can only do 1 or 2 pushups without resting, the program is not doing much for you. You'd be better off with something slightly less intense that you can maintain for longer periods and keep burning calories. Insanity is scalable but honestly the whole "Max Interval" concept is best suited to getting conditioned.

Insanity is about fitness. Fat loss is rooted in your diet and creating a negative energy balance. Any exercise can help create a deficit by burning calories but you are best off to separate those two concepts in your head as much as possible.

Insanity is an advanced routine. It is neither suited nor recommended for beginners or the obese, regardless of what the infomercials and internet hype might lead you to believe. But plenty including me have done it just the same. If one falls into one of those categories and wants to to it anyways than kudos for accepting the challenge. But it's not the best choice if fat loss is the primary goal.

Yes you are right. But I have noticed (well at least with me) that when I worked out, I ate better and less. I don't exactly know if there is a direct connection with the 2 or if it just in my head. But I did have less cravings and drank a lot more water.