I will hun - I started week one this week. Tomorrow will be my third session. xx

I'd love to buddy up - I started 3 weeks ago and just finished Stage 1A 4. I've upped my calories to 1500 and usually up to 1700 on days I work out.

I would love a buddy for this. I am starting today and am a bit scared honestly

Hi, I'd love to buddy up too. Feel free to add me. I had my first try yesterday, checking the gyms, weights, etc. it was hard, 1st gym epic failure, 2d gym a bit better. still have so many questions.
I'm super excited and super SCARED all at the same time.

I started today! Did my day1 workout 1 !! Would love to buddy up and see how we progress

I'd like to join!!

My first workout was Monday. I feel like everything is pretty straight forward. Did anyone else feel absolutely ridiculous doing the prone jackknife? :ohwell:

Also, I would be interested to know what weights everyone is starting out with. I'm not trying to start a competition, I'm just curious because I was and am really unsure where I should be. To start I did squats with the just the bar, which was not enough for me, but the balance element was tricky so I started low. I was at 35 for the seated row, which I fell like I could go up a little, and 25 for the Step Up which I definitely need to raise. I didn't feel anything yesterday but I'm a little sore today, I think mostly from the Push Ups.

Can't wait to hear how everyone else is doing.

@mayaysf: I did feel ok doing them yday. the prone jackknife was hard for me. But I am little sore today and feel like I am about to sit down I was very hungry in the evening too last night, after a couple hours of the workout.

@bananahb33: Welcome! 3 of us have started this week, and you can chime in your experiences too!
Sure, I started the squats with just the bar too. Rows 55lb and I am sure I can go up in next workout. Step ups, I started slow with 2 10lb DB and I should be going up - felt I could handle more.
Push ups are always the hardest for me, I always do knee push ups and can never get beyond 8-10 without stopping. I did incline push ups yesterday on a step - and they were way harder!
The prone jackknife felt tough - as in I kept falling off the ball :P

It will be fun to find out where we all are and keep encouraging each other!

@bananahb33 - I started the squats with an empty bar in a smith machine and OMG, it was hard. For the row machine I did it with 40lbs and again, it was hard, I don't know if I should go up or do another round with the same weight.
push ups, i'm not even sure, Insanity has me doing all kinds of crazy push ups, in the HIIT, so I might be able to do some decent amount.
step ups I didn't even try it, I'm not sure how high should the bench be? can I use the usual lifting bench people use? I'm so scared of injuring myself.
I also tried the wide grip lat pulldown with 40lbs, and again, it was hard. so I guess I will give it another try with that weight when the time comes...

Hello can I join in with the party. I am on my 5th lot of A and B next week. I have had most of this week off as I hurt my back doing bent over pull up thingies or whatever they are called!!

I am really enjoying it and am desperate to get back to it. I am amazed that in just two weeks it has made me feel so emotionally good.

When we talk weights is there any chance we could mention whether it is lb or kg as I get very confused!!

I use kg

Also wanted to mention - to all the new comers here - I found the spreadsheet and I am keeping my weights logged in there for increase reference and found lots of useful information from the facebook group - in case you did not know it already!

I just did workout A1!! Squat bar plus 25 on each side, seated row 70, full pushups, step ups with 15lb dumbbells and 15 reps of the jackknife. It went by so quick I felt like I did it wrong!!!

How is everyone?? A litlte background on me, I'm a personal trainer, this workout is different then how I nomally train, so I'm excited to see results I'm a mom of twin boys who are 19 months and just train part time.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you, Please add me

and more ladies joining, this is exciting. congrats @twinmom and welcome, u did a great job! how long did it take u to finish the workout? i'm wondering uf i should do it in the mornings before going to work

today i was feeling a bit down (personal issues), so i decided instead of eating a bunch of junk (old me), i jumped right into weightlifting. unfortunately today i did everything body weight (at home) + the butt workout... my butt still on fire!!

@mayaysf it only took me 20 minutes!! I've heard the workouts get longer as we go on. Good for you for not eating junk! I struggle with emotional eating too

Hey all! Another one starting here! Can I join you gals on this budding system? :-)

I did my first workout B today, still just figuring out the weights and where the equipment is in my gym and what not. My gym is one of those for "serious body builders", where the guys do the weights and the women do the classes. No space for sdtretching and just one swiss ball for the whole gym! But i'll figure it all out eventually :-)

Cheers!

Welcome @catdevrandom to our little group of beginners. today i did my second full hybrid insanity+strong curves+new rules of lifting, at home because i was in a hurry (all in all took me 40min). it was a killer and i loved it. im going tonight to sign up for my gym, and tuesday going in for the first B workout (hybrid). the gym i decided to join sounds a lot like yours, and my first experience was better than expected. also no swiss ball or area for stretching, so i'll do my warm up, stretches and non weight exercises at home and will drive quickly to do the weight exercises at the gym. I'll go early in the morning, 6am, so there's less pple and less traffic

Hello!

I'm 31 years old, 162cm tall (5'4"), currently weighting 58kg (128lbs). I did a bit of experimentation and settled with 1600 on non-lifting days. That is, I believe, slightly lower my TDEE, but I'll need a few more weeks of experimenting to be more certain of it.

Here's what happened to me in a quick timeline:
- Pants not fitting and a whole between the thighs in one of my jeans (!!!!). Panic!
- Logged back on MFP on March 10th after more than one year of not even looking at it, and started calorie counting and following a 1300 diet that a nutritionist gave me a while ago.
- In 2 weeks, I lost 1.6kg (3.5lbs), and amazing 8cm (3 inches) in my waist and 3cm (1.2 inch) in the hips! Obviously I was very bloated, but nevertheless it got proven that 1300 is a very low deficit for me. My weight now is fine, but I need to get rid of the extra fat in the hips and lower abdomen if I want my older jeans to fit again.

By the book calculations, my BMR would be 1204 and TDEE 1926 on non-lifting days. Another calculator I found online (a spreadsheet someone posted here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/961054-spreadsheet-for-bodyfat-bmr-tdee-progress-tracker) gave me something like 1750 as TDEE.

I decided to be conservative and keep a little bit of deficit, just in case the calculators were overestimating my activity level (or I'm underestimating my eating!), so for now I settled for 1600 and I'm going to wait and see what happens.

So far I'm keeping the weight and I'm not feeling hungry or without energy, but I might go up to 1700 if it looks like I need it to gain some lean mass. Back when I was being followed by the nutritionist, I had no problems losing fat (thanks heaven!), but gaining muscle was really hard. I was ovo-lacto-vegetarian then. Now I am back to eating fish, so maybe this time around it will be easier...

Cheers!

Hey there! Haha yes! Pretty much the same! And also the timing of starting the program. Neat!

Yes, you're right! I forgot to mention that the 1600 cals are on non-lifting days. On the lifting days I eat some 250 more (the post-workout shake). Thankfully I already had that diet plan set up by my nutritionist: tweaking it to include the extra 300 cals was easy, just added some nuts to the snacks and a fruit for dessert and voilà!

Cheers!

I did my A workout 2 today. (week 2, but just did 1A and 1B last week)

55lb on the squat (including the bar) - felt a little wobbly by end of set 2

Incline push ups - coming from only knee push ups - these were really hard.
70lb for seated rows

15lb X 2 dumbbells for Step ups.
Prone Jackknife was easier than last week. I was able to get to my toe pulled in and then be on the ball the whole time