Is insanity for me?

mehv2
mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
edited April 2016 in Success Stories
Hey!
So about a year ago I was 160 pounds I lost about 18 pounds by simply using my treadmill and eating less calories.
I started insanity three days ago and I was 142 pounds
I do see toning results already but I gained 2 pounds.
Also some people told me that insanity will make you gain alot of muscle and to be honest that really isn't my goal. Especially having bulkier legs is the opposite of what I want!
I am not following the diet plan but I am deffinatley reducing calorie intake and eating between 1000-1300 calories
My goal is to be slimmer and weigh less!
Has anyone had success with actually loosing weight and did you gain a bit weight initially then dropped?
I'm a 20 year old women BTW .
Please help! Tell me how your insanity journey was!

Replies

  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    amyrebeccah wrote: »
    You shouldn't do insanity on 1000 calories.

    You didn't gain muscle. Your muscles swelled with some water due to a new exercise routine.

    I'm probably eating more than that lol so don't worry. Will that swelling go away though? And how long do you think it will take?
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    amyrebeccah wrote: »
    A few days to a couple of weeks. Frankly, one of the things that makes me think insanity may not be for you is the possibility that this may feed into an obsessive streak, if two pounds is disturbing you that much and you're planning to try to do this on such a tiny calorie intake.

    I'm just scared because I don't want to be bulkier than before. How many calories should I eat?
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    amyrebeccah wrote: »
    How tall are you and how much does MFP give you when you say you want to lose 1 pound a week?

    I'm 5'2
    My fitness pal says to eat 1200 so I try to stay in that range
  • Stefan_Bogdan
    Stefan_Bogdan Posts: 19 Member
    mfp gives a far too low calorie goal so be careful about that ! As per gaining muscles , do not worry ! you will not get muscles so easily :) continue doing it , and do not worry about your weight so much . lets be honest , what you care about is the shape:P when you exercise the muscles keep water and glycogen so you will see a increase in size and weights . keep up the good work !
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    amyrebeccah wrote: »
    That's because it's set up on the understanding that you will add exercise and eat those calories back (for insanity, I'd probably add it as "circuit training"). While calculations for exercise are sometimes overstated, you should eat back at least half of those calories.

    Alternatively, you could use a TDEE calculator, which builds exercise into the calculation. The number it will give you is an educated guess of your maintenance level of calories. Subtract 500 from that amount. For example, at 5'2", 144 pounds, and light exercise (insanity isn't light, but I don't know how many days a week you plan on doing it), this calculator (http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html) gives you a maintenance level of calories of 2025, from which you would subtract 500 to eat at 1525. That amount may seem intimidating, but it's just a starting point. You could try it and see where it takes you over the course of about 4-6 weeks, and then adjust as needed.

    Wherever the number, be patient. Don't lose your cool over normal weight fluctuations.

    Haha okay thanks and ya in pretty sure I eat more than I think.
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    Stefan_Bogdan wrote: »
    mfp gives a far too low calorie goal so be careful about that ! As per gaining muscles , do not worry ! you will not get muscles so easily :) continue doing it , and do not worry about your weight so much . lets be honest , what you care about is the shape:P when you exercise the muscles keep water and glycogen so you will see a increase in size and weights . keep up the good work !

    Thanks I just hope I eventually lose weight and all this sweat is worth it
  • jenniferburns1989
    jenniferburns1989 Posts: 21 Member
    mehv2 wrote: »
    Hey!
    So about a year ago I was 160 pounds I lost about 18 pounds by simply using my treadmill and eating less calories.
    I started insanity three days ago and I was 142 pounds
    I do see toning results already but I gained 2 pounds.
    Also some people told me that insanity will make you gain alot of muscle and to be honest that really isn't my goal. Especially having bulkier legs is the opposite of what I want!
    I am not following the diet plan but I am deffinatley reducing calorie intake and eating between 1000-1300 calories
    My goal is to be slimmer and weigh less!
    Has anyone had success with actually loosing weight and did you gain a bit weight initially then dropped?
    I'm a 20 year old women BTW .
    Please help! Tell me how your insanity journey was!

    If I was you I would start T25 first. Which is only 25 minutes. Then once you accomplished that then try insanity. Insanity for beginners can be rough..
  • jenniferburns1989
    jenniferburns1989 Posts: 21 Member
    jenniferburns1989 wrote: »
    mehv2 wrote: »
    Hey!
    So about a year ago I was 160 pounds I lost about 18 pounds by simply using my treadmill and eating less calories.
    I started insanity three days ago and I was 142 pounds
    I do see toning results already but I gained 2 pounds.
    Also some people told me that insanity will make you gain alot of muscle and to be honest that really isn't my goal. Especially having bulkier legs is the opposite of what I want!
    I am not following the diet plan but I am deffinatley reducing calorie intake and eating between 1000-1300 calories
    My goal is to be slimmer and weigh less!
    Has anyone had success with actually loosing weight and did you gain a bit weight initially then dropped?
    I'm a 20 year old women BTW .
    Please help! Tell me how your insanity journey was!

    If I was you I would start T25 first. Which is only 25 minutes. Then once you accomplished that then try insanity. Insanity for beginners can be rough..

    And I think insanity will tone your body. But if you are considering insanity you do need to bump up the calorie intake. You may pass out.
  • rightoncommander
    rightoncommander Posts: 114 Member
    edited April 2016
    I love Insanity, and would recommend it to anyone who is reasonably fit and determined. Having said that, I know people far less fit than I was who also swear by Insanity. Let me address your questions:

    If gaining muscle was easy, everyone would be doing it! Really there's no need for anyone to ever worry about bulking up accidentally. As others have said, it's probably just water mass - how are your muscles feeling? I know from experience that the first few days of Insanity are absolutely brutal, and I expect you to be sore just about everywhere, but especially the glutes. Those are large muscles, and that much damage elicits a dramatic response by your body. Whenever I make a big change to my exercise load, my weight goes up the first week.

    As for losing weight, yes, it can be done. Forget the diet plan, use MFP! During my first round of Insanity, I found it quite easy to stick to my calorie goals, using an HRM to calculate exercise calories. You simply cannot hope to ignore the calorie burn from Insanity and expect to function: an Insanity workout can bump up my daily calorie goal by as much as 50%. I always had a protein shake after Insanity (I still do), and then spread the rest of the deficit through the rest of the day (again, I still do). I lost 20lbs in 2 rounds of Insanity, which has stayed off nearly three years later, mainly (I believe) because I have maintained a daily exercise habit ever since. I now do Insanity once per year, as an annual "tune up", and run for the rest of the year.
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    rightoncommander wrote: »
    I love Insanity, and would recommend it to anyone who is reasonably fit and determined. Having said that, I know people far less fit than I was who also swear by Insanity. Let me address your questions:

    If gaining muscle was easy, everyone would be doing it! Really there's no need for anyone to ever worry about bulking up accidentally. As others have said, it's probably just water mass - how are your muscles feeling? I know from experience that the first few days of Insanity are absolutely brutal, and I expect you to be sore just about everywhere, but especially the glutes. Those are large muscles, and that much damage elicits a dramatic response by your body. Whenever I make a big change to my exercise load, my weight goes up the first week.

    As for losing weight, yes, it can be done. Forget the diet plan, use MFP! During my first round of Insanity, I found it quite easy to stick to my calorie goals, using an HRM to calculate exercise calories. You simply cannot hope to ignore the calorie burn from Insanity and expect to function: an Insanity workout can bump up my daily calorie goal by as much as 50%. I always had a protein shake after Insanity (I still do), and then spread the rest of the deficit through the rest of the day (again, I still do). I lost 20lbs in 2 rounds of Insanity, which has stayed off nearly three years later, mainly (I believe) because I have maintained a daily exercise habit ever since. I now do Insanity once per year, as an annual "tune up", and run for the rest of the year.

    Wow thanks so much for your advice!
    And yes I was really sore the first two days the third day became kind of easier.
    And I know insanity is very intense that is why sometimes during the workout I pause myself for a few seconds and let the video run as well as there are just some moves I simply can not do because of lack of upper body strength. so I just start doing jumping jacks or plank during that time.
    I am using MFP for counting calories and I am working out seperatley at the gym as well.
    Till now I haven't lost anything just gained a bit so let's see what happens and I hope you are right and I loose weight.
    Thanks a ton!
  • Nikki10129
    Nikki10129 Posts: 292 Member
    You aren't going to build muscle doing insanity, it's an extremely intense cardio workout, women don't "accidentally" become bulky, it takes a lot of hard work and heavy lifting. The weight gain you see is water retention as your muscles work at repairing themselves. Three days also isn't that much time to start seeing results in your weight, if a 2 lb increase stresses you out I would do weekly weigh ins, or even bi-weekly, then you won't see the general day to day fluctuations of water weight, especially as a female, you'll just see a gradual loss. You most certainly will lose weight on insanity, just give it some time.

    Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the program, I was never really able to stick with it past 2 weeks, it just caused me to burn out. I did see results in my weight, but honestly the intensity put me off. Lots of people do have major success and are able to stick with it all the way through, I just wasn't one of those people!
  • KaleiAlanaSmith
    KaleiAlanaSmith Posts: 133 Member
    I'm about the same age and weight as you!!!! I am 19 and weigh 140! I started insanity and 6 weeks into it i was slimmer and had some awesome lean looking muscles! You won't get bulky on this program.. I promise!! This program will transform you because it's a good mix of cardio and strength. That said however... I got bored of the program and then so bought T25 which is similar to Insanity and shakes things up a bit. Keep at it and you will love it, don't stress about the pounds ;D My weight fluctuates all of the time!
  • mehv2
    mehv2 Posts: 44 Member
    KaleiAlanaSmith wrote: »
    I'm about the same age and weight as you!!!! I am 19 and weigh 140! I started insanity and 6 weeks into it i was slimmer and had some awesome lean looking muscles! You won't get bulky on this program.. I promise!! This program will transform you because it's a good mix of cardio and strength. That said however... I got bored of the program and then so bought T25 which is similar to Insanity and shakes things up a bit. Keep at it and you will love it, don't stress about the pounds ;D My weight fluctuates all of the time!

    But did you end up loosing any weight? My ultimate goal I'd to loose weight along with looking slimmer

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