Insanity: Max 30 Journey Day 50 - Max Out Cardio

During the course of two months, I'd like to take you into my journey as I strive to retain a healthy lifestyle through a healthy balanced nutrition program and Beachbody trainer extraordinaire -- and Men's Health cover man -- Shaun T's brand new workout regimen Insanity Max 30.

Day 50: Max Out Cardio

After resting and recovering over the weekend, it was finally time to get back to the intensity as the final week of my (initial) Max 30 Journey commenced with Max Out Cardio.

I want to proclaim now that my short-term goal this week is to surpass all my times from a week ago and end this phase of my journey on the highest of all notes. Going off that, I'd have to best a pretty solid time of 18:30.

One thing that was challenging me today that I hadn't dealt with in the previous 49 days was the immense heat. For so long it has been cold, or temperate, but never hot. Today, out of nowhere, the temperature spiked to nearly 80 degrees -- and I decided to workout after I got off work.

With the horrible humidity weighing me down, it felt like I wasn't even going to get past the warmup without crashing. I managed to get past that, however, and squeak by the first sequence before the break, and into the 10-minute zone.

The power moves proved extra challenging for me today as the jumping wasn't coming easy. But I paced myself and pushed through to get over the minute-long move.

As the workout evolved, I was able to get to, and surpass my previous Max Out Time. Ultimately, between the burning sensation throughout my body and coping with the heat, I hit a Max Out Time of 19 minutes, 11 seconds. (I wish I got to 20 minutes.) It wasn't knocking down the door, but I eked through and made decent improvements. Goal achieved!

Last week, I also opted to not weigh myself as I had taken several meals off throughout the previous week while we had a house guest. Two weeks ago, I weighed in at 215.4 and I didn't want to discourage myself so I refocused on the clean eating and felt better about my weigh-in today.

When I stepped on the scale, I was a little reluctant to look down. Even though my clothes are fitting much better and my appearance is clearly different, my scale takes some time to catch up to the rest of me.

With one eye closed, I peaked down to see the scale out of the corner of my open eye. I did a double take and needed to use my other eye to see right. It read: 210.8. In two weeks I dropped another 4.6 pounds. That's a huge surprise to me. As long as I stay focused for this week, I intend to drop below 210 (crossing my fingers) and then hope to get less than 200 by the first week of June.

For me, if I continue to set small, short-term goals, I'm setting myself up to succeed. When I set lofty goals, it's easier to get discouraged and fail. I'm not failing. Next up: Max Out Power

Recap

Workout:               Max Out Cardio

Max Out Time:     19:11
Weep Time:           20:08 (Can't get any better than that)

Weekly Weigh-in:   210.8 (4.6 less than weigh-in on Day 36)

Monthly Photo:       Stay tuned for Day 60 of the journey