Dying OmniPod PDM
I always love getting woken up by a loud annoying beep in the middle of the night. It is even better when it is the device that sends commands to the insulin pump currently attached to your body. And... it gets even better when it decides that it has had a massive error and gives you the option to reset it or continue listening to the annoying beep. So, I reset it. Which then becomes even cooler, because it makes me remove the Insulin pod I was wearing for some reason unknown to me but known to the device. So I pull off the insulin pod, reset it and go to back to sleep.
When I wake up, I found out the PDM (Personal Diabetes Manager) has decided to die again -- for about the tenth time in the past few days.. while on fresh batteries. This necessitates a call into Insulet's (the makers of the OmniPod) tech support. After a few simple questions they decide to overnight a new PDM along with a return label for the one I have that doesn't want to work. Which is completely awesome. However, (no fault of Insulet's) I'm stuck using insulin pens for today and maybe some of tomorrow. I'm really not a fan of sticking myself 4+ times a day in the gut. Just really doesn't seem like the best insulin delivery system.
Insanity Week 6 Review
Here we are the start of the second month of Insanity and where it supposedly gets really, really hard.
Monday: Fit Test and Max Interval Circuit
Here is my review of Max Interval Circuit before I realized why I was feeling so crappy on the July 4th weekend:
Umm, wow. Max Interval Circuit definitely upped the hardness of the workouts. I burned 1033 calories with an average heart rate of 163bpm and a maximum heart rate of 184bpm. I had to take breaks at the end of a few of the circuits cause I was completely burned out. However, a short break and I was able to push through it again. I'm sure I'll start feeling better about these workouts the more I do them. So for the first time doing these, I think my results are fairly good. Oh, and the warm up routines in this are what some of the circuits were in the first month.. so yeah, its hard.
The July 4th weekend I'd been feeling completely run down and I was amazed I was able to knock out the workout on Monday. Today I had so much stuff going on that when I was done with all of it, I didn't even have enough energy to do the workout. This is the same sort of feeling I got when I was coming off the honeymoon phase of being diabetic the first time and it appears to be happening again. So I'm going to watch my blood sugars very closely the rest of this week and see if it is the case and I'll have to start wearing the OmniPod and being a full-blown diabetic again. If it is the case, I have to say it was a nice run with another honeymoon phase.
And here it is now:
As I said before, it is hard, I burned 1111 calories with an average heart rate of 164bpm and a maximum heart rate of 186bpm. I didn't feel as powerful and into it as I was on that Monday, but I think it is due to the two weeks off recovering and getting everything inline. I'm sure as I get back into the swing of things it'll become easier even if the workouts still kick my butt.
I'm skipping the Fit Test this week since I don't think it'll do me any good since I've had the two week layoff.
Tuesday: Max Interval Plyo
This one is tough just like Max Interval Circuit. He loves push-ups of all types, I counted about 4 different types of push-ups and all of them hurt! I survived though, so it obviously wasn't too bad. I forgot to start up my heart rate monitor until 2/3s of the way into the warm up, so I can only assume I burned about 300 or so (which is what I normally burn in the first 2/3s of the warm up -- which brings my calorie burned count to ~1100 calories, with an average heart rate of 154bpm and a maximum heart rate of 184bpm. I'm sure I'll think of something more to say about the workout, but right now, I'm pretty dang tired.. until tomorrow.
Wednesday: Max Cardio Conditioning
Max Cario Conditioning is insane, they don't have any breaks and there are no sets once you're past the warm-up and stretches. I was doing really well until about 15 minutes left when it felt like all the energy had drained out of my body. There is no way this should have happened so I pulled out the trusty blood glucose tester and found out my blood sugar reading was 67 mg/dL (it should be ~100 mg/dL). Needless to say, I had to stop and find some sugary goodness right away. A few handfuls of M&Ms later and I was feeling a bit perkier but it wasn't enough to let me finish the workout. I got about 3 minutes until the cool down stretching and had to call it quits. I still managed to burn 660 calories with an average heart rate of 145bpm and a maximum heart rate of 178bpm. I'm going to have to play with my insulin pump and probably shut it off completely when I'm doing any sort of strenuous workout to hopefully prevent something this severe from happening again. Also, more carbs the better, since I'm obviously blowing through them with these workouts.
Thursday: Max Recovery
They should just call this one Max Yoga. I burned 725 calories with an average heart rate of 126bpm and a maximum heart rate of 180bpm. Overall this was one of the harder workouts since all the poses had to be held for a long time and it really started to burn the more the position was held. What bothers me the most about this workout was at the end Shaun T said "This was Cardio Recovery" and I'm damn sure I pressed "Max Recovery" on the title menu... have I been doing the recoveries in the wrong order?
Friday: Max Interval Circuit
This was a late night routine, I didn't get the chance to do this one until close to 9pm.. which is when I prefer to start winding down for the night and reading (yes, my Friday night was lame this week). I did get in a good 3+ mile bike ride with my dog, Einstein, before my workout, so I was coming in pre-warmed up. However, I always do the workouts straight through and this time was no different. I manager 1215 calories burned with an average heart rate of 158bpm and a maximum heart rate of 182bpm. I'm getting the hang of the workouts again, but at the same time, I'm glad I'm on the last month because the workouts are getting really repetitive.
Saturday: Max Interval Plyo
Unlike yesterday with its late workout, this one was nice and early. I burned 1126 calories with an average heart rate of 152bpm and a maximum of 181bpm. It wasn't as bad the second time around. I think the more I'm familiar with it, the easier it will be to get more out of the routines. Afterward, I worked (with some help) on my 911 creating a front splitter and installing the headers and exhaust system.
General Week Six Thoughts
I don't have much to say other than if you're a type I diabetic, keep track of your blood sugars through out the workouts. When your blood sugar goes low, you'll know it and it takes a while to recover from the low blood sugar (longer than the workout in my case).
- Get a heart rate monitor
- If you're diabetic have your blood glucose tester close by
- Drink Gatorade and not water.. the sugar helps
- I can see why this is a 60 day thing and not 90, it starts to get really repetitive.. but it does work. When I start up on P90x I might substitute in some of the Insanity plyo and cardio workouts instead of the P90x ones... but I'll get P90x's a shot before I switch it up.
Back to the Insanity!
As you may have noticed I haven't updated about the Insanity workout for the past few weeks. It wasn't because I gave up on it. It is for some other reasons that I had to take a break. First, I came off of my second type I diabetic honeymoon (meaning the insulin production of my islet cells has reduced to the point where I need the insulin pump again) and secondly, I pulled a calf muscle while doing one of the exercises in the rest week workout.
I've managed to get my blood glucose levels back under tight control for breakfast to bedtime, however I need to work on the night time routine now. The night time routine shouldn't be that hard however, I'll just need to wake up around 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, and 5am across the week (like one blood glucose test a night.. not all in one night) and figure out the pattern and adjust my insulin pump to prevent having a morning blood glucose high.
Two weeks of rest did a good job healing my calf muscle, however, it does lead me to question why Insanity lacks any sort of calf muscle stretch in their stretching routine. I guess I'll have to give a quick calf stretch near the end of the stretching so I won't be having those problems anymore.
I look forward to finishing off Insanity across the next four weeks and then start up on P90X. Then I'll start attacking a P90X / Insanity hybrid where I'll insert Insanity's plyometrics and cardio workout routines in place of P90X's versions.
As a side note, I did attempt the first workout routine of Insanity's second month and that is when I realized I was off the type 1 honeymoon... I did manage to burn over 1000 calories and maintain a high heart rate throughout the workout. It is definitely a whole different level of intensity compared to the first month -- and I love it.
Your write like…
Have you ever wondered which famous author you write like? Me neither, but this website I Write Like will let you know. Using a statistical analysis tool they analyze your word choice and writing style and compare it to all the famous writers in their database. I threw in a bunch of posts from my website and found out I write like David Foster Wallace writes (or should I say wrote). They even give you this spiffy little badge to display on your website if you're so inclined (I was inclined, although I do dislike the advertising at the bottom so I removed it).
Insanity Week 5 Review
Ahhh, the rest week, it means I've made it to the halfway point of the program. We'll see how much rest the Core Cardio and Balance work out routine really gives you.
Monday: Core Cardio and Balance
So, the first time I'm doing Core Cardio and Balance and it still kicked my butt near the end. The warm up, stretching and first few exercises I was keeping up with the people on the DVD, but when it got near the second half of the exercises I was burning. The three hip felxor exercises seriously make you burn in addition to the exercises while done in the Plie position. It was a 37 or so minute workout and I managed to burn 609 calories with an average heart rate of 158bpm and a maximum of 189bpm. I can probably get more calories burned out of the workout once I have all the exercises figured out so I imagine by the end of this week I can be close to burning 700 calories in the workout -- but this is a recovery week.. so we'll see what happens. 
Tuesday: Core Cardio and Balance
Same workout as Monday, burned 624 calories, average heart rate of 159bpm and a maximum of 184 bpm. Trying to push myself to burn 700 calories in the exercise set, got an addition 15 today so if I can get an additional 15 calories burned for each exercise after this, I might be able to hit 700 by the end of this week. I won't be able to bike with the puppy the rest of this week more than likely thanks to the rain. So that'll kill some of the extra calories I'm normally able to get thanks to his exercise needs.
Wednesday: Core Cardio and Balance
Today I ended up not having enough time to do the workout. I chose hanging out with friends at Spec's Wine Wednesday Wine Tastings over working out. I feel so ashamed... I'll make it up tomorrow; but not tomorrow morning, waking up that early to work out just isn't going to work for me.
Thursday: Core Cardio and Balance
Ok, so I've done at least one routine of Core Cardio and Balance today. I burned 653 calories with an average heart rate of 164bpm and a maximum of 194bpm (achieved during the warm up). So the question is, do I do another round later tonight to make up for the fact that I missed yesterday's work out? I'll have to decide on that. I got better with the shoulder exercise at the end, but it still burned my muscles like I couldn't believe. I think if he did these first he'd lose a lot of people in the first 15 minutes.
Friday: Core Cardio and Balance
I decided against doing another round of Core Cardio and Balance last night.
News Flash: the last few exercises still burn like my shoulders and cause me to wake up a little sore.. but that is a good thing. I managed to burn 664 calories in 37 minutes with an average heart rate of 163bpm and a maximum heart rate of 193bpm. Not much more I can say about this workout. I don't see why they call it a recovery week anyway... maybe I'm just missing the point, but I'd sort of like to jump directly into the second month.
Saturday: Core Cardio and Balance
Well, I didn't get to 700 calories burned in a single 37 minute workout, but I came close 670 calories burned. I had an average heart rate of 165bpm and a maximum heart rate of 189bpm. I still don't see why this is a recovery week routine, I really like this routine and could see using it again as not a recovery week thing. Monday starts up the second month of Insanity where it supposedly goes completely crazy and scary hard so we'll see what it actually does. Otherwise, I'm digging Insanity and debating on trying out P90X's Stretch X routine on Sunday (the day off) to just give myself a taste of P90X.
General Week Five Thoughts
So far in the first month I haven't lost weight but I've added muscle and reduced the amount of fat in my body. Looking in the mirror I can tell that my body is changing for the better even if there is a little stubborn fat still around. I haven't followed their eating plan exactly and I'm sure by following it exactly I'd see fat disappear more quickly, but I'm sure the second month will do a good job of removing the remaining fat regardless of the eating routine. If you don't pig out and just eat sensibly you'll do fine in my opinion. Their eating plan is very close to what any dietitian will tell you is a healthy diet. As I've said before, all their plans are basically a diabetic meal plan. So if you're feeling they don't give you enough variety, just go to Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Borders or Half-Priced Books and pick out one of the many diabetic themed cookbooks they have.
- At the end of the second month I'll post up a mega-review of what I thought of each of the routines and try to go into more detail about everything that comes with Insanity!
- I got P90X so I'll start up on P90X after I finish all of the 60 days of Insanity. I think I might be doing some work out replacements if I don't find P90X's cardio or plyometric routines up to the intensity of Insanity. I kinda like the hardcore cardio and plyometrics.
- I'm down to ~11% body fat according to a trusty skinfold caliper and this body fat calculator.
- Heart Rate Monitor, Heart Rate Monitor, Heart Rate Monitor. They're well worth getting in my opinion, they'll let you know when you've reached your max and when you should take a second or two break.. or when you're not pushing hard enough.
- I've had to adjust the strap on my heart rate monitor smaller and smaller these past few weeks... so that is one way I know I'm loosing the fat.
New battery for the car
A few days ago I had decided to drive the 911 out to meet some friends at the wonderful German food place near my house. So, I took the time to pull the cover off the car, give it a quick dust off, move my other car out from behind it, then hop in and then hopped in to start it. Alas, as you can guess my the name of this post, it didn't happen.
I figured what the heck, I only drive the car a little bit a year and I hadn't driven it in over two months, so it'll just need to be jump started and I can do that later. I finally got around to later yesterday evening. And, I tried jumping it, which was no good. So I let it sit for a while with the other car running to see if it would charge up the battery enough to start it. And that didn't happen either. So taking my a multimeter to it, I found out I only had a 9V reading across the terminals. Yep, a dead battery. Sucks to have to buy a new battery, but this time I'm being smart(er) and procuring a trickle charger as well. That way I can hopefully prevent this from happening again anytime soon.