How Bad is a Cheat Day?
We've all been there. Sunday afternoon at a poolside BBQ, looking good, feeling good, body in the best shape it's ever been, a month or so into your new workout regimen, and suddenly somebody shoves a paper plate loaded with potato salad, grilled sausages oozing fat, a pile of potato chips, whatever. Or maybe it's the day of a big game, and your buddy is serving up six fresh pizzas along with soda. Or you're driving home late, you're exhausted, and you decide to just hit a Drive Through and pick up some junk food to go. Either way, everybody ultimately gets tempted to break their nutrition plan and eat junk. Accept that this will happen to you, accept that you'll be tempted, and then ask the question you'll immediately ask as you look down at that unhealthy food: how bad is one cheat day?
That's right everybody, Chalene Johnson's Turbo Fire as finally hit the streets and is now available through your friendly local Independent Beachbody Coach (*cough cough* Extreme Fitness Results, anyone?). This crazy product is a massive step up from Chalene's Turbo Jam, in that it challenges you to stick your whole body in the lactate fire that is the HIIT workout. "HIIT Workout?" I hear you shrill, "What on earth is a HIIT Workout?" C'mon, folks, we all know that HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and it basically = torture. The kind of torture that scorches the fat right out from under your skin, leaving you all feverish and flushed and looking fabulous. Want to know more? Read on!
Tune into any sports event and you'll catch sight of athletes emblazoned with the logos and trademarks of various companies, their shirts and equipment sporting Nike swooshes, American Express credit cards and General Motor's initials. Endorsements are a million dollar business, with some athletes like Tiger Woods earning up to sixty million dollars per year for simply wearing a certain set of clothing or using a certain kind of golf club. Given that, perhaps it's no surprise that a long list of celebrities and athletes have come out an endorsed P90X, citing it as their favorite means of getting in shape. What might be surprising, however, is that they're not paid to do so; each celebrity or professional athlete that praises P90X publicly is doing so of their own free will. So who are these celebrities, and what have they said about 
Pumping iron. The term is old school, and refers to the classic exercise of lifting 
I get this question all the time. "I'm doing everything right," they say. "How come I'm not losing more weight?" Whether it's somebody who has been pounding away at Insanity for a couple of weeks, or who's about to finish their first round of P90X, people will often climb onto that dreaded scale and get disheartened. Expectations run high when people start, and yearning for a total body transformation, they pour their heart and soul into their workouts, only to find themselves betrayed when they haven't dropped the 50lbs they hoped to lose. What's happening here? What went wrong, and why?
Is it too late for you to start exercising? Is there a certain point beyond which extreme workouts are no longer possible? How do things change when you leave your 20's for your 30's? What should you know about your body so that you can best train it to maximize gains and performance? These are the kinds of questions people who treat health and fitness as a life long goal have to ask, and that people who are only in it to lose 10lbs never consider. Health and fitness is a life long passion, and today we know that exercise can not only make you feel better, but even reverse aging's effects. As such, we have to ask: how does your age affect your workout routines?
It's a simple fact that the Insanity Workout involves an intense regimen of plyometrics and cardio, and that following such a schedule six days/week for two months can result in an inordinate amount of stressing on your joints. This is one of the main reasons why the Insanity Workout is considered an elite workout, due to the fact that in order to complete it successfully you need to have joints that are conditioned for high impact exercise. Many people don't, however, and still wish to attempt the Insanity Workout: what can they do in order to minimize the stress they will subject their joints to, and minimize any potential joint pain?
The time has finally arrived. 
I get asked this all the time. Will I lose muscle if I do the Insanity Workout? As with most questions, there's an annoying answer: it depends. What are the variables? They're your current body composition, your goals, and how you approach nutrition. Let's take a quick look at what the Insanity Workout is designed to do, and then see how you can tweak that to best suit your needs.