Before I had finished two months of Insanity workout at the end of 2017, I started wondering “what would be next? Relaxing and keeping up a healthy diet? Or...is there another challenge that I could face?” Uncle Google immediately recommended me other workouts of Shaun T that would be more challenging to accomplish. The guy had been pretty busy, I can tell you that - there were a lot of workouts on offer but something stood out against other of his “competitor workouts”, was “Insanity: Asylum”. The word “Asylum” was the catch for me. I immediately pictured myself sweating bullets and laughing like a maniac from an overload of workouts. People who had completed that workout did say as well that it was more hardcore than “Insanity”. I felt thrilled. In the meantime, I continued doing a few of Insanity workouts three times per week, lifting weights and focusing on building muscles and some cardio (mainly me beating the dust out of the punch bag) on the fourth time of the week. It was a good idea to do that as it kept me in a good shape and none of my gains went to waste. I mean, once you put your body in order, you had to maintain it and four workouts per week seemed absolutely fine to me.
The new year came and without hesitation, I put that "Asylum" workout down onto my calendar for February - the workout was aimed at preparing one to get started on a route of becoming an athlete. Asylum had fewer breaks in between the exercises and they were surely more intense but definitely more interesting to do - it felt quite refreshing to get started with a new workout after about half a year of following the same routine of exercises. At first, passing one workout after another felt pretty quick but I had to push myself a bit more with every workout. Of course, to maintain my sanity during the new workout, I still had one-two days of cheat meals. Friday would come, and I would literally shovel everything down my throat until I felt bloated but damn man did it feel good! It only felt bad when I ate two protein cookies in one day - then my stomach would start a rebellion… but I could not resist the urge of going crazy that one time per week. Other times, I would just eat like a pig (no cookies involved) but still feel either way too bloated or too tired to do anything else during the day. Despite those “devouring urges” once per week, I still managed to lose weight but I had to stop it - my body was used to eating at certain time per day and certain portions and destabilising that routine fired back at me. Feeling too bloated by the end of the day did not feel great either. I had to prepare another challenge for myself and seek my way out of the cheat meals for a change.
After completing “Asylum” workout, I definitely noticed improvements and the scales did not lie either. I went a level-up and I climbed a level-up - it felt amazing. I switched back to four workouts per week to maintain my gains and the last couple of cheat meals that I had were in the end of the second week of March. That was when I came up to a friend of mine and said: “Hey dude, how about a month of no cheat meals, i.e. no junk food and sweets?” to which he replied, after a very brief moment of consideration “Sign me up!”. My man...
I started writing down the file, called “Pact’’, with the rules about foods that we should and should not eat. It was simple and straightforward - no burgers, pizzas, tacos or any other foods that were high in fat and straight-up fast food (sorry pizza!) and anything that had artificial sugar (chocolate, ice-cream, sweets, etc.). It was although fine to eat pasta and drink strong but straight alcohol like vodka, gin and also red wine (although, only on certain occasions). It was also fine to consume protein supplements, so I gladly did not have to throw away protein cookies and protein powder out of my diet, even though they still contained some artificial sugar but were high in protein. Sadly, they did not limit my sugar cravings. The challenge was set from 13 March up until 18 April.
The pact was signed and put up on the wall at work - you might however be asking yourselves: “Tim but why do you need to torture yourself this way if you still managed to lose weight while having your occasional cheat meals?’’ And I would admit that it is a damn good question. There is a deeper meaning behind that challenge - it was more about putting my body to the test and telling it: “How about “no’’ for a change and me telling you what you can and cannot eat, dear body’’. Ultimately, if you can bend your body to the limit and stress it, then so can you do with your mind and practice has proven exactly that. If you can shut down your body from “conventional’’ type of eating and tell your body to get itself up and “attack the weights’’ and do cardio, then so can your mind say “Alright, I can and shall get this and that task done’’. Also, throughout my whole life there had never been a month where I would not eat junk or sweet food. That test of will means a lot to me and my friend and I am dire to make the best out of it and see the “fruits of progress’’. The challenge is on!
