BEER!!!!

So I've started something new. Every Thursday, my wife has been playing volleyball after work. Because I am kinda limited on the hours that I can work (being an hourly employee rather than a salary), I have to kill a few hours before she's done. A couple weeks ago, I went up to Bothell and hung out up there until she was done. So tonight, I decided to go to the Tap House Grill in Bellevue and hang out. Well, they have a membership program that you can sign up for. It's just a little loyalty club type of thing.

Well, Tap House is known for boasting their 160 beers on tap. Part of their little club thing is that if you can try 160 distinct beers, then you can end up with a plaque at their bar. They give you a loyalty card, and when you pay the bill it will keep track of the beers you tried and stuff like that. Plus you get a bunch of other perks depending on how much you spend and the frequency that you go to the bar.

Anyway, tonight I started on my journey quest to 160 beers. And now, I shall talk about them.

For my first beer I decided to go off of their rotational list. I figured there were quite a few on there that I would like to try and since they are likely seasonal I should probably try them first. First up was a beer called Leavenworth Oktoberfest. It's a beer made by a local company called Fish Brewing Company out of Olympia. I have had Oktoberfest style beers before, and I generally enjoy their flavor. This particular one is a American Amber / Red Ale beer, which don't really make it a true Oktoberfest beer. Amber/Red ales are generally a very balanced beer that focus on the malts and are classified as a red ale simply because they cannot be classified as a dark ale. Whereas true Oktoberfest (or Märzen) are typically on the darker and much more full bodied, often resulting in a higher alcohol content.

Regardless, this particular beer was very good. It was a very smooth and light bodied beer and had a very nice flavor to it. It has a 5.5% abv, which puts it right in line with most typical ales. I would have no problem ordering it again. It's a very enjoyable beer, not too light but it isn't going to knock you on your ass either.

My second choice they were out of and now I can't remember what it was. So I went with one called Sound Dubble Entendre. This was absolutley amazing. It blew my mind. This beer is from another local brewery called Sound Brewery based out of Poulsbo. This beer is a Belgium style dubble. These are very rich in malty flavors and often have minor hints of fruits. They are also very mild in the hops area. When this came out, I immediately thought it was a stout. It is a very dark beer. It's an 8% abv beer as well, which means you're probably not going to chug it.

Sound Brewery Dubble Entendre.


The first sip of this was crazy. Totally not what I expected. It's a very light beer for being so dark. It has the characteristics of an amber ale, but with the ABV of a stout. And i could definitely feel the effects of this one. Because of its darkness, it has a hint of sweet caramel flavor to it. I'm not typically a fan of dark stout style beers, but this was a surprisingly good beer. Again, at 8% you're not really going all night with this one. But it's worth getting at least one.

Final beer of the night was simply Stella. Stella is a light pale lager, typically at 5% ABV. There's not really much to say about Stella. It's a light beer with good flavor. It's more of a malt beer than hops (which seems to be the trend tonight). This is a good beer if you want a lighter beer without it being a lite beer (IE: Bud Light, Miller Lite, Etc.).

Well, that is my report for tonight. At most, I'll probably be there once a week. But perhaps we'll make a special occasion visit with some friends or something like that. They have great food too, so I have no problem eating there as well. So until next time, that's my beer report.

Insanity update

Once again, I am slacking on the blog updates. It's been a hectic last few weeks. We were in Vegas back in June, so we only did a partial week...only Monday and Tuesday. That was technically supposed to be the first week of part 2. We figured we would go to Vegas and then come back and pick up again with the first week of part 2. Only got a couple days into that one and then it was 4th of July weekend. We didn't really do much of the workouts that week either. So now, we're into the 3rd attempt of the first week of round 2. We're doing it though.

We did the first day on Monday (4th of July). And now we're back on schedule. But man, yesterday was crazy. The workout itself was only about 45 minutes including warm up and cool down. But it was literally 30 minutes of straight cardio workouts. There is usually a water break or something after each 3 minute interval. But not this one. Granted, you stop when you need to and get some water, but you have to hurry and get back into it or you'll miss the whole exercise.

We made it through...barely. This was one crazy workout. I think next week we have to do it twice. We'll see how that goes. So anyway, we're back on track now. Even though the workout was nuts, I still feel great after completing it.

Start of week 6

Holy Crap.

Last week I was wondering how the 6th week could be tougher than the previous month. For those who haven't followed along, the first 4 weeks were the workout, then week 5 was the "rest" week. So today we're technically starting the 2nd month of the workout.

Anyway, like I said...the first month was intense and I couldn't figure out how it would get tougher or cause me to work harder. I was already working hard every day and pushing myself as much as I could. I've noticed an improvement in a lot of the exercises and my ability to keep up more and do the moves better.

Today, I found out. First, the workout was just over an hour long...including warmup and cool down. The previous workouts were right around 40 minutes. The warmup was a bit different in the moves that we do, but we still do 3 iterations of it. The normal workout exercises were a lot tougher than the first month. It was just more of it too. Tomorrow is the Plyo day and I've heard that day is the toughest out of all of them.

So we'll see how this goes. But wow, it is intense. I can see why people say that month 2 is when the results really show up. Let's hope so! :)

Insanity Update

It's been a long time since I've posted an update. We have still been doing the workout, but I just started to forget about writing. So here it is, a long over due post.

We are in the middle of week 5. This week is called the recovery week, and we do the same workout everyday. Let me tell you, it is no recovery workout. Granted, I'm not sweating as much as I do during the normal workouts. But I'm still exuding a lot of sweat. This one works a lot of your core though, and I can actually start to feel my core getting tighter. I know that sounds weird, but it's true.

There are no washboard abs or anything like that yet. I think my stomach is getting a bit smaller, but I still doubt that 1 pass through this program will yield me those results. I'm still *kinda* following the meal plan. I don't think that I am eating 2500 calories a day anymore. I've cut back from 5 meals to 4. And I seem to be eating less at each meal. The difference is that I'm not full all day long. Doing the 5 meals a day is tough because by the 3rd meal I am really full and don't want to eat the 4th meal. But I have to to make sure I have enough energy to burn off during the workout. So now I am doing just the simple 4 meals. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner.

Breakfast is usually simple. Oatmeal, cereal, etc. Although I'll admit that lately I've been skipping breakfast all together. Bad, I know. But it's hard to do sometimes at work when I get in and get busy. Lunch usually consists of a wrap or sandwich of some kind. The wraps I've been using are these tortilla type of things...but made out of whole stone ground wheat. Really good for you. I use a wedge of laughing cow cheese for the 'sauce' instead of mustard/mayo. I get some deli meat sliced every week on Mondays and use that throughout the week. I also try to use a piece of lettuce, some tomato slices and this week I've been using an avocado too. Roll that up and you've got a great lunch that fills you up. It works out to be something like 300 calories.

We have been slacking a bit on the weekends. But we're definitely eating less than we're supposed to. Last Sunday, the only thing I ate was 1/2 bag of cheese nips at 5pm. Then I had dinner at my parent's house. Weekends we usually splurge a bit and are a little more relaxed in what we eat. But overall, I think we're still eating pretty healthy. Next weekend though, that'll be a different story. Going to Vegas for a friend's wedding and...well...it's Vegas.

So to counter the missed workouts (we'll be missing 4 workout days), we're going to start the week and do as much as we can. We'll miss Thursday - Monday (Sunday is the rest day). So we'll do Monday - Wednesday and call it good. Then when we come back on Tuesday, we'll just pick up and repeat the week again starting with Tuesday. that way we won't miss any of the workouts.

Next week starts the 'Max' workouts. We're not sure what they are yet, but if the previous 4 weeks are any indication, we're in for one hell of a workout. Especially since the workouts are called the same thing except with Max in front of them. So we'll see how that goes next week. So with the repeating of week 6, we're set to finish the first cycle sometime near the last week of July.

I'll tell you, after doing p90x and now this one I much prefer the Insanity workout. I am more of a cardio workout person. Granted I do kinda miss doing the weights exercises. So I think after we finish this pass, we're going to make our own program combining the two. We'll probably use a couple of the weights days from p90x, and then fill in the week with the cardio disks from Insanity. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think we both really enjoy the Insanity workout better.

I probably won't update every day like I used to. But with this one there isn't a lot to update about. It's just all cardio. But I'll try to do one at least once a week.

End of week 1

Since we all survived the rapture, I guess I'll continue with writing. :)

Today wrapped up week 1. It actually went by pretty quick. Today was the same workout that we did on Tuesday. But I think I sweat a lot more today. I think as we progress, we'll be able to push harder on these workouts.

I feel like I don't have as much to write about with this program. It's all cardio stuff so there really isn't anything to explain like there was with p90x.

Well, we have tomorrow off and will be back Monday. :)

Insanity - Pure Cardio

Tonight was the Pure Cardio workout. Holy crap. This total length is about 35 minutes. After the 10-15 minute warmup, it was pretty much 20 minutes straight. No breaks unless you take them on your own. Which I did. There wasn't any crazy moves or anything like that...but it was just non stop and really worked you out. Definitely a good workout though.

I'm finding that there isn't as much to write about as there was with p90x. There really isn't any 'gains' like there were in the last one. I'm not moving up in weights or anything like that. All I can really do is just push myself as hard as I can to keep doing the moves. On the ones that aren't muscle intensive (like sitting in a squat for 60 seconds), I really try to dig deeper and stick it out. But there are some where my legs are just on fire and actually start to cramp up. I try really hard to get past the muscle pain, but when they start to cramp, that's when I take a break.

Tomorrow we will complete our first week. This one is only 8 weeks long, so it'll probably go pretty quick.

Insanity - Recovery

Today was the recovery workout. Kinda like the yoga day in p90x, it was just a lighter version. Doing mostly stretches and stuff. I was still sweating a lot though. Not much to report on this one. Tomorrow kicks back up to a "normal" workout. haha.