copy&paste from my profile.. spent a damn lot time on it haha

[northernPower]

hi! so I'm a 22yo girl from the north of Sweden, who immigrated abroad 3 years ago   atm I' back in Dublin, Ireland, for a while (i travel and move quite a lot). I'm a massage therapist even if i haven't had the chance to work with it yet, right now I'm back at my old job just to be able to live for a while. generally I'm a happy girl, with a lot of energy for weird projects and dancing my ass off to brilliant music. i love talking and laughing (some people don' get my sarcastic humor), and being in nature. since i grew up in the middle of a very beautiful nowhere that's where i feel my best.   otherwise i have random interests like needlepoint, reading, cinema, hiking, writing, fitness and challenging myself to be my best and better every day.

 

my fitness story: i started running when i was 12, and went a special program in secondary school where i had an extra day each week just for sports. so I've always been quite fit, especially for things like cross country skiing, running, floor ball and so on. every time i got sick i would have problems getting back on track, so sometimes i would fall into a quite lazy habit. i always walk though, i walk EVERYWHERE if i can   if my legs can take me there, i cant see why i would take the bus. 

 

this spring i hit a new low and decided to do Insanity! i was really excited and woke up at 5.50 every morning to do it before i walked 6 km to work. i did about 6 weeks of it, when i signed up for my first half marathon and started running instead. a few days after the race (the beginning in August, i did waay better than expected and fundraised 110 euros for charity!  ) I signed up for a gym  and here i am! just getting started with lifting weights, and i feel like a fucking bad ass every time   i might be the only girl in the "big boys" room, and i might not be throwing around too much yet - but I'm doing it, I'm loving it and this time i know its for life 

 

i always cooked my own meals (lived on my own since i was 16), and now I'm doing about 95% paleo and feel great. i love cooking and this concept, since I've developed a high suspiciousness against readily cooked food. i had already stopped eating bread from the stores and milk, so it wasn't a hard transition. 

 

right now I would say im a Scout, but I aim to be and am already working towards being a Ranger. ready for anything and everything   my motto that inspires me is "you have to do what other's won't, to achieve what others don't". i love that one. so, in quite a lot of words, that's me 

[theflyingsquirrely]

Hey! I'm new here too!

Dying to see your homeland over here.... and way to be with walking everywhere. I love that. Wish everything weren't so far apart in the Pacific northwest, but I still walk three miles to work at the coffee stand.

My fitness background is similar to yours... I've done a lot, but I still don't feel like I have the muscle tone that I want. Thinking about starting to throw some weights around myself... but the research needed to do it properly is overwhelming me. I might bite the bullet and start p90x... but it's so boring alone in the living room for an hour and a half! How are you liking Insanity?

[northernPower]

i really liked it, i started seeing the upper abs after 4 days O.O so it was great to loose that extra weight i had put on in Texas (was there for a few months, you cant get ANYWHERE without a car. sucks ) i never did month 2, cause 1)it was more than an hour with the extra stretches i do and i couldnt get the time for that and 2)i admit it was too intensive for me. mostly mentally, i couldnt keep it up. the first month was great though, i kept doing that a few times a week while i was running for the half marathon actually i did so great with it because i got really good stamina with Insanity. so i do recommend it! but as you say its a bit boring especially after a month, i really prefer to GO somewhere for my workout and have others around me ive basically only been reading the articles here on nerdfitness and got all i needed to start lifting (love the article about Stacy) and i mean, if you only do say squats, deadlifts, chest press, dips and pullups how much research is it really to do