I have been trying to get myself into the habit of exercising regularly, with little success. I have a treadmill, a stationary bike and a pretty complete weights system at home, but most of the time it just gathers dust. At times I find the determination to workout for a full week just doing the same exercises over and over then I get bored. It was during one such period of ennui that I stumbled upon a review of the 30-Day Shred on FitSugar, a blog I have been frequenting recently.
Jillian Michaels is the no-nonsense trainer on the tv show, The Biggest Loser (which admittedly, I have rarely watched). She designed the DVD to give you results in 30 days of up to 20 lbs of weight loss. And because FitSugar said it would not take a huge chunk of my day, I decided to buy it and try it out.
I tried level 1 last night and discovered how unbelievably out of shape I was! I was familiar with some of her abs exercises from workouts I've done from magazines, but the aspect of combining cardio, strength and abs in one workout had me breathing hard all through the workout. I had some help from my husband since I have not done a push up in more than a decade! It helped a lot that my husband used to be an athlete, he checked my form and gave me doable alternatives to those parts that were very hard for me to do. He watched the workout as I was doing it and concluded that circuit training is a great method to promote weight loss. He thinks I did too much for my first day though.
He suggested doing the workout every other day and doing my usual cardio (treadmill + stationary bike) and weights the rest of the time to give my body some time to recover. If soreness is any indication of how the workout is working - it's working really great! I'm sore all over! But it's a nice sort of sore, makes me feel inspired to do more.
So if you're looking to prepare for the holiday season by getting into the habit of exercising to keep you from gaining weight, try the 30 Day Shred and see how you like it! Stay healthy, everyone!
