30 Day Shred Level 1

[Guest guest]

First, let me say that I made myself get up at 6:15 (which is 15 minutes earlier than I get up during the school year) so that I could eat breakfast, let it settle and then workout and I'm not only living through it, but feeling great! I don't intend to make this a daily habit but it is nice to know I can do it.

This was a MUCH tougher than I was expecting and I liked Jillian a lot more than I expected to! I reread Tess' review before I started writing just to feel better and to know that others had suffered too!

Before I get into my own comments about it though, I wanted to ask, do people do this every day? I don't think I'd want to. The weight work was tough especially for how short it was and I really felt my quads coming up the stairs afterwards and still feel my shoulders a bit now. I can see doing it 2-3 times a week for awesome results though.

Tess & Dani both give a lot of great information about how the workout is structured so I won't repeat any of it but I do want to comment that for people like me, who feel they are choreographically-impaired, this is an excellent workout because there is NO choreography to learn and the cardio (mostly jumping jacks and glute kicks) was great. It is absolutely perfect for bleary-eyed mornings too!

I didn't realize this was just 20 minutes, I thought it was 30. At times it felt like 90. With the warm up and cool down though maybe it is more like 25. I burned 146 calories on this one! I think I was also able to get past the Biggest Loser workout commercials though I chose to listen to Jillian's short introduction this time. I'll have to hit disc menu at that point next time and see if I can get past that too.

I've never watched a lot of Biggest Loser so I wasn't super familiar with Jillian's style, but have heard a lot about it. I thought she was kind of rough around the edges but had a lot of very smart things to say. I liked her no coddling, you want results you'd better be willing to work for them attitude. It really did inspire me to push myself and not give up when I was getting tired or when my muscles were screaming. I wouldn't want her yelling at me to work, which she doesn't here, but I do find that kind of attitude helpful.

I started with much too heavy weights and had to drop down, fast. I also noticed my push up capacity has far diminished now that I haven't been doing them every day. I need to get back into that but am trying to not put too much pressure on myself right now so I'm not going to do a push up challenge for at least the rest of this month. Working out at all is good! I copied the breakdown of the workout Tess gives in her review and am going to make myself a chart in which I can keep track of the weights I use for this. I'm considering doing this at least 2x a week starting in July. I always meant to do that kind of a sheet with P90 and never did but wish I had.

Besides doing a rotation with this, it is an excellent DVD to have on hand for a very effective short workout you can pull out when you don't have much time. I didn't preview it before I got it, besides the clip on collage, and mostly bought it because of the reviews here and other places. I am VERY pleased with this purchase!

Off to the library soon for a program then work, then home for lunch then I'm subbing for a receptionist at a meeting this evening too. Whee!