Body Revolution!

Wow. So I just finished the rest of today's workouts, which means Body Revolution workout one AND bonus cardio and hot damn! I was pouring sweat. POURING. SWEAT. I guess I asked for it, huh? But also it was really fun! Really. It's possible that just means that I've switched over to completely insane and am just enjoying torturing myself, but if so I'm totally cool with that.

And Giant brought me my hand weights home earlier than I had expected so I didn't even have to modify my first run through at all. I got to just go for it. Actually, I even did a couple of the advanced moves just to see if I could. I kinda could, but not totally. That's okay, each workout gets alternated for two weeks so that'll be something to work up to. I'll have a lot of work up time anyway because I'll barely be in phase two when we run off on holiday and I have to start all over again after that.

All in all, it was a good first day and it feels great to be working alongside a program again!

I'm actually really looking forward to doing it all over again tomorrow!

Day one: Ripped in 30!

Okay, so I think it's pretty fair to say that I've let the blog slide lately. Luckily it's been just the blog and not so much my daily workouts but I still wanted to get back into it! I was thinking about it and I think part of it is the lack of a daily regimented workout. I had meant to go directly from The 30 Day Shred into another program but somehow that didn't happen and then I got slammed with work for a week and wha wha-I dropped the ball.

Now, in the interim, I was sorta happy with my daily routine. I've been doing an hour of ab work and an hour on the elliptical. Somehow though, that hour of ab work just wasn't making me sweat as much as I feel like it should. I'm really not sure why. I feel like I'm focusing on proper form and really pushing myself but the sweat just isn't pouring like it does with some of the workout videos I've followed along to in my life. The elliptical, that always work! I won't say that the ab work felt entirely inconsequential, it just wasn't what I would like it to be.

I was going to just do my own thing until after we're back from holiday next month because we're leaving 3 weeks from today (YAY!) and I won't be able to get all the way through any of the workout programs I've been looking at, but oh well. I figure I'll do a mini push through the beginning of two up until we leave and then start over at day one on both once I'm back. I'm sure I'll have lots of good Greek food to work off by the time we're home again anyway.

So starting today, I'll be working through not only Ripped in 30 but also Jillian Michaels Body Revolution! Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm on a major Jillian Michael kick! But The 30 Day Shred was such a good starting point for me and Yoga Meltdown was such a fun aerobic yoga routine that I just figured I'd keep on going. And at 16 pounds down, I'm itching to get back to dropping the weight fast like I was instead of this slower tick through I'm on right now.

So far, I've only completed the Ripped in 30 portion and holy hell, I found the sweat I'd been missing! AND it was fun! I can honestly say that I really enjoyed it! Fingers crossed I can say the same thing about Body Revolution when I get into that here in a little bit! It's so satisfying to see all that sweat, especially since I've been missing it this last week! I had to modify a bit because I won't have the weights to do it properly until tomorrow, but I hated to put it off even another day so I figured I'd go for it anyway. After all, this is just a starting run anyhow. The real go will happen once we're back from holiday. 

The 30 minutes I took to do Ripped was about all the alone time Faversham (my adorable new kitten) could handle at the moment so I'm giving myself a breather and waiting for my Giant to come home before I get into Body Revolution. I'm super excited though! Faversham isn't old enough to be trusted to hangout in the room with me while I'm hopping around. He was in here with me while I was doing yoga the other day and he was less than helpful to say the least. He turns into a little devil and I can just see him thinking "Oh, are you balancing your entire body weight on that one arm? Maybe I'll just attack that arm and see how good your concentration is!"

This is not how Faversham reacts to yoga:

And back to work.

Okay. So I missed a few days of exercising and even a few more than that of blogging. This is what happens when they finally start sending me more work though I guess. I've been working the last few days straight-no joke. If I was awake, I was working. And that's okay, in fact, it was great. It's been so long since I've been working full tilt. It does make it a lot harder to work in the workouts though.

I think there was only one day that I did my full hour of Yoga Meltdown and an hour on the elliptical but at least there were several days of the hour of Yoga on it's own. That's way better than nothing...although there were definitely a couple days of nothing as well.

I just finished today's hour of Yoga Meltdown and I'm hoping to get in a bit more before the day is done. Plus I should definitely be able to get it in tomorrow as well since they almost never send me work on Sundays. Unless saying that means they'll send me stuff anyway...

I do seem to still be losing weight though, so that's great! It's obviously slowed down a little with the dip down in workout consistency, but a loss is a loss and that's what it's all about, right? I'm inching closer to 20 pounds down and that's a goal I'm really looking forward to. I would absolutely love to reach that by the end of the week so I'm going to try extra hard to get all my workouts in if at all possible! I think I can do it if I'm working out like I was.

Our holiday plans totally changed again with all the back and forth Giant had to go through to get the time off from work. We're going to Greece now and we're going really soon! The only downside to leaving on holiday sooner is that I basically won't have time to reach my goal weight before we head out. I plan on making as much progress as possible (who doesn't want to look good in their holiday pics?) But there's just not time to be all the way down. That's alright though. I'm sure I'll even put some back one while I'm there-especially being Greece. I adore Greek food and there's no way I'm staying dairy free when there's feta all over everything. It's just not possible. But that's okay too. That's what this lifestyle plan is about anyway. Being healthy enough to indulge a little when abroad.

No rest!

Okay, so I haven't decided what program I want to be following just now so instead I'm doing a bit of a mash up and I'll see what sticks. I did level one of Yoga Meltdown with the intention of doing level two directly after it, but my knee is giving me trouble and I don't want to end up with an injury that grounds me altogether so after level one I took a bit of a breather. After several hours I gave Six Week 6-Pack  a go and holy hell, am I sweaty mess right now! I read that the intention is to end up doing level one and two back to back on this one as well, so I went ahead and did that even though this was my first go at it! I figure with all the ab work I've been doing already, it couldn't hurt. Well, it does hurt but not in a negative way :) I did have to do some alternate cardio moves during all the lunge sequences though. I wish I could afford some time with a personal trainer to talk about more appropriate alternate moves when my knees are messing up but I guess for now, I'll just have to do whatever comes to me. I figure it's more important to just keep moving than to be doing the exact moves she's doing anyway. It's all calorie burning and I try not to exchange them with too easy of moves.

Here in a little bit, I'm going to jump on the elliptical for an hour or so as well for good measure. I love the elliptical. It seems like people either love it or they hate it. It seems every time I go to the gym with a buddy, they tell me I annoy them on the elliptical! Ha! I just love it though. I'm able to absolutely zone out and just hit it. Plus it's got an amazing calorie burning payout and, uh, I might have gotten in a fight with my brother and eaten Cadbury Creme Eggs whilst pouting about it. Yeah, see. I'm far, far, far from perfect.

Day Thirty: Shredded!

That's me done with my very first round of the 30 Day Shred! YAY! I'm feeling so awesome today! It was hard and there were many days I totally wanted to give up, but I kept on trucking and now here I am at the end! Eff yeah!

Am I shredded? Do I have a six pack? Am I twenty pounds down from where I started? Well, not quite. I probably do have a six pack, but it's still hiding behind a pretty decent layer of fat. Still, it does feel rock hard under there, so as soon as my weight loss catches up, I've got a pretty amazing head start. And I can't even imagine what I'd look like with a six pack! I've never been anywhere close to having one! I'm also not twenty pounds down from my start weight but there is a few things to be said for that. First of all, I AM 13 pounds down as of today! YAY! I probably would actually be the twenty pounds down if I hadn't had the whole vacation backslide in the middle of things. But, that being said, the 30 Day Shred hasn't been my only exercise I've been doing daily either. Here's how it breaks down:

For all of level one I wasn't doing any other exercise and honestly I didn't see much shifting of weight that first week. What I did see was my muscle tone start to pick up a bit and harden up. I'm sure the weight loss was coming, but once I into the swing of this commitment to work out every day, I started adding other stuff in. For all of level two, I also did both levels of her Yoga Meltdown every day along with the Shred. Now, this is where the weight really started flying off. No joke. It was around then that I counted up what I'd lost in the time I had lost it and realised that, if I work my ass off, I can be at my goal weight by the time we hit Portugal. It will take a whole lot of focus on my part, but if I don't give up, I can wear my bikini to the beach. It's been many years since I've been comfortable wearing my bikini out. I hardly even know why I have it. So, for level three I really hit things hard. Since I'm not working much at the moment and I have ended up with a bunch of free time, I put myself to work. The Shred became the shortest thing I did. I have an elliptical machine at home so what I started doing is 10 minutes running on the elliptical, 10 minutes of abs (crunches, leg lowers, ect) and repeat. FOR TWO HOURS. This hurts, but it's also sort of amazing. By the end of it, I've gotten in an hour on the elliptical and an hour of ab work. I drop an amazing amount of weight and I feel so much better. I've been sleeping better at night and had a ton more energy during the day. Plus, just so it doesn't get boring, I've been watching shows on youtube that have been cut into 10 minute increments and use that to time myself.

So I guess you couldn't use me as a barometer for how well the shred works on it's own as far as it being a singular weight loss tool BUT it is what kicked me off and got my motivation up. I would absolutely recommend the Shred to anyone who is looking for somewhere to get started!

Day Twentynine: One more day.

I just continue to be blown away by how near the end I am. Not that all that much will change after tomorrow, but just making it through the 30 Day Shred has been super awesome. Level three goes so fast! Even the first day of level three seemed like it just flew by! I'm so excited for tomorrow when it will officially be the end of my very first 30 Day Shred!

Not only that, but I've also been dropping weight really quickly this week. It's like it's just falling off every day. I know my period is coming up in a few days, so hopefully that doesn't completely ground me like it has been known to. At least now, with the new pain killers I have for it, I'm pretty sure I'll still be able to get my cardio in at very least. We'll see how much I'll be able to do ab work when I'm fighting menstrual cramps. I am glad that I'll be done with the Shred before it hits though.

My work continues to be coming in super slow, which is driving me mad, but I suppose it is a good opportunity to just really ramp up on the workout times. It's times like these where I really, really miss the 24 Hour Fitness in Tempe, AZ. Man, I really loved that place. I loved the layout and the machines and I loved the drive home with my windows down and the warm desert air blowing in on me. Working out in the desert was awesome to me. Working out here is good too. But here I use it as my fake sunshine and "sweat so I can pretend that it's warm here". In the desert I always good a double dose.

But in any event, this is how exercise becomes addictive and you have to appreciate that!

Day Twentyeight: End in Sight!

I swear today's 30 Day Shred workout flew by. I was barely getting into the swing and BAM! It was over! This is way better than level two, which was SO HARD for me to get into to. I've only got a couple days left now and I can barely believe it. This is the first time that I've done a workout program all the way through. I've always stopped after a week or so. There's a great sense of accomplishment involved.

It also helps that I can see a difference in myself as well. My wrists and hands for example are getting back down to normal for me and all my clothes fit better for sure. It's so nice.

I guess I don't have anything else to say for today. I'm just happy and feeling great!