30 Day Shred

Another week down... My cruise is in 40 days, so a little over 5 weeks to go! This past week wasn't the best. I stayed with Level 2 on the DVD and did well except for a few of the moves. There are 4 sets of "plank" moves on this level. If you're not familiar with "plank," it's where you get down like you're going to do a push-up, but you put your arms directly under you... Here, I'll find a picture:



Courtesy of Sparkpeople.com

Ok, so that's a plank. For the first round of planking, you start out standing up straight, then bend over and walk your hands out until you're in the plank position, then you walk your hands back up and stand up. For the second round, you start in plank position, then hop both feet in towards your head and back again, keeping your arms still. For the third round, you start in plank, then hop your feet out and in, like you're doing jumping jacks on the ground. Then for the final round, you start in plank, then bend one knee and twist it inward, then back to plank and do the other leg. That one works your abs... You're not doing all these plank moves back to back, but as I have spaghetti arms, that doesn't matter! I can only last a few seconds in a plank without my arms starting to shake, let alone maintaining a plank while doing all that other stuff! So once my arms give in, I switch to moves from Level 1...

Unfortunately, I ran into another issue this week. Tuesday night during my warm-up, I started doing jumping jacks and felt a very sharp pain in my right knee. I worked through it, but my knee was sore the whole next day. That got me a little worried, so I decided to take Wednesday off. (I also didn't feel well in general that day, so that helped my decision...) I think the knee issue may have been from A) working out with all this extra weight, putting more strain on my knees, B) not doing some of the moves correctly, C) being wobbly from poor balance, or D) a combination of all of those. So on some of the lunges, I've not been going down as far to take it a little easier on my knees. That's helped...

I'd like to say that was the only break I took last week, but I'd be lying. When I got home Friday, I was so exhausted that I could barely hold my eyes open, so I just went to bed. Then last night I didn't feel well again, so I was a punk and didn't work out. So I only worked out 4 days last week. I did play golf with Matt Saturday, so I got an extra workout in there... And I guess it helped some, because I lost 2.9 pounds. That basically just covers what I gained last week, but I'll take it! : )

# of Days: 21 

Weight Loss: 5.2 lbs

Inches Lost:

Waist - 1.5

Hips - 1

Thighs - .5

I was running late this morning, so I didn't take my measurements... I feel better today, so I'm definitely going to work out tonight when I get home! And hopefully there won't be any breaks this week! ; )

30 Day Shred

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that when I weighed in this morning, I had gained 2.8 pounds. I think there are two reasons for this: #1 is although I've been staying under my calorie intake goal this week, the food I've been eating hasn't been the healthiest. And #2 is I'm probably gaining muscle due to the crazy strength moves I've been doing on this video. Gaining muscle is a good thing, but I'm definitely going to strive to make smarter food choices this week!

And now for the good news... Firstly, I moved up to Level 2 last night. While it's still only a 20-minute workout, the moves are more advanced on all three areas: strength, cardio, and abs. It totally kicked my butt, and I struggled with a few of the moves, but I got through it! : )

The other good news is that I also took my measurements this morning, and I've lost inches! Yay! So that makes me feel a little better about gaining this week. But I really hope next week there's a - instead of a + when I weigh in on my Wii Fit! Here are the numbers so far... They're totals for the whole 2 weeks, not just this week.

# of Days: 14
Weight Loss: 2.3 lbs

Inches Lost:

Waist - 1.5

Hips - 1

Thighs - .5

30 Day Shred

A couple weeks ago Matt and I were on the phone (while both at work) discussing our lunch plans, and we started talking about how he wasn't going to be here for my birthday. He's going out of town for work that week, and he's scheduled to get back home the night of our anniversary (which is exactly one week after my birthday...).

Per our normal routine of late, Matt came to my office so we could have a nice, nutritional lunch together, but he brought me a present... Cruise tickets! : )  He said it was to make up for missing my birthday, but mostly it's for our anniversary. This will be the first trip we've taken where it's just the two of us in quite a while, so I'm really excited! Plus, we went on a cruise for our honeymoon, so it'll be nice to kind of "relive" that happy time. : )

We're taking a 5-day cruise to the Bahamas, so you know what that means... Bathing suits!!!! Talk about a motivation to work out! I decided to take my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD and put it to the test.

My plan is to follow the workouts on this DVD for 30 straight days and see how much weight I lose. I'm also tracking my food intake with the MyFitnessPal app on my phone. I love this app! They also have a website that you can check out here. Here's a scan code for the app on Android phones:

So, last Monday I took my weight and all my measurements, and this morning I weighed again, and... I lost 5.1 pounds! Yay! I didn't have time to take all my measurements this morning, but I'll be sure and do that tonight.

It's only a 20-minute workout, but it's fairly intense. You do 3 rounds of 3-minute strength, 2-minute cardio, and 1-minute abs, plus a 1-minute warm up and 1-minute cool down. Since Day 1, my strength has gotten a little better, but my cardio and abs have gotten much better. I can't wait to see how far I am after the full 30 days! : )

I'm going to weigh-in once a week and keep up with my progress on here, so y'all be sure to hold me accountable! ; )  Have any of you done the 30 Day Shred before?

# of Days: 7

Weight Loss: 5.1 lbs