Leida

So, after 8 days of putting in one or two 30 Day Shred Level 1’s (plus other work-outs, of course), the exercise boredom got to me, and I gave the Level 2 a shot.

For those of you unfamiliar with 30 Day Shred, it’s Jillian Michael’s (Biggest Loser trainer) intense exercise system that features 3 20 min interval workouts advancing in difficulty.  Her system combines 3 intervals, each of them consisting of 3 min of strength exercise, 2 min of cardio and 1 min of abs.

Now, my impressions of Level 2:

All and all, in the past week I came to very much appreciate the time-saving value of these workouts. It’s just what you need the first thing in the morning to get your body going and still make that C-train to work! So, if you have been working out for a month or so, and feel like you are ready for a bit of a challenge, this workout is something to consider. For the result oriented: I lost 3 lbs last week, but I was combining the Shred with other excersises.

Level 2 focuses on lunges and planks in particular. If you had jolly trickles of sweat running down your face by Cardio 2, in Level 2 they turn into quite a water-fall. Interestingly enough to me almost of the movements felt easier, though at certain points I felt nostalgic yearnings for jumping jacks and push-ups. I was doing the workout mostly on the beginner version, with 3 lbs weights, shifting down to 2 lbs for military presses with front leg extensions.

The Excellent: In Level 2, beginner and advanced variations of the exercises are actually different and does reduce the challenge, unlike Level 1. In particular, in Cardio 1and in the Lunges segment, those modifications allow the earlier entry to Level 2 for someone like me!

Workout boredom actually works for you in this DVD, because it motivates you to shift to the next level (I mean, by the time you can quote Jillian’s Cardio 2 monologue by heart it’s time to move on….)

The Good:  In Level 2 Jillian drops most of her drill sergeant attitude. When she said something to the extent of ‘make it easier on yourself’, I nearly fell sideways from my far from perfect lunge, but it was a pleasant surprise. The only time she lapses back into addressing the presumed whiny unwilling teen the other side of the silver screen is during Cardio 3.

The abs sections are far more rewarding in this section, giving you a bit more challenge than in Level 1.

The Average: For the first few times you are doing it, the planks means that you will miss a couple of reps each time because of the need to see how to do the exercise correctly, in advanced and beginner version. 

The Bad: I noticed that Jillian concentrates heavily on quads and biceps strength. In Level 1, outer thigh got a good workout, but in Level 2 the triceps, hamstrings and thighs are pretty much left out. I am an average woman, so my triceps and hamstrings are much weaker muscles, and it would have been good to have some exercises focusing on those groups. At least Kathy Smith told me that balancing those muscles helps one avoid injury….

I am also hugely opposed to the jump and twist move in Cardio 2 – as a person who gets dizzy from far, far less, I would have preferred something less awkward. I am seriously considering substituting it with the jumping jacks….

The Ugly: It’s the same DVD, so the same problem of having to see the same yapping no-forward through section persist! Yes, you can shoe-up and drink your water during this time, but… it’s still annoying.

Was chatting with Sharona here, and we sighed together of being over-worked and needing vacations. So, I decided to take a few minutes off and do a vacation dreaming….

Southern France and Spain – a couple of years ago we spent two weeks driving aroundLoire
Valley, and I loved it. I really want to rent a car again, and drive through Nime, and Pyrenees and up in
Granada. I am not a fan of the gambling and bathing attractions, but the ruins and the views, and in
Spain – all things Moorish (I am hooked up on Moorish ever since reading the Lions of Al’Rassan)… aww…. And I can wear small dresses once I’ve reached my goal!

Hawaii – We went to the
Big
Island last spring, and I absolutely LOVED it there, and yes,
Hilo side even more than the Kona side. Volcanoes, snorkeling, orchards and tropical fruit (the hotel owner in
Hilo allowed picking fruit from the garden, how cool is that?! Never ate star fruit before or after in my life!)  But this time, I’d like to go to another island, chosen by the following equation – min tourists and max snorkeling! (In the nice swimsuit that I will be able to wear without embarrassment)!

Greece – Ever since I was 6 and read all those delightful myths and legends I wanted to go see
Greece. I’d probably do it in the late winter early spring to minimize tourism…. And while I don’t come close to those incredible ideal of athletics the country represented in the past, I think it will be hugely inspirational for any budding fitness buff.

Turkey and
Bulgaria – Year after year watching the travel shows I ah! and oh! When I see the seductive sites of
Turkey. Plus my ancestral bloods demand me to go and see
Byzantium, the most amazing city of the ancient world in my humble. Not sure what to say here from the health standpoint, but I am sure there is something….

Machu Picchu – I don’t think there is a better hike in the whole world than the trail to
Machu Picchu. And, I am sure it will be the most rewarding to come in the view of the city in the end. I was always hooked on the South American civilizations, and that’s the ultimate gem…

Syrian
Crusader
Castles and Petra – Unfortunately,
Syria asks for visas… and I have an allergy for visas. If it wasn’t for that, I would have gone already despite all the safety concerns. Medieval is insanely seductive, and climbing old castles is one of my absolute favorite things. Good for soul and quads!

Germany –
Germany holds an incredible appeal to me, both because of the modern attitude of its people, and the gorgeous history and literature of the region. Even if I don’t bike, I would love to bike through the
Black Forest. And watch the castles go by theRhine
River… I’ve been to and swam in the two other much sung rivers of Europe – Danube and Volga, so I feel that I am missing something in my life because I haven’t seen
Rhine. They do allow swimming in Rhine?

Eastern Canada – as Western Canadian I have a disjointed and fascinating image of the East. But I’ve never been, except for
Ottawa. I really want to see the East Coast, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, maybe the tall ship festival in Nova Scotia, and totally have to drive theConfederation
Bridge!!! Plus the geology will be fascinating, and hiking should be absolutely gorgeous.

China – No, it’s not the Olympics. It’s the gorgeous books by Barry Hughart and the awesome masterpiece of a game Jade Empire that propelled
China to my ‘want to go and see’ list. It’s amazing how the travel bug grows from accidental encounters with culture, and
China is a unique case among the nations of the world. I was reading Jared Diamond lately, and I was just blown away by even the briefest summary of Chinese monolith. And then there is the Great Wall…. And, of course, with the real Chinese food topping the charts in being both healthy and tasty, that’s sure a huge incentive to go.

Well, that’s it for my pipe-dream journey….

My mother used to tell me this tale when I was young:

There was a widow, who had her own daughter and a step-daughter. The widow let the step-daughter to sleep as much as she wanted, never asked her to do any chores, fed her to fullness, and generally just let the girl do whatever the girl wanted. Her own daughter though the widow treated strictly: get her to rise up before dawn, help her with every kind of work and never let her have a single pork pie. And the neighbors whispered ‘Look at her, she loves the step-daughter more than her own child’. Only when a prince happened in the village, he met both girls. The first one, the widow’s own daughter, was able, lean and beautiful, drawing water from the well with a song, while the second, the widow’s step-daughter, lazy and fat was sitting on the doorstep, whining and complaining… Guess which one married the prince?

This tale really stuck with me, and in later years I came to see the parallel with self-pity and self-love. Self-love treats us like the mother treated her own daughter – makes us do what’s the best for us despite the resistance of an inert part that is a part of most people. Self-pity though indulges the inert part, and whispers in one’s ear… ‘you poor thing, there is no need to do this… no need to do that….”

The morale: love yourself, love fiercely… but pity… well, not so much. J

Well, maybe next time I can share my mom’s tale about apples and princes….

Well, I just had an insane thought. You see, we have a fitness club at work, and every day the folks from work teach fitness classes at the lunch break. To be an instructor one needs to get to a course and get certified. The work reimburses this expense if you do it successfully, and become an instructor. So, I am thinking… I am just thinking… that if I persist with my current work-outs and build up strength, and… maybe in two or three months I can try to do it? It sounds like such a good insentive to staying in shape! If you have to teach other people, I mean. And I just kind of have that feeling that I can make a good instructor… well, maybe? But I am worried about my flexibility. I am not flexible AT ALL. But I am sure I can do cardio and strength if I build up for a few more months.

I wasn’t going to write every day, but I just had to somehow note this. Today, for the first time in more than three, gods it must be almost four(!) years I saw myself in my pre-baby/pre-conception weight range (I was told to pick up 10 lbs to help me concieve, didn’t help anything, except making me heavier for a year).

Yes, back then the number would have made me ’step on it’ with the nutrition and excersise, but today it made my jaw drop. Somehow, somewhere I almost believed that ‘you will never be the same again after the baby’ axiom.

Well, my dear old wives, we shall see about that. I am starting to think that my years of nutrional and fitness learning will actually result in me getting into a better shape than before the baby. And definetly in a better shape than I was when I was young, and preferred method of loosing weight was fastin for a week.

I can’t believe how much more positive and natural the fitness&diet message has become in the past 10-12 years. And hurray for the wonder of the Internet that helps incredibly with the information and support! Because, let’s face it, walking the walk alone is that much harder.

I’ve got myself 3 more DVDs, to move from the beginner to intermediate level.

30 Day Shred with Jillian Michaels, Amy Bentos Hi/Lo and Michelle Denoise’s Best Circuit.

So far I started with the Shred which looks to be the least advanced in its beginner stages. Here are my impressions:

 Summary: The whole Level 1 work-out can be described in the same words that Jillian described one of the warm-up moves: a bit old-fashioned yet effective.

 The Excellent:

The DVD is clearly divided into 3 compact workouts of Level 1, 2 and 3.  It will be a motivating factor to try to advance through the levels.

Each workout incorporates strength, cardio and abs in three 6-minutes long circuits (plus 2 minutes warm-up, 2 minutes cool-down). The workout on level 1 is intense, but all the movements are simple. Only twice or so the instructor warns of possible wrong form - which is good, as someone excersising at home doesn’t have the benefit of the instructor watching their positioning (or a wall mirror, lol!). The intensity is probably compared to Kathy Smith’s Fat Burner series, and intervals.

The Good.

Excersises are paired in a smart way, but each set is repeated twice. I would have preffered to have different excersises to avoid boredom.

 The Average.

Abs sections seem to be far less intensive than cardio and strength, and cardio intensity goes down from the first segment. Basically, if you can do the first segment cardio w/o losing breath, you can move to Level 2 imo.

Twining the sets of the same excersises is likely to become boring very soon.

Jillian’s physique and the support group’s physique are not as impressive as other trainers’ I have seen, so much less of an inspiration. She seems to try to compensate with the drill sergeant personality, which is… see below –

The Bad.

Jillian’s comments throughout the excersise routine seems to be addressed to some whiny unwilling teenager brought to her class at the gun-point. Her voice is grating, and she definetly makes me, a willing and cheerful excersiser, trusting her implicetly to lead me through a good routine,  cringe every time she suggests that I am about to quit, I complain and refuse to excersise… meh.

The Ugly.

While the work-out is touted as 20 minutes, it includes the intro section with Jillian yapping, which is a good intro first time, but is bound to frive anyone to distraction if you have to listen to it. This, the normal Lionsgate logos, dire warnings and the cooldown stretch the lengths of the DVD to more like 25-27 minutes, so if you are like me on a minute-per-minute schedule, you must budget for it. And, again, huge annoyance factor when you can’t skip the segment for the 10th time….

The Effectiveness.

I felt that the biggest challenge on Level 1 for me was the 1st Cardio. The intensity was good and I felt it this morning in my quads. I had to shift down to 2 lbs weight from 3 lbs during the 2nd set of strength 1 and 3 (?). I had to shift up to 5 lbs weights for chest-flies. I think it’s good to have the range of weights when doing this routine.

Personally, I don’t think that doing just that and once a day is going to help anyone who is on that level of fitness. But doing it twice, or adding a longer 2nd workout when you have more time in a day will be good.

I’d say that a complete novice might do better by trying something different for an introduction to dumbells and cardio before getting into this one. It is short because it is intense, and it has little teaching about muscule groups and how to do the common excersises properly.

I am curious to see how long it will take me to get to the Level 2. From the previews, Level 3 is unlikely to happen for someone like me (full push-ups off the dumbells, duh).

Before talking about the main subject of this blog, the book, I wanted to advance heartfelt thanks to everyone who cheered me on in the end of next week, thank you so much. And if someone is still interested in the outcome of my BL challenge at work, well, the numbers are in and I am 2.2 lbs lighter than last time (1.61 %), don’t think it’s enough to win, but it’s pretty darn good!

 Now, on with the blog!

This contains serious spoilers for Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy. 

 I’ve read it a while ago - actually in the past three years, as each book was released by the author. Robin Hobb is one of my favorite fantasy writers, with her penchant for less standard settings and just saying ‘no’ to the another tolikien spin-off elves, dwarves and orc tripe. And with her acute interest in the inner world of her chracters.

The Soldier Son was not as enthusiastically accepted as was her FitzChivalry trilogies, that made her name. A pity, that.

It is much more clever than Fitz and has the amazing ‘true’ feeling to it. The book contrasts two cultures, the settlers and the native Indian culture, and center-stage is… you guessed it! the main character’s weight. Scorned by the Western civilization, and seemingly welcomed by the natives… but it’s far from being this simple. The protagonist is caught by an accident in the middle of the war of survival. Being claimed by both cultures Nevalle Burville has the most amazing journey and transformations waiting for him, including his own body growing out of proportions (and what happens to his soul-self only Hobb can adequately describe).  It’s sheer beauty to see Hobb contrast the perceptions and ideals, and put them on their head throughout the books in her customary fashion. oh, the trilogy has the usual Hobb’s flaws with the slow build up and an avalanche conclusion, bordering on the improbable resolution…

Yet I cheered, and I still can’t forget one of the final scenes, when old Nevarre gets reborn, and pushes through the ‘borrowed body’, his own self. I have to say that this moment was very inspirational for me.

(Giggle) Got on the scale this morning, and saw the 2.5 lbs dip - the morning after the weigh in! I guess, I have my work cut out for me to preserve it over the long weekend we have here in Canada for next Tuesday. If I do, I just might win the next week’s draw. But, no counting those chicks before they hatched.

 I will be trying a couple of new things this week: building up to 2 hours of activity a day, and increasing the weights. I tried Kathy Smith’s step last afternoon with 2 lbs weights on the beginner and intermediate portions, and it worked out very nice, increasing the intensity just the right amount. I feel unsure about rising the step yet, because of the old wound heh, knee. I am also considering shifting the main workout from the morning to the afternoon for the days when I don’t have evil people scheduling me for the meetings after 3 pm. Get my methabolism by surprise, woo-hoo! Oh, and thanks to my buddie’s blog, I decided to also try to see if there is any benefit in cutting out all white pasta (I don’t eat much of it anyways). I don’t like the whole wheat versions, so I will just have my soups with whole-wheat bread instead, and make pasta separately for my family.

In the news unrelated to my little experiment on self, we had fresh snow, and it was beautiful despite drawing some critisism in showing up again, and putting end to yet another false spring. Well, we’ll have quite a few still before the real one arrives.

Have a lovely and healthy day everyone! 

I have to say that I have come to really appreciate my DVD coach, Kathy Smith. I first came accross her videos a few years back in the locak video store, and liked her instructions more than the library-carried Buns of Steel series.  I have quite a collection of her DVDs, toning, step, and aerobics. She is fun, she is energetic and seems to know what she is about. I missed her this morning. I was taking a day off the routine, for the muscules to recover and all that, but to be honest, I think it was a mistake. I’ll probably skip the days off from now on - after all it’s not my goal to build muscules (yeah….), it’s my goal to move and get charged up for the day! I would like to add more to my collection, mostly aerobics, but I think I will still be very attached to the chirpy Kathy. We just… get along!

And yep, I’ve got my weigh-in today, and it was a respectable and not alarming 1.6 lbs. So, the 10 lbs weight loss on the tracker is a bit premature, but I hope I will get there next week!

Most folks probably spotted this one already, but if you haven’t, it’s a neat little collection. Yep, I too do the trick with diluting mayo strongly with water (after using half fat-free sour cream)  instead of going for the low cal dressings. I don’t do mayo often anyway, and I like my husband’s rationale, that it saves money - after all, you pay for chemicals that coagulate the same water-diluted dressing to keep it in a jar  with a low-cal. Plus, I like liquid dressings more to start with.

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/health-fitness/diet-fitness/articles/diet/rogers-chatelaine/health_and_fitness-looser_pants_by_friday/looser-pants-by-friday/