I LOVE IT!!!
I had never heard of Jillian Michaels until I came across 30DS on
Exercise TV on
Comcast On Demand. At the time I was trying different workouts on there. I had things I liked and disliked about all of them. When I tried 30DS I was in love though!
Reasons I dig it:
It's short enough that I can talk myself into doing it every day. I don't do well with exercising for a long period of time a few days a week. Things will come up or I'll make excuses not to do it.
I don't have to be coordinated. I'm SO clumsy. I can't do the fancy pants dance workouts. I get mixed up and trip over my own feet. She keeps things very simple. Most of the exercises are familiar.
It's complete. Cardio, Strength and Abs. And since it's okay to do every day I don't have to keep track of when I do it or how long I should wait before doing it again. I just plan to do it every single day. I do occasionally miss though. I've missed 2 days so far in December since I was uber busy with holiday festivities. However, there were other days that I had holiday events to attend and I STILL had time to Shred.
No weird equipment! You just need hand weights and a mat if you're on a hard surface. Most people seem to use 3 or 5 pound weights, but use whatever is right for you.
She's TOUGH and tells you to KEEP GOING. I guess since I was raised by my dad and 6 big brothers I prefer that approach.
I don't personally respond well to coddling. Passive-aggressive PC BS generally just annoys me. But I guess that's why I have a hard time working in an office.
The workouts are TOUGH. I'm cold natured and I don't sweat a lot. I've done many workouts that never made me break a sweat. This one makes me good and sweaty every time. And I totally feel the strain of my muscles during the strength exercises. I know I'm not just going through the motions. I'm really making the workout count.
Results! I'm losing inches and my strength and endurance or improving every day. I weighed myself in late-September and then again at the end of October and the end of November. The scale hasn't moved too much. But it has moved some, I just haven't bothered changing my ticker because I feel like it's so little an amount. However, since I started my weight loss in June and I have no idea what I weighed but I was much bigger, it could be that I'm at a plateau. I'm really not sure. But again, I'm losing INCHES!!! That's way better.
It's cheap! I got it for 10 bucks at Walmart and I think it's less than that at Amazon.
Notes:
I sometimes extend the warm up and/or cool down if I feel like it's just not enough. I'm ridiculously cold all the time. So I often need to warm up before the warm up or I can hurt myself. And if I feel a muscle is still tense after the cool down I'll go ahead and do some more stretching. But if I wasn't the Ice Queen I wouldn't need a longer warm up and the cool down IS usually plenty of stretching.
Some people extend the cardio. I'm pretty active during the day but if I had a desk job I may want to add an additional cardio workout too.
I was on Level 1 for a while. Then I moved to Level 2 when I was ready. Don't force yourself to move on until you're ready. There was a definite jump in difficulty from Level 1 to 2. When I'm ready to proceed I'm going to alternate my days between 2 and 3 instead of just doing 3 every day. I didn't think of this until I was plenty used to Level 2 though. Also, some people seem to alternate all the workouts for variety.
I wish there was more variation on the cardio. I started regularly exercising and stopped smoking in June. Some of the exercises were really hard for me to keep up with. I would end up just doing SOMETHING to keep moving when I could no longer continue. That said, maybe she didn't include a lot a variation for people that would just automatically go for the easier workout. I don't know. I do a pretty good job of being honest with myself and TRYING every exercise every time until I can do it but I guess some people will take the easy way if they think it's alright to. I like to keep focused on Natalie, she's the badass - sometimes I can actually keep up with her and that feels great! Especially if I couldn't before and I had to work up to it.
Geez. I know this post is long. But I'm trying to be thorough!
Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred?
