Ripped in 30

Okay my cute friend at work let me borrow her Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30. I did the Week 1 and thought this is great but nothing too difficult. Today I started Week 2...WOWZA! I thought the workouts were supposed to get progressively harder! NOPE! She went from mild/easy to KILLER! I can't wait to see what workout 3 & 4 are like! My shoulders were literally shaking for 3 hours!

PS Do any of you like Yoplait's Whipped Yogurts!? I LOVE them but I'm trying to get more out of my yogurt so I have been eating Chobani. Well I stumbled across Chobani Champions! LOVE it! It is meant for kids but it has the fruit whipped into it! I LOVE it!

Another GREAT Spark People Article

I get several spark people emails a week and they are always jammed packed with great information. I LOVED this last email:Burn 100 calories in 10 minutes. Here is an excerpt

People often say that they don't have time to exercise, but I disagree.Everyone can spare 10 minutes a day to work out. One of my personal goals is to do something active every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes. So even on my busiest days, I won't make excuses. And I definitely won't convince myself that 10 minutes is too little to really matter. Ten minutes DOES matter—and it really does add up to big benefits for your body. If all you only did 10 minutes of exercise per day, that's 70 minutes and potentially 700+ calories that you could burn over the course of a week.

20 Ways Burn 100 Calories* in 10 Minutes

1. Cycling (12+ mph) or mountain biking
2. Racquetball
3. Running (at least 12 minutes per mile)
4. Swimming laps or treading water
5. Playing basketball
6. Spinning class or stationary biking
7. Rowing
8. Boxing
9. Martial arts
10. Digging (heavy yard work)
11. Jumping rope (continuously)
12. Jumping jacks
13. Rock climbing
14. Walking on the treadmill (at least 4 mph with a 5% incline)
15. Water jogging
16. Kettlebell training
17. SparkPeople's Jump Start Cardio workout
18. SparkPeople's Bootcamp Cardio workout
19. SparkPeople's Kickboxing workou
20. SparkPeople's Jump Rope workout

I love working out. But I didn't ALWAYS love it. I had to grow into it. I started by trying out new things and discovering what I hated, liked, and really loved. Once I found strength training and Jillian Michaels DVDs I really began to LOVE working out. I can make just as many excuses as you can about working out. I don't have the time, I'm too tired, blah blah blah. But the simple truth is that it's IMPORTANT! It may be hard but start slow, just like this article says 10 minutes a day. And they even provide you with FREE 10 min workouts. Now 10 minutes a day is not your quick fix. It's a STEPPING STONE. You have no excuses now get to work. And become the best you you can be!

PS If you still haven't checked out the Jillian Michaels podcasts on iTunes you are missing out! They are wonderful!

PPS Have you seen the new TV show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition! It's incredible! This last week they focused on Food Addiction! It was heartbreaking! But very eye opening. I feel like people think food addiction isn't a real thing but it is. And it is KILLING our country! It is SO sad it breaks my heart!

Odd and Ends-Basically playing catch up

First off sorry for the long pause there. I really didn't mean to leave you hangin. Things have been going well. I finally figured out how to kick my chocolate chip cookie addiction. You see when I make cookies I hate to waste them. So I used to put the dough in the fridge and then slowly eat it all. NOT GOOD! Anyway I decided that from now on every time I make a batch I either give them all away or I freeze the batch. This prevents me from feeling like they will be wasted and I can still have one or two every so often. Does that make sense?

I know some of you are wondering about these last 5-7 lbs. I am trying really hard and have made some progress ESPECIALLY after adjusting my caloric intake. Still my body is holding tight. I really do believe that I may not lose it until I stop nursing-does that sound like a cop out? I am still trying with all of my might to shed it! :)

So tomorrow I start my 5th week of Jillian Michaels 6 week Abs!

Total KIlLER! I LOVE IT! I did level one for 3 weeks. Along with the 35 min workout I did 20mins of JM's Banish Fat or JM's Trouble Zones! My abs are better than they've ever been! No I don't have a six pack YET but Im not finished :) Level 2 is a WHOLE other animal! It took me a week to adjust to the intensity level. Saturday I began to add my 20 mins of other DVDs. It's rough and when I finish I'm dripping with sweat! Love that feeling!

PS I LOVE that I can mix and make JM's DVDs! A few circuits of BF and a few circuits of TZ! SO Diverse!

So many of you know that I like to try out new calorie counter apps (Livestrong.com, FatSecret.com, SparkPeople.com, etc.). A few of you have told me about MyFitnessPal.com. So this past week I decided to give her a try.

Features I LOVE:

I LOVE the selection of foods! I feel like it has EVERYTHING!

Love that you can have friends to support

LOVE the nutrients breakdown

I do still find myself missing my SparkPeople (I miss my reports, I miss the ease of adding my recipes, etc). I really do like MyFitnessPal in fact if I end up going back to SparkPeople I will probably keep the other on my iPod because of it's extensive list of foods. I'll give it a another week.

New favorite snack:

Special K Cracker Chips

Yes, the do taste a little like styrofoam but they kick my chip cravings FOR SURE! LOVE IT!

New favorite app:

Dinner Spinner from Allrecipes.com

I'm totally excited to try the recipes I found over the weekend. Any time I can get quick easy healthy recipes I am happy!

Sorry to cram so much into one post! I have been trying to get on and get stuff posted but life just got busy (and blogger was busted). I missed you all and hope that your journeys are going well! :)

REMEMBER: If at first you don't succeed TRY TRY again! Changing your lifestyle, eating habits, workout habits, thinking habits, is HARD! The real challenge is JUST NOT GIVING UP! You can make this change!

Virtual Trainer on Shape.com and 6 week 6 pack

Okay so Shape.com has this tool called the Virtual Trainer. Interested? Me too! I am going to give this site a shot for a bit and see what I think. It's totally free so go to Shape.com and check it out with me! You can track your calories, weight loss etc. You can also create meal plans and workout plans. I am excited to see if it is helpful! One thing I already think is kind of cool is in the meal plans you can add your own recipes. Anyway if you try it out let me know what you think!

I will be investing in this DVD this week. I am excited! I'll let you know what I think!

What are your reasons for working out?

We all have reasons why we wake up early or stay up late to get our burn on but are your reasons the RIGHT reasons? If any of the following are included in your reasons you should definitely check out this article on SparkPeoplpe.com!

Do you exercise because...

You feel fat

You want to eat whatever you want

You want to run away from your problems

You want to energize when you're lacking sleep

You want to get skinny

Apparently these are the Top 5 Worst Reasons to Workout. You may not even realize these are on your list. Read the entire article to find out if you are doing this absentmindedly and learn how to make your reasons positive and motivating!

Banish Fat Boost Metabolism

Okay I just got this DVD and have done it twice.Here is what I think:

First lets go over the design of this DVD. There are two options you can run through the entire workout (warm-up, 7 circuits, cool-down) or you can break it down into individual circuits. You don't need weights for this workout it is all you.

So the first time I did this workout I tried option 1.

Even though this workout says its only a 40 minute workout it's actually 50 minutes. I got half way through circuit six and almost puked (literally). I ended up skipping to the cool-down. It took me about a half hour to recover. YIKES!!

Today I chose option two. I did the warm up and circuits 1-5.

I LOVED it. It is the same workout only I got about 5 seconds to breath in between circuits. I could have done all 7 circuits but my daughter woke up. It's amazing what that few seconds of breathing can do for you.

Overall I LOVE IT! I will continue to do this workout DVD for the next month and let you know what I think. :) My advice is to start slow and work up to doing the entire workout. I think you will still get the results you want.

Work it Out

So February hasn't been a great weight loss month for me. My goal is to lose a pound a week (very realistic) But this month between Valentine's day and celebrating birthdays I haven't been as strict with my calories. I have however been working out 5-6 days a week. Now I normally split up my workouts with JM's 30 Day Shred and the elpitical but my elpitical has been down until today. Either way I decided that I needed something new to say the LEAST (I've been doing this routine for the last hmm....year or two). So I went searching for new DVDs. When I couldn't find what I was looking for I jumped on Amazon and I found these beauties!

I found a great deal and ordered all three! I am so excited!!! I think they'll probably arrive the end of this week. As you probably noticed I am a Jillian Michaels fan. Her methods are proven successful every week on BL! And I've seen it in my own life. So if it ain't broke don't fix it! I'm stickin with her. I will FOR SURE let you know what I think! :)

Tip: I read both on Sparkpeople.com and Jillian's website that you don't need to kill yourself with 3 hour workouts. In fact you are more likely to over train your body that way. Consistantcy is the key. It is recommended that you wok out AT LEAST 3 times a week for thirty minutes at a time. Work on that and once you have accomplished that bump it up. Jillian also recommends not working the same muscle group more than twice a week because it can become "counterproductive, as it would throw the body into a state of overtraining and make it more prone to metabolize its own lean muscle tissue for energy."-JM