Shred Challenge - Day 3

This morning I woke up after two days of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred and walking as well to a very sore, stiff body.  I hurt everywhere.  Even the ibuprofen I took didn't relieve the pain I was feeling.  I wanted to curl up in bed and not move all day long.  But with a 9 month old son that wasn't really a possibility.

So up I got.  As far as the couch.  I really wasn't feeling up to doing the exercises at all, and was seriously considering taking the day off.  Yesterday when Rainman told me that today was going to be awful regardless of whether I worked out or not I proceeded on with day 2 and was now seriously regretting it.  Even though I knew I should, it took me an hour to convince myself that I just needed to dive in and do the workout.

I am so glad that I did.  After the first couple of moves my body started to loosen up and I felt semi-human again.  Don't get me wrong, every muscle in my body hurt, but for some reason getting into the activity made it hurt just a little less.  My endurance for the exercises had even increased, despite the pain, and I was able to go longer before stopping to rest than I had when I first started.

After finishing the workout - which Bug decided he needed to "help" with by providing extra resistance every time he could hold on to me or pin me to the floor while doing crunches - I collapsed back on the couch to rest, but felt amazing. So much so that when Rainman got home from work early we decided to all go for a hike through the woods behind our home to a nearby park and played frisbee for a half hour before the rain chased us home.

30 Day Shred, a 1 1/2 mile hike through the woods, and 30 minutes playing frisbee?  Not too bad if I do say so myself.

30 Day Shred

A number of years ago I purchased the workout DVD Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.  Since then I have put the DVD into the player all of 3 times, and never actually succeeded in finishing a workout without stopping.  My last attempt was about a month after my son was born.  One day was enough to convince me that it would be unwise to continue as I was a Stay-At-Home Mom and with no help lifting my child I could quickly end up in trouble. So back on the shelf it went.

I am blessed with having my mother in town to visit for the next two weeks.  So in addition to spending time with her, and seeing the sights of Atlanta with her and my aunt who will be in for the second week, I decided that there was no better time to jump into the program than now.  I have an extra hand to help if I have a hard time lifting my now much heavier son, and hopefully by the end of the two weeks she is here my body will have adjusted and I'll be able to function on my own.

For those who have not heard of the program 30 Day Shred is an intense workout program designed to make you lose inches and pounds in just 30 days.  20 minutes long, the workout includes a warm-up and cool-down section, as well as three circuits consisting of 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of ab work.  It is a deceptively difficult workout, and I could not get through it without stopping a couple of times. 

An added bonus is that there are three different levels of workouts on the DVD.  I have only ever tried Level 1, and will stick to this one for quite some time.  I assume that they progress in difficulty, which is nice because as you become accustomed to one workout you can challenge your body by switching things up.  Not to mention that if you decide to stick with each level for 30 days each you now have 90 days of fat burning challenges to help you get in shape.

Over the next month (pending me actually being able to stick to the program) I will share my results with the program.  Here's hoping that I can walk after the first day and that I see results fairly soon!