Pausing...

There is a lot to be thankful for this year.  A wonderful, caring husband, great kids, a job I love.  But there is one thing that gets me agitated.  My body is like the body of a 70 year old.  My knees crack, I have sciatic nerve pain, and now, I have a pulled ab muscle.  Never had this problem when I didn't have abs.  Now that I'm trying to get some, they decide that walking pushups are too much for them and they go on strike.  On the bright side (I'm stretching here because I really am upset about it), it's a good time for it.  I'm heading out to California tomorrow morning, so instead of packing the DVD and weights like I planned, I'll leave them here and give my ab a few days to heal.  I haven't tried running yet (was thinking about getting out today, but I may just have another rest day), and hopefully won't have an issue with it when I try in CA.

Keep your up exercises!  And be sure to warm up good!

No JM today

I hope I'm not disappointing anyone, but there will be no Jillian Michaels today.  It's been a busy day, and I'm stuffed with pizza.  My mom probably doesn't want me to puke the pizza on her floor.

I'll get the workout and a run (I hope) in tomorrow!

30 day shred, day 10

Level: 2

Date: November 24, 2011 (turkey day!)

Time of exercise: 9:30am

Qty (each strength is done twice):

walking pushups:    

squat and row: 
dumbbell row w/

static lunge:      
pendulum lunges w/ 

hammer curl**:  

military press w/

leg extension: 

chair squat w/

v fly lift  :     

weight: +2.5 lbs 

* - didn't complete the strength for the whole time allotted 

** - due to my bad, crackling knees, I won't do the lunges.

Notes:  There was no counting exercises today!  I did my workout with my 3 kids, a niece and a nephew.  There was barely enough room to do anything, but we made it through it!  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

30 day shred, day 9

Level: 2

Date: November 23, 2011

Time of exercise: 5:00pm

Qty (each strength is done twice):

walking pushups:     5, 4

squat and row:   17*, 15*

dumbbell row w/

static lunge:        23, 16

pendulum lunges w/ 

hammer curl**:   31, 28

military press w/

leg extension:  16, 10*

chair squat w/

v fly lift  :      23, 5*

weight: +1.5 lbs 

* - didn't complete the strength for the whole time allotted 

** - due to my bad, crackling knees, I won't do the lunges.

Notes:  Just a real quick note today because I'm ready to start my Thanksgiving vacation!   Even though I only did about 1/2 of the plank exercises yesterday, my abs were still sore today! Hopefully I'll be able to see some abs soon.

Even though I've got crummy knees, I'm thankful for my body and all that it can do.  I ran 2 miles before this at a 8:19 per mile pace!  I felt great.

Happy Turkey Day!

30 day shred, day 8 and level 2!

Level: 2  Oh wow....

Date: November 22, 2011

Time of exercise: 6:05am

Qty (each strength is done twice):

walking pushups:     5, 4

squat and row:   27, 19

dumbbell row w/

static lunge:

pendulum lunges w/ 

hammer curl**:

chair squat w/

v fly lift  :

weight: +1.5 lbs 

* - didn't complete the strength for the whole time allotted 

** - due to my bad, crackling knees, I won't do the lunges.

Notes:  You might notice that, after the first two exercises, I don't have any quantities filled in above.  I did do them, but I was flabbergasted on how much harder this level was, that I forgot to count!  If levels were named by how hard they were, this would be level 250!  This is not a step up from level 1, it's a run, a hop, a skip, a spider man swing, and a superman jump over a building away from level 1.  Wow, is all I can say.

This level has a ton of planks in it.  I hate planks.  I've done yoga and pilates a time or two, but have never stuck with it.  Mainly because it is filled with planks.  I am unable to do them!  I blame it on my three kids and the toll they took on my abs (I guess the real reason is that I've never really worked on my abs so I have no foundation).  I'm looking forward to next week when I will think these are easier!  For the walking pushups, I watched twice and I think I went down about 2 inches into the pushup.  Maybe I can make it 3 inches in a few days :)

In addition to all of the moves involving planking, this also has a lot of strength and cardio that may hurt my knees.  I'm going to take it easy the first few times to see if my knees can do it, otherwise I'll start modifying more than just removing the lunges.  The cardio from level 1 I thought was pretty easy.  I thought it was because, cardio wise, I was in shape.  What a slap in the face it was that I had to rest during cardio this level!

The only thing that made me giggle and pay attention was that Natalie (the person you watch if you want harder exercises) cheated a couple times and it made me laugh.  Jillian caught her one time.

I got up early this morning to do the exercises and I like that.  I didn't have to worry about it later in the day.  Except for I didn't carve enough time out for blogging about this and I forgot to do it last night!  Hence the 5:30am bog this morning.  Stay tuned for my level 2 trek this afternoon!

30 day shred, day 7!

Holy cow!  It's been a week!

Level: 1

Date: November 21, 2011

Time of exercise: 10:00am

Qty (each strength is done twice):

pushups: (girl)     18, 14

squat and press:  15*, 7*

dumbbell row:    15  , 15

static lunge w/ 

bicep curl:           26 , 25

chest Y's:            completed all (didn't count these because I knew I could finish them)

anterior raises w/

static lunge**:        22, 16

weight: +1.5 lbs 

* - didn't complete the strength for the whole time allotted 

** - due to my bad, crackling knees, I won't do the lunges.

Notes:  I got up with the kids this morning (I usually lay in bed until they start yelling for me on Mondays :) and weighed myself.  I was up 1.5 pounds.  Pretty discouraging!  I decided, instead of throwing the Wii remote at the tv (I weigh myself using the Wii Fit scale), I'd just try harder this week.  When I looked at the overall calories burnt last week, I was a few hundred calories below my goal (I try to burn 2,000 calories a week).  I felt like I was exercising a lot, but I guess it wasn't enough.  So I started off the week with Zumba!  What a fun activity to do with friends.  I made up some moves of my own.  I didn't do any of the lunges (my tiny way of saving my knees).  My arms were tired from Zumba, so I really had to focus on getting the reps in this morning.

I enjoy getting these exercises done in the morning because I feel like I've accomplished something and I don't have to think about it later in the day.

Before shredding today, I did Zumba.

30 day shred, day 6

Level: 1

Date: November 20, 2011

Time of exercise: 8:30pm

Qty (each strength is done twice):

pushups: (girl)     18, 14

squat and press:  14*, 10*

dumbbell row:    15  , 15

static lunge w/ 

bicep curl:           26 , 25

chest Y's:            completed all (didn't count these because I knew I could finish them)

anterior raises w/

static lunge**:        23, 18* 

* - didn't complete the strength for the whole time allotted 

** - due to my bad, crackling knees, I won't do the lunges.

Notes:  Are you noticing my '*'s going down?  I am!!  (The * represent the strength exercises that I wasn't able to do the whole time.)  I wish I could say that I feel stronger and more energized, but I really don't notice much of a difference.  I struggled to do pushups for the whole time, but I knew I was only one away last time, so that pushed me through today.  I was wondering if I could do all of the strengths exercises today, but my form started to go bad in my presses, and I don't want to count those.
Tomorrow will be 7 days of Jillian Michaels, so I'll weigh myself and see if I've shredded anything!  I think I'll do a day or two more of Level 1, but I think I'm ready for something new in Level 2.

I plan on doing this every day (I was only home for 5 hours yesterday, with 3 of those hours sleeping, so I didn't have a minute to put towards this), unless I have another day away, or something comes up. I have training next week in California and I plan on bringing the DVDs and weights (I don't think they weight carry ons).  That's dedication :)

Before shredding today, I got in my long run of 6 miles (59 minutes).  That was at 2:30, so I did wait a long time to do these exercises.  I didn't stretch after the run today, so it was nice to get a second chance to do that.