We were thrilled when we were contacted by Jillian Michaels’ PR firm to receive a press copy of Ripped in 30. But as true Jillian Michaels worshipers, both Bill and I had pre-ordered ours! . We did ask if we could do a brief interview with Jillian, asking her some of the questions that many of you have been asking us (and ones we’re curious about ourselves). And much to our delight, she agreed! So what better way to kick off our Get Ripped in 30 Challenge than with Jillian Michaels herself!
1. Everyone keeps asking us what’s the best time of day to do your shorter workouts – like 30 Day Shred and Ripped in 30 – what do you recommend?
Jillian: Anytime you can fit it in! In an ideal world though I would say the a.m. simply because exercise releases endorphins and can keep some people up when they train at night.
2. We screech at the screen every time someone tweets that they’ve been doing your workouts barefoot. What is the best type of footwear for folks to be sporting?
Jillian: Obviously I am going to say K Swiss because I work with them – love their pricepoint, performance, and aesthetics, but I am not a believer in barefoot training. I think that we would have had to go barefoot our whole lives for our body to be properly adapted to this. I believe it unnecessarily risks injury.
3. We’ve got our fave of your DVDs, but what’s yours? And how about someone else’s that you’d recommend?
Jillian: Ripped in 30! I don’t do exercise DVDs actually but I will always say Bob Harper’s personal collection not the ones he does for the Biggest Loser.
4. If you could tell people change one thing only to get fit, what would it be? (i.e. work out, eat less, eat organic, no sugar)
Jillian: Eat organic whenever possible
5. We’re parents ourselves and we know you’ve talked about wanting to have kids. When you become a parent and your schedule goes crazier, how do you envision your workouts changing?
Jillian: I barely get to the gym now so I think it will be more of the same… squeeze it in whenever I can and when I go – go hard.
6. Alright we’re dying to know, why do you think the new trainers’ team lost so much less than yours when they went home on Biggest Loser?
Jillian: No comment 
Thanks so much, Jillian! As you might have read on Twitter, Jillian is threatening to retweet our Get Ripped in 30 Challenge posts, and wants to see who can make it through Level 4 without stopping! Haha.
Come back tomorrow for the official start. We’ll be posting before pictures!
Oh my lord, I totally missed Jillian talking about retweeting our challenge. Now I’m even more determined to get amazing results!
Fun – hopefully the DVD will arrive in my mail today and I’ll be ready to jump into the pain with you tomorrow – whoo!
Holy, eff. I LOVE that Jillian is on board with #shredheads. That is AMAZING.
I am getting my Ripped in 30, but with my half marathon just under a month away, I am scared she’ll ruin me. LOL!!
I’ve ordered the DVD as well, although I’m also doing a boot camp class 2 days a week, so I’ll have to modify the challenge to incorporate both. Looking forward to it, though, or as much as a person can look forward to pain.
how do i access the 30-day diet plan online? i went to the web site it gave on the dvd, but i’m not getting anything about a plan unless i want to pay a fee for her online program…
???
thanks for the inspiration!
If you go to http://www.jillianmichaels.com/rippedin30mealplan, and scroll down, you see a button labelled “Download the meal plan”, which will take you to a PDF file including all the recipes.
thank you, kathie — i totally filled out the form on the right instead of scrolling all the way down. got it! thanks!
Wow, totally shocked at her answer to #4. A lot of “organic” in the grocery stores isn’t all that much better than the non-organic. Can’t believe that’s the one thing she’d pick over working out or eating less…
I agree with Jillian about how we lose our ability to do stuff in barefeet because many of us wear shoes all the time and forget how to use our feet properly.
I cringe when I can litterally hear friends walking in barefeet because they are walking as if they are in shoes – slaming their heels on the ground THUMP THUMP THUMP. They are asking for knee, back and hip problems from the walking like that. You should be quiet when you walk and the ground shouldn’t shake and all that thumping is going right up your spine and that isn’t a good thing.
Most people have come accustom to putting all their weight in their heels first, when they have perfectly good balls of the feet that are meant to take the weight. Gym shoes have such a cushy heel portion that it is difficult to do this, so people just stop doing it at all and start walking badly all the time.
Case in point is a comment from Miss Banshee in this post: http://www.theshredheads.com/2009/11/dear-shredheads-should-i-wear-sneakers-while-doing-the-30-day-shred.html saying she ended up with crutches because of pain in her heels. She was doing the exercises as if she had shoes on, thumping her weight into her heels. While this is generally not a good thing to do, at least the shoes would absorb some of the shock. She is lucky it wasn’t worse.
From years of my mother yelling at me to “pick up your feet!” and years of dance training before I gave it up and became a fatty, everything was in bare feet or dance slippers except when in pointe shoes. Even years later, I find that my feet and body feel better doing activities barefooted without the heel of the shoe getting in the way of my natural body movements.
I tried 30 day Shred the first day in shoes, but had to take them off half way through because of the foot pain and the limiting factor of the shoe to my foots movement. I’m on day 5 now (sans shoes) and zero pain.
But for most people, please wear shoes unless you know how to walk properly without them.
I have pretty much all of Jillian Michaels’ fitness dvds and think about myself to be in superior physical shape, but this workout took it up a notch. It’s refreshing with totally unique moves and intensity. My body has changed significantly in just 3 weeks. I’m going to start week 4 workout tomorrow, and I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous!
Just got my DVD yesterday, and bought some weights and a mat today. Can’t wait to get started tomorrow. I’ve lost weight and gained it back twice over the last couple of years, so I’m hopeful that this DVD and the meal plan will help me set a better pattern of healthiness for me. It’s never too late to try to be healthy and get fit. Never give up!