Uh…

You know how on Celebrity Rehab you always see addicts getting high right before they go to rehab, just so they get one last one in?

Sigh.

That’s right, starting on Wednesday I began with the tasting of food.  Just a small bite here and there.  Of course it quickly snowballed, and let’s just say that sneak-eating the frosting off of an enormous bit of leftover birthday cake before I threw the cake away wasn’t a high point in my life.

But hopefully admitting to crap like that here is going to get me back on track faster than if I kept hiding it, so there it is.  As of today I’m back to it.  I may tack a few days of penance on to my 30 Day Shred routine, although I’m still tempted to just move on to longer DVDs in December.  We’ll see.  I’m really liking the structure of knowing exactly what I’m doing each day workout-wise.

I also have to say, I like Level 3 this time around A LOT.  It’s a nice mix of horrible yet quick, and I feel like my legs are getting a great benefit from the lunges (I do weighted non-jumping lunges rather than jumping ones).

I hope you had a good thanksgiving, and are back to it this week too!

Edit: It’s interesting that the post right before this is about me not licking frosting from my fingers.  UGH!

It seemed fairly silly at the time, but Erica (@elsewise) tweeted back the following wisdom:

“The small victories count MOST.”

She’s right.  Big victories are important, but normally they’re made up of a bunch of small victories.  Think about it, if you’re trying to do 30 Day Shred for a month, you don’t do that whole month at a time.  You do it for 30 days, each one being a victory!  They add up, so celebrate each small victory!

Overall I’m still good.  No candy or junk food since I started (except for Diet Mountain Dew, and I don’t want to hear it, LOL), and I’ve been good about keeping myself to doing Shred each day instead of an unstructured workout schedule.  Each of those is a small victory, and they’re adding up into my feeling like I’m getting myself back on track and that’s a GREAT FEELING!

A comment in yesterday’s post made me want to write a little bit more about “cheating” in Level 2.  As I mentioned, the first time around (and many times around after the first) I felt like Level 2 was shorter than Level 1, and not quite as difficult.  But I’m realizing that it’s just as hard as Level 1, as long as you don’t cheat.  Unfortunately, I find that it’s a lot easier to accidentally cheat in Level 2 if you aren’t paying attention.

This morning I payed a bit more attention to the places where I cheat when I’m not paying attention:

Walkout pushups
The walkout part of the pushups means way fewer pushups than in Level 1, making it easier.  So I’m really making sure my hands are closer together, and that my hands are right under my shoulders, rather than further up.  This is a common one to watch throughout this level that I really never paid much attention to before.

Squat rows
This one seemed WAY to easy to me…until I tried keeping my elbows up as far as they should be.  Yikes.  Don’t let them drop down or you won’t be getting the full benefit.

Squat thrusts
Same thing with the pushups – watch where your hands are relative to your shoulders.  It makes a HUGE difference.  Under your shoulders, not under your ears or eyes.  The further back you keep your hands, the harder this will be.  Play around with it and see how far back you can get them.

Chest press with straight leg lifts (abs)
Actually, this isn’t one I cheat on, but I wanted to point out something I didn’t realize for probably 3 months when I first started.  You aren’t supposed to be lifting your legs straight up.  You’re supposed to be twisting around so your feet meet up with your hands out to the side, which works your obliques more.  For some reason this wasn’t obvious to me for a long time.

Plank jacks
See the bit about where your hands are.  ALSO, try getting your feet wider than you think you should.  And then get them a bit wider still.  I was blown away this morning by what a difference that made.

Plank twists
Blah blah blah watch your hands.  ;)

General
There’s some “dead space” in between moves where Jillian is setting the next thing up.  If you know what the next move is, move on to it without waiting for Jillian.  It may only be a few seconds difference, but I found it keeps my heart rate up a lot better.

So…that’s it.  Keep on doing it, and make sure you are using heavy enough weights too!

I love how intense Level 1 is with the pushups and squats with shoulder press, but this time around Level 2 is feeling excellent as well.  I’m really focusing on form, and my abs are feeling it much more than any other time before.  Plus, there’s nothing hard on my knees, hooray!

Anyway, 10 days of focusing on Shred plus eating correctly has me down about a pound, but more importantly I feel a LOT better.  I’m not crashing in the afternoons and/or waking up feeling hungover from the sugar.  I’m probably saving a boatload of money on crap food.  And mentally I’m feeling a lot better about myself.

That’s not to say I’m not tempted.  I was at the grocery store yesterday and I actually stopped and considered buying some frosting I saw on the end of an aisle.  It’s so amazing to me how powerful that urge is, even though I KNOW it’s bad for me, that I can’t handle it.  Fortunately, I was able to move on by but I know that it’s always going to be there.

Brains can be strange.

So for now I keep reminding myself that this feels better.  I focus on what I’m doing, and that I’m not doing mega-marathon training so I can’t justify extra calories.

How are you doing?

Ahem.

I still feel like 30 Day Shred is the best short workout around, and was looking forward to her getting back to that feel with Anita and Natalie.  I wanted the old Jillian I love so much.

Unfortunately, this DVD completely misses the mark for me.

Why?  A couple of main reasons.

I have to modify too many moves

Yes, I have bad knees, but I’ve been working out regularly and none of Bob Harper’s workouts make my knees hurt, nor does the Jillian Michaels “trifecta” (30 Day Shred, No More Trouble Zones, or Banish Fat Boost Metabolism).  But this DVD killed them.  Level 1 is very dynamic and works the legs a lot.  There was even a weird twisty move in the warmup and from there my knees just hurt.  I watched the next 2 levels and could tell that I was going to have to modify so many of the moves it wasn’t going to be worth it.

But I wasn’t only modifying moves for my knees – there were a lot of the moves, even in Level 1, that were just too insanely difficult (even with her modified version).  These, along with a few moves that were too easy for me (like deadlifts) got me out of the groove of working out.  I never felt that magic balance of strength and cardio that her earlier DVDs hit so perfectly, despite the workout being much longer (40-45 minutes).

I’m not a fan of the commentary

I can’t explain it, but in this DVD Jillian kind of feels like a caricature of the old Jillian.  Some of it was good, but some of the joking around with the models was just annoying.  The talking about how she doesn’t want to hurt the models, about how she didn’t want comments on twitter about it being easy…I can’t explain it.  Obviously it’s all personal taste, and her persona is similar to her other latest DVDs, so if you enjoy those this won’t bother you.  And maybe I was just annoyed at not getting the workout I wanted.  But it was distracting to me.

A second opinion

I felt bad about my reaction when I did the DVD some time ago, so I sent it to @xtremeparnthood to get a second opinion.  I know she’d been working out a lot with Jillian and wanted to get her opinion.  In her words, “to tell you the truth I REALLY didn’t like it. I found it much more difficult than her original 30 Day Shred.  As in ‘OUCH I think I just tore my miniscus’ hard.  I watched the second and third [levels] but didn’t actually do them. I knew it would do me in.”

Overall conclusion

Take this for what it is (my personal opinion), but unless you’re a big fan of the “newer” Jillian, I’d pass on this.

Instead, if you’re looking for a 45 minute workout, I’d recommend either Jillian’s No More Trouble Zones or Banish Fat Boost Metabolism, or Bob Harper’s Totally Ripped Core or Beginner Weight Loss Transformation.

But since I stopped running, I’ve kind of lost a focus to my workouts.  I’ve been doing them, yes, but haven’t had any direction.  And that’s sort of made things a little less fun.

So to go along with my current round of eating correctly, I’ve decided to begin doing 30 Day Shred again.  It’s an oldie but a goodie, and I’m also a fan of it being short.  I was partially justifying all my binge eating by doing long workouts every day, and now that I’ve got the eating under control I’m going to focus primarily on doing Shred.

It’s still hard, by the way.  The first round of Level 1 is killing my shoulders (in a good way).  I’m modifying a couple of the other moves to make them harder, but the combination of pushups and squats with presses is as deadly as it was on day 1, way back when.

I love it.

So while I’ll still be throwing in a few other workouts occasionally, November is going to be mostly Shred.  Back to the basics, and go from there…

Who’s joining me?

That’s a completely foreign concept to me.

I tend to be at one extreme or another.  In phases like I’m in now, and like I was in for much of the summer, I eat correctly.  Possibly TOO correctly.  No slipping.  No cheat days.  Just right.  I know I can’t let myself eat any sweets or junk food, because that flips the switch.

Of course, after a while I get cocky and let myself eat “just one bite.”  I did that at the beginning of October, near my daughter’s birthday.  Just one bite of cake.  It won’t kill me, just one bite.

Then something in my brain, like a little switch, gets tripped.

Suddenly, when it comes to food, all reasoning is gone.  I don’t know if I’m technically binging or not, but it’s bad.  I stuff myself until it hurts.  The more sugar, the better, and it doesn’t matter if it tastes good or not.  And it’s always in private, because I don’t want people knowing what I’m doing, and under no circumstances do I want my children learning how to eat from me when I’m doing that.  It’s always been like that.  People will see me eating unhealthily, but they’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

“Sure,” you say, “but just don’t buy it and you won’t be tempted!”

That’s the standard advice, and I’ve given it too because it’s easy to say.  What people don’t understand is that when I’m in that phase, I’m not thinking rationally.  I end up doing things like frantically rummaging through the pantry, eventually coming upon (and eating) a jar of sprinkles meant for Christmas cookies.  Or I’ll go to the store “for milk” but come home with a can of frosting, and will polish it off in one afternoon.

I know it’s terrible.  Even while I’m shoveling handfuls of candy corn into my mouth, I know that the amount of sugar I’m eating will leave me feeling hung over in the morning.  Diabetes?  Yeah, I’m sure I’m giving it to myself, but it’s like I’m two different people…the one who’s eating it, and the one who knows better but is just an observer.

I wish I had a solution.

For now, I’m just thankful that I’m eating right again.  And I’m thankful that I caught it after about a month this time, rather than going several months and gaining more than the several pounds I DID gain in October.

And I’m definitely thankful that I never stopped working out and that I have you Shredheads to listen to me.

It was okay, but I also have dislocatey shoulders (I’m a physical wonder, I tell ya) and it felt awkward.  Jess tweeted to ask me if I’d tried aquajogging, so I started googling to find out what she was talking about.

It’s just about what it sounds like.  Run in the water.  Not with your feet on the bottom, but in DEEP water, so basically you’re treading water the entire time.  When I started I used a flotation belt, but after a couple of weeks I saw people doing it without so I gave that a try.

It can be hard!

While many sites focus on the running aspect, you can do it a lot of different ways.  You can simulate biking, high knees, cross-country skiing, mountain climbers…and it can be easy or hard, depending on your form.  I prefer to do it in a lane, but you can go around the edge of a pool, do squares, whatever keeps it interesting.

One of the best things about it is that some of the methods (particularly high knees) really work your arms, shoulders, and chest since they’re wat are keeping you afloat.  With others you can speed up your legs to the point where you really get out of breath!  Overall I’d say it can be a fantastic workout.

The worst part (my “hate”) is that it feels so slow compared to running.  I know, I know, it all comes back to running.  But when I do high knees it can take me 4-5 minutes to go 50 yards.  That’s SLOW.  I realize it’s more about the exercise, and the time, and getting healthy, and blah blah blah.  It feels slow.

But overall, it’s a great way to get a workout in, and I love that when I do it my knees don’t hurt AT ALL.  Not that day, not the next.  It really is amazing what a no-impact workout can do.

Have you ever tried it?  What did you like (or hate) about it?

One pound lost.

My brain knows that’s good, but my heart feels like, “man, I worked out and ate perfectly, how come I didn’t lose more?”  Shows like The Biggest Loser have turned a one pound success into something that’s kind of disappointing.  One pound should be celebrated, because it’s a healthy loss and I’m not feeling deprived while doing it.  But you get this expectation that every week should be big numbers and bleah.

Anyway, I know this is all part of the journey.  I’m mostly just happy to have caught it while it’s only 10 pounds to lose instead of waiting until it was 50 pounds like last time.  Or 115 pounds the time before that.

Have a great weekend, Shredheads!  Next week I’ll be talking about my weird toe shoes and aqua jogging!

Then there was yesterday.

Fortunately, I was good up until we had a guest come over for dinner…but she brought cookies, and 2 of those (plus a piece of pizza) that weren’t on my agenda fell into my mouth.

What’s surprising about that is that it’s the first time I haven’t had to beat myself up about it to get back on track.  As I was going to bed, I decided that between yesterday’s and today’s workout I have it covered, so I’m good with it.  It’s a surprising feeling, and the lack of guilt is making me feel guilty.

I know.

Anyway, hopefully you had a good 4th and are still on track to eating right.