15 Days of 30 Day Shred
A Short Recap
Overall Results So Far
What You Could Easily Expect
Important Info
The Battle
Our Long Term Plan
I have made it exactly half way through Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. It's one of her older editions to help you get in shape, her newer edition is Ripped in 30. I had 10 pounds of fat and a lot of toning needed after my twin pregnancy and my husband needs about the same. We started the program together on September 5th.
Overall Results So Far
It has been the usual up and down journey when it comes to any of these training sets. My overall results so far is not much weight loss, but loss of quite a few inches. My legs are smaller and more toned, my stomach is flatter and tightening back up and I have definition in my arms for the first time in about 3-4 years. I do apologize for not measuring or weighing myself obsessively for everyone, but that gets me into trouble. As long as I feel good, have more energy and can see and feel my results in clothes, I'm good.
What You Could Easily Expect
I can tell you with absolutely no doubt, that if any type of decent eating plan is followed, at least 5-10 pounds could have been dropped by now. I've been eating whatever I want, including Chinese delivery often, beer and white and red wine. I can mostly watch what I eat when I'm not busting it out with a hard workout routine, but something has got to give when adding more commitments - I need a vice. I've been toning up and dropping the inches no problem even with my daily binges.
Important Info
When starting a routine like this, one needs to know that you will gain weight the first 7-10 days or so and maybe even some size. The reason this happens is because you instantly start building muscle which carries its own weight and mass. Until your body starts burning that fat, you will have muscle weight and mass and fat weight and mass. You need to ignore the scale and inches. Weigh and measure yourself the day you start if you need some motivation, then try to resist weighing again for the first 14 days if you can make it - 10 at the absolute least. Seeing the scale and your measurements go up is a hard hit and could easily cause one to quit. Just have a little faith and give it your best! After the fat starts to burn off, you will significantly decrease in size being left with the muscle which takes up less mass than fat. Your actual weight loss may not be hugely significant because you are adding muscle weight, but your body will change for the better in more ways than you can imagine. This includes an increased metabolism because muscle metabolizes - Yay!
The Battle
I gained about 2-3 pounds over the first week, lost 1 pound and then the other a few days later and have slowly been dropping around a half pound every few days since. My pants are baggy, shirts are loose and I feel thin again. The first few days were really hard. I had to work out the same tired sore muscle groups. By day five all the soreness was gone and I haven't been sore since. We did workout 1 for 6 days and went to work out 2. Workout 2 got really hard 2 days in when my husband and I both suddenly felt heavy, like Earth's gravity increased. It went away after another workout or so and we have moved on to workout 3 after 8 days on workout 2. We're going strong and expecting great things.
Our Long Term Plan
I can already tell that if I times my results from today by two, I'm going to be at least mostly in the shape and weight range I'm looking for. Hubby and I, after the program has ended, will be working out regularly 3 days a week for 45 minutes to maintain our new physiques, forever, pretty much. Unfortunately, if you want to stay fit, you have to keep working out. If we need some more nips and tucks in tough parts of our body, we plan to do Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 after a 30 day 'rest' using our long term workout plan. By then we should be plenty fit and can continue our long term plan. If not, no biggie, we'll just move on to bigger and harder, maybe even considering another go with P90X if we can find the time. I've also looked into Insanity, but I don't know. I like working out with women - I deal with men all day so a little girl power is preferred.
If anyone has any suggestions on other programs they have heard of or tried, please pass them on! If we don't need it right away, I'm sure we'll need a brush up before swimsuit season 2012 and are willing to try just about anything and report back.
Next Update - October 5th after our 30 Day Program had ended!
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