Shred Report

Day Ten

Jules — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:29:10 +0000

Level one is done! Yay! Despite skipping yesterday (stupid period came and with it cramps and headaches and I couldn’t shred) today was good. It didn’t get crazy hard like it did after I skipped Sunday. The push ups are actually almost doable now. Huzzah!

I forgot to weigh in this morning. Whoops. I guess I’ll just do it on Sundays. Probably better that way.

Day Nine

Jules — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:18:54 +0000

Very late tonight. Late class and I couldn’t manage to get up this morning. But it was good tonight. One more day of level one! Which is good, because the ADD is seriously kicking in.

Day Eight

Jules — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:49:06 +0000

So I guess I took my reward for doing seven straight days by taking a day off yesterday. Never again. Today was much harder than it should’ve been, and I can only blame the day off.

My weigh-in yesterday was 146.9. So up again. I’m trying to think of this as me just getting into shape and not worrying about my weight. I did lose half an inch on my waist since Thursday. So something must be working. Now then, here’s to 21 more days of no cheating. If I feel this shitty today, think how I’ll feel if I skip tomorrow!

Day Seven

Jules — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 01:47:36 +0000

I was very late today, but I did it! Seven days in a row! I deserve a reward of some sort!

Today was a bit tougher than yesterday, though it may be because I had a bit of a cramp because I ate dinner before shredding. I also tried to work a little harder today. Still able to do it all, though I was ready to quit during the shoulder lifts. I had to switch to my 2 lb weights for that. Still using my 2 lb weights for the squat and press, and I’m too scared to give that up.

Since I’ve been doing this a whole week, I think I can do a bit of a critique. For the most part I like it so far. I still haven’t even looked at levels 2 or 3, but level 1 is good. My problems with it are minor. It really bugs the crap out of me that Jillian waits until the second rep to tell you what she doesn’t want to see. You do 30 seconds of dumbbell rows but she doesn’t mention incorrect stance at all until the second 30 seconds. This isn’t a HUGE problem after the first couple of times, but the reminder of incorrect stances still helps me and would help better right off. Second, and this isn’t even a complaint, really, just something I notice every time, but Natalie cheats during the static lunges. When Jillian is over with Anita, Natalie thinks the camera isn’t on her, and stops doing the lunges and just does the biceps curls. This really cracks me up because Jillian goes on about how they don’t even cheat when she’s not looking. Yeah, right.

Day Six

Jules — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:04:54 +0000

I didn’t shred before work today. I have hives and used that as my lame excuse. I still had hives when I got home from work, but managed to shred anyway. Today was much much easier. I don’t know if doing it at the end of the day works better or if it really is just becoming easier and easier. I’ll continue to test this theory. Stay tuned.

Food

Jules — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:21:49 +0000

I’m going to start keeping track of what I’m eating here. Trying to see where it is I’m going wrong.

Breakfast: Corn flakes (carb) with skim milk (protein), 1 tangerine

Lunch: Soup: chickpea (protein), carrot (veggie), sweet potato (carb)

Dinner: poached salmon (protein), a very small bit of rice pasta (carb) with a bit of parmesan to mask the taste, broccoli (veggie)

I know I need to drink more water, which I’m working on. I ordered a BPA free 1 liter water bottle and my goal will be to drink two of those a day. That will be more than my 8 cups. Of course, according to my step mother everyone should drink half their weight in ounces. That would be 73 oz, or just over 9 cups for me. But I think 2 liters will suffice. I’m drinking as much as I can in the mean time.

I’ve also started a new vitamin regimen. 1 multi, 1 iron, 1 teaspoon B-complex, 1 tablespoon flax seed oil. The multi has 200% DV folic acid, which I want. It also has 10mg iron, and the iron supplement has 9mg. Together that’s about 100% DV. Considering I was taking 300mg daily for a while there, this is nothing. Celiac is an absorption problem, so it’s better for me to be safe than sorry, particularly since anemia is my greatest foe.

I also know I should probably add a snack in there. I’m not good with the whole frequent small meals thing. There’s a bit too much work involved.

Day Five

Jules — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:22:15 +0000

Well, it finally happened. It got a teensy tiny bit easier today. Still super hard, but I was able to endure it. Here’s hoping to five more days of getting easier, then I might just have the courage to go to level 2.

Still a bit bummed about my weigh-in, but I did have a bowl of soup pretty late last night. (I made carrot chickpea soup for lunch for the next few days.) I may not have gotten rid of that yet.

Weigh-in #1

Jules — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:49:57 +0000

Not good. I’m trying not to be discouraged, but I’ve gained .1 lb. I’ll see what Sunday’s results are, but I may want to switch to a weekly weigh-in instead of bi-weekly.

Day Four

Jules — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:11:01 +0000

Successfully did day four before work! I’m getting good at this motivation thing. But the pain! Yesterday I was in so much pain all through work. I couldn’t reach down to pick up my mouse without cringing. But the pain went away during the actual workout. It came back full force immediately after, but at least I got through the workout without completely falling apart.

Today’s workout was still hard. I’ve decided it never gets easy. It stays hard hard hard the whole time so that you actually get results. At least that’s what I’m telling myself to get myself through the twenty minutes when I desperately want to stop.

I’ve been reading about how a lot of people don’t lose much weight doing the 30 day shred. I know there’s a lot of diet that needs to be involved, and I am watching what I’m eating a bit, though I’m not really modifying too much. I have such a restricted diet to begin with, thanks to my celiac, so I don’t feel like I should be punishing myself further. But I’m eating a big breakfast (today I had 2 eggs, scrambled), a good lunch (today it was vegetable soup), and a nice dinner (I’m thinking I’ll get some fish on my way home and something green). I’m trying to get lots and lots of water, and I don’t drink much else, except the occasional coffee. (Whoops, I had a vanilla iced latte with lunch. That was probably enough calories for all of lunch…) Hopefully I’ll see some results tomorrow for my weigh-in. (I cheated and weighed myself on Monday and had lost half a pound. We’ll see if that continued.)

So feeling much better about the shred today than yesterday. Here’s to 26 more days!

Day Three

Jules — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:41:39 +0000

I. Want. To. Die.

Why is this not getting easier yet? I know, I know, day 5 or 6 or 7 will be much easier. But I want it easier NOW! Today it was the first circuit when I nearly gave up. During the cardio. So I decided to take it easy and used the 2 lb weights the whole time. By circuit 2 I was over the need to stop, but it was still killer today.

Also, first workday that I shredded. We’ll see if I can keep this up or if I start promising myself I’ll do it after work.

Oh, and I still suck at pushups.