Shredded (More or Less)

Hey, remember when I threw out there that I was going to do that 30-Day Shred DVD? Right. I did it. And I have restrained myself for the entire 30 days from babbling on and on about it.

I don't do a lot of exciting things, okay? My topics for conversation are pretty limited.

I'm sure you're relieved that I did exercise (HA! inadvertent, but funny) such restraint. Except now I'm going to babble. You've been warned.

Saturday was the last of the thirty days. And I did indeed do thirty days straight of this thing. Every single day I changed into my exercise clothes, grabbed the hand weights, and did push ups and sit ups and jumping jacks and lunges and a whole hell of a lot of other things that actually hurt quite a bit. In a good way, though.

It kind of sucks, as you might imagine, because exercising always does--if you're not the type that really, truly enjoys it, that is, which I certainly am not--and if you're doing it every day, then that means you're doing something that sucks every day. But damn it all if this particular routine is not effective. It hurts, but it works. Or rather, it hurts, and that's why it works.

I'm stronger. My clothes fit better. I don't look at all like Jillian Michaels, but then, I also don't eat like her. Her diet plan seems to consist of a lot of chicken breasts and vegan chili. If I lived on that, I would lose the will to live. So, not so much with the dieting. But even without that, there were results.

Incidentally, at least half of the credit for my perseverance has to go to A., who most days was locked in the dining room with our rampaging children so I could sweat in solitary misery in front of the TV in the living room*. The fact that I didn't have to give up my precious child-free minutes during the day to do this was a major (MAJOR) incentive.I have no doubt that if I had had to do it during naptime, there would have been days I, uh, didn't do it. So a round of applause to A.

I'm taking a break this week. And then I get to start on the other Jillian Michaels DVD I got, which is called, embarrassingly, Ripped in 30. Wish me luck. And wish A. luck too, for that matter. He'll need it more than I will.

* I have read accounts of people who actually do this DVD with their children present. I don't know what they drug their children with, but if I tried to do anything with my sons present that involves five-pound hand weights within grabbing distance and me down on the floor and hence vulnerable to attack . . . well, let's just say it would get real ugly, real fast.