Jillian Michaels is Trying to Kill Me!

So anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm not a workout diva... in fact I really don't like working out, everyone always tells me, at first you won't like it, but after a while you'll start to love it... BOO! Doesn't happen for me, I HATE working out, but I LOVE how I feel after I work out, and I need to be healthy, so that's why I do it, but believe me, I do a bare minimum or working out so that I can stay healthy. For a long time my routine has been 30 minutes on the elliptical, then 30 minutes of stretching, sit-ups and push-ups. But of course I hit the point where that wasn't actually doing anything for me anymore. I mentioned this to a friend, and told her that I didn't want to join a gym, and I didn't want to work out for over an hour every day... but I didn't know what to do to challenge myself and get in better shape. I'm completely unwilling to do p90x because I don't want to do a hardcore workout for an hour 6 days a week.

I needed something that fit into my lifestyle which consists of spending a lot of time doting on and playing with two darling little boys. So my friend suggested I try Jillian Michaels 30-day shred. WOW, that's all I can say, the DVD is 8 or 9 dollars and all you need is some hand weights. It has three different workout programs, level 1,2 and 3. You progress from one workout to the next when you are ready. Each workout uses a combination of strength, cardio and abs and they only last about 20 minutes, it's more like 23 because of the warm up and cool down. But it's easy to commit to because it's only 20 minutes. You think, I can commit to a 20 minute daily workout... that's no big deal! Which is awesome, and it seriously kicked my butt the first time I did it. Which was GREAT... I really needed that, I did level one for about 6 weeks, and then it started to become easy for me, so I knew it was time to move on up to level 2. I've been doing the level 2 workout for about two weeks and I'm pretty sure that level 2 is going to kill me... I'm sweating and breathing SO stinkin hard by the time I'm done with this workout, that I just lay on the floor, trying to catch my breath for at least 10 minutes after I'm done. (Maybe this isn't a reflection on how great the workout is as much as it is on how out of shape I am... but either way, I'm happy.) So I'm pretty sure Jillian Michaels is trying to kill me with these work outs... but I'm kinda glad :) I highly recommend these to anyone, especially people like me who want to be able to do a good hard 20 minute workout and just be done for the day!!!