Spicing things up with JM

It seems a little weird to blog about this bee-otch, but I've decided it's finally time to introduce her since we talk about "Jillian" in this house almost as much as we talk about kale and banana smoothies.

Last September, after a summer of running on beautiful trails outside, it was time for me to hit the gym again. And I was in a funk. I just was not feeling it. So I decided I needed a plan. Something to spice things up and give my workouts a purpose. I dusted off this book that I'd had for a couple years and hadn't used (except once--I did one workout when I bought it and decided it was too hard.)

But those shoulders. They continued to call to me. I pulled it out and skipped over all the diet stuff because slow, medium, and fast oxidizing sounded like her own pseudo-science, or at the least rebranding of existing diets. And I got to the workouts. The plan consists of ten 45-minute workouts, done 4 times per week, with two of those weekly workouts hitting the muscles on the front of the body, the other two workouts targeting muscles on the back of the body. If you've done any of Jillian's workout videos like the Shred series, these are similar high-intensity circuit training workouts. I committed to it for 30 days to get me back in the swing of things at the gym.

I questioned that commitment 35 minutes into the first workout when I was sitting on a weight bench with my head between my knees, willing myself not to throw up.

And then I questioned it again 35 minutes into the second workout, with my head between my knees, willing myself not to throw up.

I think it took 3 weeks before I stopped feeing like I was going to lose my banana smoothie during the workouts. They were hard, but by the third week I could feel myself getting stronger, and it felt good to come to the gym with a fast, efficient workout that made me push myself every day. I felt like I had a trainer, and I only had to pay $6 for her because I got her at Half-Price Books.

After the 30 days I was enjoying it so much that I decided to keep doing it. Around that time, I coaxed Kolby into trying it out. I told him I just wanted to see what he thought of it. He said, "Isn't it a girl workout?" I said, "Probably. Just try it for me." He said, "I'll have to do each circuit three times instead of two." I said, "That's cool." And then I sent him to the gym with my little printed out workout. And I waited anxiously.

He walked in the door and I said, "So?"

Kolby came around the corner looking a little pale. A little green. And he said, "I couldn't finish. I had to walk around for a while so I wouldn't barf." And I clapped my hands and laughed my most evil laugh because he'd had his ass handed to him by my "girl" workout. And no, he did not do each circuit three times.

It almost made up for the time he knocked me down with a medicine ball.

Since then, we've both stuck with our "Jillian workouts" and I'm still "enjoying" them. I hate them, especially that first workout because it still makes me feel like puking, but I like the structure they give me at the gym, and I feel like they are still making me stronger, and they actually give me that runner's high sometimes. When I first started I couldn't do more than 2 or 3 non-girly push-ups. By the second month I could do about 10. Now I do all of the push-ups without modifying them, and I can do all of her push-up variations as well. (Although I can only squeak out 5 plyo push-ups at a time. And they are barely plyo).

After nine months, I'm starting to get ever-so-slightly bored with the workouts, so I'm modifying them a bit, substituting a few exercises from her videos (her new Ripped DVD is a great one!), and some exercises from my new workout bee-otch who I was introduced to by my cousin, McKell. This is Zuzana and her heaving breasts. I call this "Workout Porn." And I actually prefer the adorable Zuzana to Jillian hollering at me not to "phone it in."

My ambitious workout goal for the summer: be able to do one pull-up.