Sigh, pause from jillian...

So we have taken a trip north to visit my parents, and leading up to this trip I had taken a couple of days off from exercising. I hope to get back to it tomorrow, brought all the requisite equipment with me, now just need to kick the audience out of the room and get er done...

Mom has a digital scale, and its far less optimistic, 205... I like our scale better..

Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred: Day 14-15-16

Well well well, half way there... Honestly didn't think I would make it this far, and there have been moments where I was pretty sure I was done. This morning was one of those moments, with Jillian kicking my ass at 5am, and no weight loss to show for it I began to wonder why I am doing this.

Then I thought back to yesterday, where Kyle and I were outside shoveling the driveway. 6 inches of snow (pshaw you canadians say, well shutup) and we got started later than most of the neighborhood. I was secretly racing against the guy across the street with the snowblower, and the funny part is, we won... I ended that day, without the usual litany of aches and pains that I usually have from shoveling... I felt fine. Its a very subtle change, but I find I have more endurance than previous, I can exercise longer without falling into a quivering heap on the floor (though I do eventually...) and over all its a very positive experience.

I have found I am toning up, and I am sure if I had done this exercise twice a day instead of just once, I'd be even that much farther along... however something inside me refuses to exercise with an audience, hence the 5am exercises and not wanting to go to the gym... All my friends who do exercise, are telling me take it slow, ease yourself into it, you're doing fine. All my friends who don't exercise are laughing at the 2lb weights, and asking me if I worked out this morning when i reach for a bun at lunch... funny bunch of friends I have, seriously...

Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred: Day 12-13

OK well my posting is dying off a little bit because its not only boring to read, did the same thing, its also more than a little boring to write...;)

Weight: 201 lbs.

Hrm, would seem that I'm either doing something wrong (eating too much holiday foods mehbe?) or the weight loss should start soon...

I'm Surprised to not be too bumed about the lack of weight loss.. I know my goal was to lose the last 20 lbs I feel like I need to lose, but I'm gaining muscle mass and toning which is nice too... I'm not sure I can carry 200 lbs and look "good" doing it, so it will have to happen eventually, but yeah, still carrying on with the workout... especially since its still kicking my ass...

Back on Advil duty, and had to sit out a 30s interval of cardio... some of the moves make me feel like I'm going to dislocate something.... A couple of people have said I have motivated them into try it, I probably should have posted a starting pic to give you an idea where I started from, but basically I've never been in a gym, I've never voluntarily done a work out routine, and I can safely say other than going to work, I've never done anything for 30 days straight.... Its not impossible, anyone can do it. You just have to keep fighting yourself, this morning was a good example of that... 5 am, alarm goes off and the debate begins...

I made the mistake of drinking 1.5 cups of coffee last night (having poured most of a cup of coffee all over Tristen's homework!! He was stoked, now he had an excuse why his homework wasn't done, except it was on the page we had finished already!) and so when we went to bed at 11:30, I couldn't sleep... Secretly I think Jenn loves it when I can't sleep because we sit up talking for an hour, but thats just a guess on my part... anyways, after 4.5 hours of sleep lazy me was chanting that we could sleep another hour without a problem...and he almost won, I won't lie.... but I beat him into submission and went down to exercise, you can do it, keep it up.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 11

Level 2. First off, I HIGHLY recommend that if you are thinking of doing this, that you watch the next level the day before trying it. There were quite a few wtf is she doing moments that made the work out a little less intense than it might have been. That being said, there was a lot more swearing and sweating this morning, it felt like day 1 all over again.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 10

Well sort of, I took a 4 day break due to illness and not being able to find the damn dvd. This morning I played is safe and did level 1 but level 2 starts tomorrow.

Even after a 4 day break I still hate those skinny bitches... Though Jillian is right, its getting easier. Toon in tomorrow as I try all new exercises and flex some muscles that haven't been used since I was 6

Jillian Michaels on hold

So friday I wasn't feeling well, stayed home from work and spent most of the day in bed, that would be when the problems officially started I suppose, but it kind of went out of control from there. Nyquil is an excellent product, sure does what its advertised to do anyways.

This morning I tried to get back into the groove and my weights and dvd are missing.... Thanks kyle. So now I am up, its 5 am, and I have nothing to do for the next 45 minutes until I get ready for work... Tomorrow (secretly my fat self is laughing at me) I will be back on the weight loss bandwagon.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 9

Well 1 more day on zone 1 of the fitness regime, this morning (thanks to some late night homework *cough* Kyle *cough*) was really hard to get out of bed.. you know those days where the rain is pouring outside, and you think, bah I should call in dead... well I got up anyways, and did my routine.

Switched out the 2 lb weights for 5 lbs on the dumbell row and chest bobs (yeah not boobs) and it did make them more challenging so I'll probably hold onto that for tomorrow. My knees are giving me a bit of a problem on the lunges, and having trouble distributing weight on the correct leg to ensure they are getting exercised, but over all things are progressing nicely. I'm as surprised as anyone that I am keeping this up, both the blogging and the exercise, 1/3 of the way there, I'm sure day 11 will be amusing as the entire workout gets changed on me...

Calling all techies, wives of techies or people who have techies handy...

So here's my problem. I have a dell Inspiron (My old HP computer killed its self on the weekend re my other post) and while its nice, quiet, fast, its a slim line profile... So the technies are now nodding, foreseeing the problem that I came across...

I bring the computer home, take it out of the box and  open it up, start salvaging the parts from my old computer. First things first the video card. Hrm, doesnt fit. Now I am as hard core as the next guy so I paused for about 5 seconds and a little voice (from across the room that sounded remarkably like Jenn) said Just leave the box open. Problem solved, now I go looking for power, and low and behold, no spare power.

Now noramlly I would say a mile away from Dell, they put the BARE MINIMUM in all their boxes, the upgrade potential of a dell is almost nil. The boxes you buy online are worse, their motherboards sometimes exclude pcie slots, or have only 2 banks of ram... its barbaric... So now my question for you tech heads out there who know this stuff better than me is, can I split the power to the DVD drive like I would have done in the old days, or are these new power supplies low wattage and geared for the contents? Ie am I screwed? Or if I buy a low profile video card (having installed the old one in Kyles machine along with the spare gig of ram that wouldn't fit in my machine) could I harvest some of the raw power from the adapter and hook it up?

Any thoughts would be appreciated, even if they run along the lines of YOU BOUGHT A DELL? ARE YOU INSANE?!?!

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 8

Once again, beat my fat self into submission and dragged him downstairs into the basement to be abused by a bunch of skinny chicks... Sounds kinky I know, but its not really as much fun as it sounds... Its a WHOLE lot easier to do now, day 1-3 I was dreading doing it, I would be silently moaning and complaining to myself that I was going to do it, and it HURT. I have 0 pain atm, which tells me, its time to move to round 2 of this DVD... Lets see some votes on that, I'll go to it tomorrow if I get at least a couple of comments from you guys suggesting it... otherwise I'll wait it out as planned and get to day 10.

I may it through all of the ab workouts, my co-workers have started commenting that I look good (The haircut has NOTHING to do with that I'm sure..>.>) so somethings working. I find myself feeling better and the workout is not as stressful as it used to be. You can still play the guitar on my hambstring, not sure that will ever change, but everything else doesn't hurt anymore. If I do stay on round 1, I'll be subbing in the 5 lb weights on a couple of the exercises, the dumbell roll and the shoulder press are boring with 2lb weights, they will probably be more amusing (read painful) with some heavier weights...

So nows your chance to inflict some pain, post a comment stick with Round 1 to Day 10, or move on to round 2 (Which I have never even watched so I have NO idea what I am getting myself into)

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 6 and 7

Well week 1 is down, and time for the weigh in... Drum roll please...

Weight: 200 lbs...

Seems anticlimatic but I will continue, I have already noticed I had more energy and its easier to get through the exercises so I'll hang in there. Keep in mind I am only doing the exercise routine, I am not following any kind of diet so that probably isn't helping... Hotdogs in speghetti sauce covered in cheese and a large helping of brownie bar and ice cream will likely slow things down.

So Day 6, sunday, Fat me won the argument with Skinny me and when the alarm went off at 6 am they both silently agreed that it would be stupid to get up and exercise. We normally sleep till 10, sometimes even later on sunday. It really is our day of rest. However, before Fat me could wake up, skinny me was downstairs at 8 cursing the skinny bitches on the TV who make it look easy. One thing that occured to me is the importance of breathing. If you want to make it through, pay attention to Jillian and breath properly. Inhaling while doing an ab work out hurts like hell and makes it about impossible to complete.

Day 7: Monday, back to schedule. Alarm went off at 5am, got downstairs and completed the work out. Having some trouble with the lunges due to bad knees, but other than that breezing through the exercises. Less swearing, no lingering pain from the last days workout. Starting to think I should move to cycle 2 sooner than 10 days, someone talk me out of it. One thing I wish they would do is tell you where you should feel it, sometimes when I am doing the lunges I only feel it in one leg, sometimes in both so I am probably not doing it right, would be nice if they told you where you should be feeling it as a guide.

PC dies an untimely death, man mourns its loss...

Well as most of my friends know, I am a hard core WOW fan.. Its basically my only hobby, and so when my computer started acting up, I started sweating... Its been two weeks since our raids have gone off, and so wtih the raid last night a little sketchy I was feeling shitty that I couldn't get online.

The pc was freezing, and causing BSOD periodically. After a restart it would sometimes start up, sometimes not. I went and got a windows 7 cd thinking maybe that would solve things, um no.. it looked like it but didn't last more than 15 minutes before the PC crashed again.

I took it apart, took out the video card and blew some compressed air on it. blew out everything else, let it cool off and tried again. Now it doesn't even get into the windows is loading please wait... Jenn talked me into going to Best buy to take a look at what a computer costs.. I didn't want to go because I knew I wouldn't leave without a computer... and sure enough, here I am typing on my brand new dell inspiron... they aren't that expensive when you don't need anything but the tower... Now comes the hours long task of downloading and installing wow, and trying to recover all my documents and pictures from the old shell...

We don't think it will happen to us, but it does. So find some regular routine that backsup everything that is important to you, either to DVD, one of those online upload cloud computing sites, or a USB drive, but do it before your computers magic blue smoke escapes like mine did...

Jillian Michael's 30 Day shred: Day 4 and 5

This post is a touch late, but day 4 went without too much different. I am making it all the way to round 3 without having to cheat, my weakness continues to be ab's...

This morning, I had a minor conversation with myself about how I shouldn't get up at 6am on a saturday just to exercise... needless to say, I did. That little voice is tough to ignore at times, but its worth it.. One thing I would NOT recommend, is after your work out, don't go back to bed... it seems that I did something to my ciatic nerve and now lifting my left leg hurts.. sitting is fine, standing is OK but walking is tough...

I'll weigh in tomorrow and see how day 6 treats me... I don't expect to have lost much if anything, but it is starting to get much easier and this morning (day 5) was the first time I woke up without any lingering pain in my shoulders or legs... something is going well anyways.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 3

Well the day started out like any, looking at the alarm clock in disbelief, but once I got started I was pleasantly surprised that I got all the way to the third cycle before I had to stop and take the 5s break on the ab section. Still having to go girly on pushups but whatever.

This is the first time, literally, in my life that I have been doing any kind of work out routine. Didn't do it in college (Does lifting a toddler count?) didn't do much in highschool (I was so naturally buffed I didn't have to, LOL more like I was more interested in computer games..) so some of this is not coming as much of a surprise to me.

My plan is to work on level 1 until either its so easy that I can get through it without much of a problem or I hit day 10. This morning, incidentally, was also the first time I broke into a full on sweat during the work out, so maybe this morning is the first time I am actually doing all the exercises right? Then I will move to round 2 and see what that brings. I'll be weighing in once a week, more often is kinda pointless in my mind and won't show much, if any change... I doubt I will see any big numbers but I am hoping to see some kind of change. I already feel better than I have felt in a long time, since the summer when Jenn and I were walking 4 miles a day, if for a different reason..:)

Again, my biggest problem is me and making sure I make the time. I was talking to Jenn last night and was saying that while missing my bus sucked, it was because I putzed around in the morning and didn't get started until 5:25. I will NOT use (and this is more positive re-inforcement for me than you really) missing my bus as an excuse to not work out. This is hard, breaking my sloth routine is hard, I won't kid you. I don't kid myself, I know its hard, and I know my biggest challenger in all of this is me. If I give myself the out of have to catch the bus, if I miss one day I'll probably fall apart again and not continue. Oh, btw, I didn't miss my bus this morning..;)

This is a grand plan, and you are helping me by making me accountable to the countless people who are checking this every day (Hey put it on follow so I know how many of you are out there, especially the 4 people from holland and the two from Australia...O.O) and I appreciate your helping me through this with just your digital interest.

The lady behind me decided that it was a good time to get in touch with everyone she knows instead of letting the rest of us sleep, so early post today...:) See you all tomorrow.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 2

Day 2: Alarm went off at 5 am and I managed to only stall for 15 minutes before getting to the basement. End result, missed my bus by about 2 minutes...

Figured out why I keep waking up at 2am, on a side note, Love you tristen, but stop setting your alarm clock for 2am...

So everyone (meaning Jenn) wants to know how its going, and its going. Thanks to a downgrade in the weights, have I mention recently how much I love my wife?, I made it through all the strength exercises without having to cheat, still having a little trouble on the pushups to my chagrin.

I made it all the way to cycle three without cheating on anything, and by cheating I take the allowed 5 second pause and then get back to it... Your biggest problem in all of this, is yourself... If you skip your walk (sorry sawyer) or stop exercising, or "phone it in" a term Jillian uses often, then you're not goin to get anywhere and I'm doing this to get somewhere... so off to pop some advil and a walk with the big dumb blond.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 1

OK so day one complete.

Alarm went off at 5am, I stared at it (having woken up at 2am, 3am, 3:30, 4 thinking about work because I forgot to bring my laptop home) and thought go away bother me tomorrow. Then my groggy conscience kicked me in the butt and I lunged out of bed before I could change my mind, surprising Sawyer to no end...

Pop in the DVD and grab the 5lbs weights ( HAHAHA you're thinking, 5lb weights, what a wimp... wait for it, it gets better) and start out the shred. Jilian has an interesting tactic, 3 minutes of strength, 2 of cardio and 1 of abs, constant motion is the key for 20 minutes. 20 minutes, of non stop agony... from the first 1 minute of push ups, and no I am not cheating, I am trying to keep up with the skinny bitches on the TV, to the last 15 seconds of "stretching" its non stop pain and suffering.

After the first set, I couldn't lift the 5lb weights anymore. They do lunges where you have to lunge and lify the weights up to your shoulders, sounds like cake right. Well cake is what got me into this mess, and now I'm dealing with it. By the time that particular activity was over, nothing but willpower was making those weights go up and down... my arms sure as hell weren't. I couldn't get my shaving cream out of the cabinet when I was done... All I kept telling myself, and she does an excellent job of this as well, was that 400 lbs people on biggest loser do this all the time (they want a million dollars, but shh) I can do it.

Day 1: over.
Results: Mild pain for about an hour, once I got to work I just had a residual "yep your alive and that was stupid" feeling in a couple of places
Weight: 200 lbs on the button.
Goal: 180 lbs (should be 170, but meh, I'll deal with that last 10 lbs)

Next up.. Day 2. If memory serves its Day 4 and 5 that were the real bitch last time...