Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred: Day One

I first encountered Jillian Michaels on Level Two of my Biggest Loser Cardio Max DVD. I liked her exercises of choice, and they always kick my butt. Lots of butt kicks involved, so take that last sentence quite literally... I've never owned one of her solo DVDs, and so I bought 30 Day Shred because I liked her segments in my Biggest Loser DVDs and I saw nothing but rave reviews for the 30 Day Shred.

I'm heading to Florida in 30 days, so hopefully... the boast on the front of the DVD comes true: "Lose up to 20 pounds in 30 days!" I'd love to be twenty pounds thinner, and more than halfway to this year's weight loss goal by mid-August. I'd be going on vacation slimmer and trimmer, and also back to school in a smaller, healthier, and more fit body. That will be excellent and I am thrilled with the DVD so far.

There are three workouts on the DVD, denoted by level of intensity. Today was my first day with the DVD, so naturally, I started with Level One. Each level is a twenty minute workout which includes a two minute warm-up, three sets of 3-2-1 Strength, then Cardio, then Ab circuits, and then a two minute cool-down.

The circuits are hard enough to be challenging, and I love that you move on to the next exercise before getting tired of the one you're doing, but then revisit that exercise before the circuit is complete. Let me explain: each circuit consists of three minutes of Strength exercises, two minutes of Cardio exercises, and one minute of Ab exercises. Jillian keeps you motivated and moving through the exercises so you never feel like you're doing too many squats or not enough. It's just the right amount, and by moving from exercise to exercise fluidly and quickly, I never got bored.

(You may think it's hard to get bored in only twenty minutes, but trust me, I've done enough workout DVDs that you very well can get bored with an exercise in that amount of time.)

I like Jillian's attitude, she's hard on you, but as she repeats throughout the DVD, she's promising results that would take you hours and hours in the gym pounding a treadmill, in twenty minutes a day. She doesn't allow you to take breaks, because she wants to get the most out of you in the twenty minutes she has you there to work out. I like that! I like that I'm kept intensely exercising for the whole twenty minutes, and I'm not feeling worn or too tired because she keeps me moving so quickly from exercise to exercise. At one point, during a set of jumping jacks, she says that there are no modifiers for the jumping jacks because she gets 400 pound people to do jumping jacks. That made my arms and legs fly even faster because I weigh half of that and am only twenty-two years old, so I knew I could do it, and it pushed me to stop half-assing the jumping jacks as my lazy body was trying to do, and push harder!

I'm very excited about this DVD, I think it will kick start my exercising back into high gear and will also push me past my weight loss plateau to lose my next twenty pounds!