The Shred

Vacation so far has been pretty productive. I have paid all of the bills that were due last month (better late than never, right?) and signed up for automatic bill pay (so as not to lose my rock star credit rating simply because I can never find the checkbook at the same time as I’m holding a bill in my hand). I have cleared up the insurance issues from my little hospital vacay a few months ago and have weeded the outside and cleaned the inside and straightened and organized and gotten life back in order. Additionally, I hosted my mother-in-law, had the Baby Mama and crew over for dinner, and managed a movie date with Patrick. I am, on the whole, pretty pleased with how productive I’ve been in the last three days.

One thing that is quite high on my to-do list for the month I have off is to rediscover some kind of exercise. It has been nearly impossible to get any kind of real exercise in over the last two months. Nightly walks with the dogs only count a little bit, especially when one considers the not-so-good-for-you hospital food I’ve been eating.

Getting back into an exercise routine is an arduous task at the best of times, but add a baby into the mix, and it is downright impossible to find time for a jog or a ride or a 90 minute yoga class. (Sigh. I hate that, but it’s true.) And so, after much research and worry on the subject, I broke down and bought The 30 day Shred.

The 30 day Shred, for those who haven’t been obsessing over weight loss and fitness recently, is a DVD workout program. I usually hate these. HATE these. But this one has gotten lots of good reviews, including a lot of positive results from other bloggers that I read. And it was on sale at my beloved Target. And so, here we are.

The deal (some might say “gimmick”) is that the DVD has 3 levels of work out, 1-2-3, that get consecutively more difficult. You do each level for ten days before advancing to the next one. The big bonus, especially for me and other busy moms (as opposed to those non-existent moms with tons of time on their hands) is that the workout is only 20 minutes long.

I’m not sure that the DVD replaces a trip to the gym or a long run or a good yoga practice, but for now, when I really only have 20 minutes, it’ll have to do.

I started on Friday. Level 1. I almost died. I thought, “20 minutes! That’s nothing! How hard could it be?” And I was right, except for the gross underestimation of how out of shape I am. I had worked up a sweat by the second minute and was panting at four minutes. I had to take a little breather at six minutes. I was horrified.

Day 2, Saturday, I didn’t time my meal and my Shred well enough and couldn’t even finish the stupid 20 minute workout because I got all dizzy and faint. I skipped Day 3 to entertain my mother-in-law.

So, yesterday was Day 4. MUCH improved. I don’t know if I was psyched up for a workout or if Days 1 and 2 were flukes, but I kind of rocked out Level 1 last night. I felt good. Still sweaty and panting, but good.

Today is Day 5. I’m interested to see how it goes.

The good things about this video are: only 20 minutes, increasing intensity to demand increasing stamina and fitness, and did I mention it’s only 20 minutes for quite a decent workout? Also, it’s inside at my house, so I can do this workout after Colin has gone to bed and even while Patrick is working overnight.

The bad things include: oh, God. It is a WORKOUT VIDEO for crying out loud. Also, it would be nice to leave the house once in a while for some other reason than work.

Regardless of how uncool I am because I am pinning my hopes of fitting into my cute skinny jeans on a workout video from Target, my fitness is important to me. It is important to me to be able to keep up with Colin and to set myself up to be able to run around with him as he grows up. I miss feeling comfortably in my skin and confident in my clothes. I miss feeling like I could lift a heavy object without injuring myself, like I could run if I missed the bus. My body has been creeping back to what it was like before Colin, but I’m done waiting and feel the need to take some control of the situation.

Also, I only have two pair of jeans that fit and I’m sick of them. What? That’s important too.