Jillian Michaels Killer Abs - Level 1 Review.

I’ve found it. I have found it!! A core or ab workout that I do not hate. Run off and buy a lottery ticket because you might just get lucky. It’s rare that I find an ab or core workout that I like. It’s Killer Abs and it’s by Jillian Michaels. I’ve done the first level quite a few times and here is my review!

Like all Jillian DVD’s, she has two girls demonstrating the moves, one doing the advanced and another doing the modified version. In this DVD, she has Natalie and Nicola. I’m a big Natalie fan but I also like Nicola, too! I’ve learned if that the background girls are likable and fun, they make the DVD’s more fun (like Golden and Mimi in Killer Body Upper and Lower) and that is definitely the case with Killer Abs. The DVD starts off with a quick warm up of marching in place, mummy walk, alternating knee twist, and then what Jillian calls a plunge. You get in plank and you bring one foot up outside your hand and back, the other foot up and back, and then four mountain climbers. After that you’re ready to move!

Circuit one has you doing inchworm. You walk out into plank, walk your legs up, and then step or jump back and then walk your hands back up, and then stand. Next you get into a sumo squat and do an oblique crunch, touching the floor. Then crescent crunches, where you are in crescent pose and crunch forward, as if bringing your nose to your knee. You can hold on to a weight, which I hold on to an eight pound dumbbell with this one. Last move before you get your heart rate up with high knees and repeat on the opposite side is roller boat. I love roller boat for one reason: this move tells me how far I’ve come! I used to hate anything in boat pose because it was so hard. I can do it now! :D Is that a non scale victory?! 

In circuit two, you get into a static lunge with your arms out parallel to the floor, and you twist your torso to the side. Then she has you get your heart rate up with doing this little jig she calls River Dance (I live on a little river town on the banks of the Ohio River and I am always so amused by the term River Dance!) where you basically are kicking your feet out and lifting your legs up a bit. It kind of reminds me of high knees but not quite. Then she has you get into down dog and bring your knee in. I think this is a move that also is in Ripped In 30 but I can’t remember. It seemed awful familiar! Next is triangle, which I’m super familiar with now because it’s been in a ton of Jillian DVD’s. After that, get ready to get your heart rate up with jump rope drills. Four high knees, four kicking your legs out straight, keep doing that for about 30 seconds. You get to do it all over again on the opposite side. Have fun! 

All right, now it’s time to get on the mat! The next two circuits take place on the mat entirely. Circuit three you get on the floor and you do a leg raise, a star crunch, and then a reverse crunch all as one move. Then you to plank jack moguls, which I love only because I used to hate plank moves but now I can do them! Flip over onto your back and you’re circling your legs with tornadoes. Next you get into bear crawl and crawl up for steps and then rotate and crab walk back four steps. Remember when I used to hate bear walk? Last is on your back again, your torso at a 45 degree angle, and you’re twisting your torso. I held on to the eight pound dumbbell again. 

Circuit four you get on your elbows in an ab hold on your elbows, and twist your knee in and then out and then back to repeat on the other leg. By now, you’re really feeling it in your abs. Then she has you go into dancing crab, which I love to hate. By now my abs are usually screaming and crying. She gives you a tiny break with uneven table, but then she gets you back by doing this elbow planking pike move that is pure evil. She says you need a slippery surface. I use furniture sliders, and from an elbow plank, you pike up. This is 100% abs and phew, it's tough. Next is a move that Jillian calls the Carolina after her yoga teacher, where you have both legs up in the air, you stay in a static crunch, and then bring one leg up and down. Rinse, repeat, and hallelujah because it is time to cool down. The cool down seems awful quick, but I’m not complaining because usually by now I’m just done! Phew. 

I really, really, REALLY like this workout! It’s tough enough for me that I feel challenged, but fun enough that I like it more than anything else right now! I’ve been alternating between Killer Body upper and then Killer Abs Level 1 (do want to do level 2. I have watched and it looks like it’ll be awesome! Just need a bit more space, and once the weather heats up, I’ll be able to go back to the living room to work out and not freeze!) and so far I like it. I do miss working out my legs and I’m trying to decide if I want to do Killer Buns and Thighs or Killer Body Lower OR look into someone new. As much as I like doing Jillian workouts, I like broadening my horizons! Anyone have a suggestion?! 

What I love most about Killer Abs is that it has some moves that I have’t done in a while and it reminds me of where I was a year ago, some of these moves I suffered though, not even kidding! And now I can do them! I don’t always see changes in my body but to know that the moves I hated and struggled through I can now do is an amazing feeling. There were a lot of epiphanies with this DVD!

So there it is, Killer Abs level 1! I like it a lot! :D Interested in buying a copy for yourself? Check out the DVD on Amazon!

I've lost 100lbs but I've gained so much more.

Hi guys! Well, it's official: I've lost one hundred pounds! It took me close to three years but I did it! If you're new to the blog and wondering how I managed this, here's the short version: I did it without setting food inside a gym, playing a video game, doing workout DVD's created by Jillian Michaels, and by tracking what I eat with the website/app called LoseIt. I'm really proud of myself for what I've accomplished. The last three years have definitely not been easy, but it's been incredibly worth it!

So, like the title says, I've lost 100lbs, but I've gained so much more. Gained what? Well, a plethora of emotions and feelings both very positive and negative. I'm going to touch base about these things. Three years ago when I started this journey, I really didn't expect to lose weight. I was at a pretty low place as it was and I specifically remember signing up for LoseIt and thinking that it was something that would probably never work. I had tracked before and look where it got me. I didn't even believe I had lost weight until a few months later shopping for clothes and I had dropped two pants sizes. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised! Once I realized that it actually was working, it wasn't difficult to stick to it. Finding an activity that I enjoyed was key! Dance Dance Revolution is a lot of fun! As the weight continued to come off, I was proud! I felt strong, I felt beautiful. I remember when the, "Post five photos where you feel beautiful!" thing went around on Facebook, I posted a photograph of myself all sweaty after a workout talking about how working out made me feel strong and fierce and those feelings made me feel beautiful.

As time went on and I hit that plateau, I then started to feel really frustrated. Especially when that plateau seemed to last forever. And then feeling frustrated when to feeling defeated and discouraged. I had no idea what to do, what I could do to change things up. It's something I've blogged about before. Every time someone would ask me if I was still losing weight or how much I'd lost recently, I could just feel my stomach start to tie up in knots.

Adding in Jillian Michael's workouts in addition to DDR broke the plateau! I began doing Jillian workouts on January 11, starting with the 30 Day Shred, then Ripped In 30, Killer Body, and now I'm doing Yoga Inferno. I also really started really keeping an eye on what I ate. In the beginning it wasn't too bad, but now I'm pretty restrictive with my calories and very strict about getting my two workouts a day (except for Thursdays where I take a Jillian break). And that I know is pretty unhealthy. And that makes me feel like a slave and trapped. Sometimes it makes me feel unhealthy. I did not work by booty off to get to the point where I deny myself food before I get a workout in, or only allow myself to eat a salad a day. And that's the negatives to my journey with weight loss. I'm proud as heck, don't get me wrong. But I've been heavy before. Like anyone else who's been overweight, I've been teased, I've cried myself to sleep. I've wished like hell that I was anyone other than myself and the idea of taking a night off terrifies me. Will I fall off the bandwagon for one night off? Well. Probably not. It's something that's always in the back of my mind. I'm working on that. I don't think I ever completely believed that losing weight was the answer to all my problems, but I may have had an idea that it would make my life immensely better. And it has, definitely don't get me wrong. I love being able to run for distances, take my dog on long walks without getting tired. I love being able to exercise for an hour. I love shopping for clothes and not having to look in the plus size section. I went shopping for swimsuit bottoms earlier this summer and the first pair I tried on I ended up buying. That wasn't something I was able to experience three years ago. I look in the mirror and I don't just see someone I hate. I see someone who has worked really hard! So there are pros and cons to this. I've lost 100lbs, but I have gained a lot of anxiety. And also a lot of pride. 

I really don't like looking at old photos of myself because like I said, I used to hate looking in the mirror. I was just so unhappy, so ashamed of my size. I actively avoid looking at vacation photos and my heart skips a beat when I'm tagged in a Facebook photo on Thursdays (haha). But last night, I was looking at old photos to do a before and after since I've been wanting to make this post and I realized something. I've got to love that girl. Give her a lot of credit. Show her some respect. Give her a round of applause. Do not be ashamed of her. It was her, after all, who put her foot down and made the decision to change her life.

And that I think is the best thing I've gained throughout this entire journey.

I can't say that tomorrow I'll be 100% happy with myself, but I think we all have those days. But I can say that when I realized that last night, it helped me a lot.

The left photo is me exactly a month ago, trying on an old pair of overalls. The right is a picture of me at a friends house before junior prom. I was 17 years old.

Ripped In 30, Week 2 review

Week two of Ripped In 30 is finished! I’m a couple days into Week 3 now, but here’s my thoughts on week two!

Phew. It was tough and definitely more challenging than Week 1. The first circuit had static lunges with rows, a pendulum lunge, and then on the floor with pelvic thrusts and chest presses. Those I enjoyed, especially the pendulum lunge. The cardio was a total killer! Ahhh! Plank Jacks, into mountain climbers, back to plank jacks and then finish out with mountain climbers. Two minutes in plank. Oh my gosh. The first day, I thought it’d never end! By the end though, it was still challenging, but I didn’t feel like I was totally going to die! I forget the abs moves for the first circuit though. 

In circuit two, you did side lunges with a leg raise, ahold into a table top, and then crow pushups for strength. I have really short arms, and they weren’t long enough to really do an ab hold at all. I ended up towards the end of day three realizing that I could raise myself on on weights that would give my arms a little bit more length, but I had to be careful not to twist my wrist when I would transition into table. That was challenging in itself trying to figure out how to actually do the move with my super short arms! Ack. (Random fact: in high school, I used to have classmates tell me they wished they had my arms, because they were short. You should wear shorts at fingertip length, and technically, I could get by wearing a pair of panties if I were to go by fingertip length!) And those crow pushups? Damn. Those things were tough. I could hike my knee to my shoulder if I was in the advanced position, BUT I couldn’t get my arms to move in a pushup, so I did it on my knees, but then I couldn’t get my leg high enough, I didn’t think at least. Other times if felt like I did. I am really thinking of getting a mirror to watch myself to make sure I have all my form down completely. I need to work on my flexibility and my shoulders in general though. I loved the jump rope kick outs! I know Jillian mentioned they were like a Pollyanna move - I love Pollyanna. It was my favorite growing up, and the second she mentioned them, I was like, “Heck yeah. I’m the new Hayley Mills!” but then it was short lived because plank thrusts were the next move (before doing jumprope quickest again) and my poor arms were still screaming from the two minutes of plank before. The ab moves circuit two made me so happy though! Reason being, in Week 1, there was this move called hollow man, and I felt like it would never end. There is a move that goes from hollow man to where you crush up into a sitting up position. Hollow man’s killed me before, but I was able to go from that to a crushing position using the advanced version and I was so happy, I wanted to cry tears of joy. It was that move that reminded me how far I’ve come. The next move was crawling up your leg, with it extended up in the air. 

Circuit 3 was not my favorite strength by any means, but I loved it because that meant it was almost over. Haha! You went with a sumo squat with tricep extension, stork stance with a low row, and then into plank for a renegade row. The first day I rotated my hips until I heard Jillian say not to on the DVD. So I worked my butt off to never rotate my hips again! In the 30 Day Shred, she had renegade rows with a leg extension, and I wasn’t able to do the advanced, but I was able to do the advanced in this one! So that made me excited. Another way for me to realize how far I’ve come, not only from the beginning, but since starting to do Jillian DVD’s in January. Cardio was jab cross high lows, and then high knees. I was pretty familiar with these. Jillian doesn’t switch legs for the jab cross, but after the third day I did, because I noticed my left knee was a bit sore. Maybe because I was using it a bit more with this move, so I actually did switch legs. That helped a lot with my knee (although this one I hurt a couple years ago and since then, it’ll hurt on and off). Abs were sit-ups with a leg extension and then a crunch with a leg raise. 

AND THEN IT WAS OVER! WOOO! Week two was much more challenging than week one. And besides the jump rope kickouts, there really weren’t any moves that I can say that I enjoyed. Like, I’ve always been a fan of skaters, I like running man, jump rope, single leg hops. Rockstar Jumps are fun (I’m a total cardio girl). Even some strength like squat and press. But I did it and enjoyed it. I know Jillian says to take a break and do this 5-6 times a week and always make sure to take a break, but I went six days and then I moved on to Week 3, which I’m two days into. No breaks yet. I’m just worried that I’ll fall out of the routine. I’ll review week three when I finish, which should be in a few days! 

After I finish the Ripped In 30 DVD, I’m going to reward myself with a deluxe pedicure! I’ve never had a pedicure before (or a manicure) so I’m really excited about it. I thought of the idea when I first started this with my new shoes and my feet killed me afterwards. I was soaking them every night, and that’s where I got the idea of a pedicure! 

So this week, I realized how far I’ve come thanks to two different ab moves. Have you ever had that epiphany? 

How do you reward yourself after a week well done? 

Thanks for reading!