30 Day Shred - Day 1

I have been fairly lucky in life where I can usually eat what I want and not really exercise, but I can tell that my metabolism is starting to slow down. Apparently that is what 27 does to you. I don't necessarily have a bad diet, but I do like my desserts. I also am not a huge fan of exercising - I never had to exercise growing up because I had gymnastics classes 3-4 days a week so that kept me in shape. That needs to change since I have gained 10 pounds and have high cholesterol (family trait!). I want to make sure that I stay healthy, especially since I intend to have kids one day. I have focused on buying healthier snacks and foods so now I just have to kick my butt to work out. Today I started day 1 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Here's a little review.

I know most of you have probably heard of it, but for those that haven't...the Shred is a 20 minute exercise with 3 levels. Once you feel comfortable with the first level, you move on to the next. It is much like circuit training because you switch from strength to cardio to abs and repeat. Therefore, your heart rate stays elevated for the full 20 minutes and you get a better work out in fewer minutes. I enjoyed this work out. I wasn't as tired as I thought I would be at the end compared to how I felt at the beginning. My arms have gotten pretty weak so the push-ups and arm presses were fairly tiring for me. I liked that we stayed busy the whole 20 minutes because I felt that I was working hard. If you are really new to exercise, then you can complete the modified versions of the exercises, but I was able to do the advanced versions, except for the push-up portion. I hope to move onto level 2 sooner than later. I will update as I do more days and then move onto the next levels to let you know how things are going!