Day 3 of Shreddin' - In The Bag

Happy Friday everybody!

Well, I'm happy to report that I have survived Day 3 of the Shred. But I will admit - today was HARD.
I found myself having less breather-breaks today, but I did end up modifying my moves quite a bit - especially those movements that require demands on the knee, such as the jumping jacks, jump rope, and butt kicks. My knees are not ready for any kind of pounding just yet and they are letting me know it.
C-R-E-A-K....C-R-A-C-K!! (ouch!)


So, to avoid injury and ensure I will be able to continue with the workouts, I do the regular arm motions for the jumping jacks while doing a deep march (knees up high) as opposed to the scissor jump. And for the jump rope, I sort of do a side to side step while doing the correct arm motions. For the butt kicks, to ease the impact, I just side-step and pull my leg back to my butt as quickly as I can - it is sort of less like running, but more like a lunge with one leg, and then kick my opposite foot back to my butt. It works - I am definitely feeling it! While it may not be the exact prescribed moves by Jillian, I don't think I am "phoning it in" either, to use her phraseology. If the sweat pouring off of my face at the end of each workout means anything at all - my heart rate is up and I am not slacking off. According to Jillian, I should notice a big change in my endurance on Day 5, 6 and 7. We shall see!

Today is also weigh day - and while there is no great change on the poundage front, I am not fretting. I'm only down a quarter of a pound, but I think there are a few factors that could be affecting the weigh in today. First of all, I weighed myself before, well, you know, I hadn't had a chance to, well, uh - you know (TMI?? sorry!). And I did drink a TON of water yesterday (starting to get back on the hydration bandwagon) and I am two seconds from "The Curse" arriving for the week. Not to mention my dinner last night involved noodles. It was pretty carb-rich and not in a good way - plus I had a glass of wine to boot. In other words, could I sabotage my weigh in a little more? Hardly! SO - I know what I need to do - and I will get there. I am confident next Friday I am going to have a much better report.

I will say that this working out thing has me seeing things a little clearer - even in three days time. I am aware I have but only one life to live (insert soap opera music here) and I'm not going to spend the rest of it feeling like a prisoner in my own body. And that is how I feel sometimes - almost like my brain belongs to someone else and this body somehow mistakenly was given to me and now I have to figure out how to live with it - but I don't really want to. It has made me bitter at times, but I know that getting angry really isn't the answer either. Sweating is. Getting back to whole, unprocessed foods is. Reminding myself that I CAN and WILL do this is.

It literally is one step, one choice at a time. I'm happy to be making the choice to exercise, and I do think it will be easier now to follow suit with the eating. Once I start seeing the results, I know I will be hooked.