"Making the cut" in March

[Tri Girl]

great job, Susan!! Sounds like it's really paying off!!! I'm impressed (and what the heck was wrong with your neighbor- that would have messed up my cycling mojo for sure).

Keep it up- I like reading about your progress!

[Susan]

Hey Tri Girl thank you for commenting, I felt so lonely in this thread

It gets warmer outside... on the weekend, I didn't do the scheduled workout but went for a long bike ride with dh and 2 of his friends.
A little less than a year ago, weighting about 20 or 30 pounds more, these guys always dropped me on that 1 hour ascent and I had a hard time going up there. This time I dropped them all and had to wait for them several times.
DH said to me "you know, we guys use those small flats to recover - do you want to demotivate us by going even faster there?"... I told him "I do this, too *evilgrin*"

They paid me back on the downhill part, I'm such a wimp going downhill, that I even chicken out of the chicken ways...

Nevertheless it felt so good having that direct comparison to last year... I feel like I have become 10 years younger in this year
It seemed to me that I can push myself so much harder now, and I think that workout has helped me a lot to do this.

[tulip]

This is a great progress report, Susan. I'm glad you are finding the program useful and effective. You might change my mind about Jillian Michaels yet!

Sorry about your neighbors. Sounds slightly dangerous, actually. I hope you don't run into them again.

[kjay]

You've got me intrigued, too. It's always great to hear from someone who has seen significant results in a relatively short time. I've been reading some of the book reviews on Amazon and there are many success stories. I'm 67 years old, so am not sure I should "go all out" with such exercises, but the book sounds very thorough and detailed about supplements and other subjects, too. I'm getting ready (spinning and weights) for a bike trip in Mallorca so any tips I can pick up from this book also should help. Thanks for your updates here. I really enjoy reading them.

[Susan]

Tulip, I think my neighbour hides away... gladly haven't met him since. His wife apologized when we met some days after.

Kjay, the book has a meal plan and a supplement part too, that's true. There is a meal plan including recipes for "slow", "balanced" and "fast" oxidizers, which is questionable... but the meals are quite good suggestions, if you need some ideas for cooking. Some of the suggested foods or brands I can't get where I live. I have read her book "Master your metabolism" too and the eating habits she suggests there seem even more reasonable (and also doable in regards of things I can buy) to me. Still, if you stick to the rules of eating a healthy balanced diet with a lot of vegetables, and try to go organic where possible, I guess there's nothing very new to her suggestions.

Personally I don't follow her meal plan. Since I changed my diet to lose weight I don't have much that would have to be changed really. I try to eat the right things and don't care about diets or meal plans. Out of curiosity I tried to track my calories on Livestrong for 2 weeks. By eating my normal diet when I am hungry I hit the calorie goal (for losing 1 pound per week) pretty much exactly (but I don't lose 1 pound per week - it's more 1 pound in 2 weeks. I still take it). So I stopped tracking, it felt like a fix to sth that's not broken. I feared to get obsessed by those numbers

I don't care much for supplements to be honest. I take a Multivitamin if I don't forget about it... It's not that I think that those are a bad idea altogether, but from my understanding, you would have to see a doctor to find out what deficiencies you have before starting to supplement something you may not need? I would fear to throw something out of balance by supplementing by my own.

[jordanpattern]

I haven't done any Jillian Michaels stuff, but I'm finishing up P90X right now, and I have LOVED it. I've always been small and skinny and weak, and for the first time in my life, I feel strong! I can do 25 "man style" push ups! That's a 2500% increase!

So, count me in as an at-home dvd workout devotee.

[Susan]

I should be through the program by now, but the last 2 weeks we had nice spring weather that almost felt like an early summer and of course I had to go and ride my bike almost every day and was too tired to do the workouts after the rides.
Now I have still some days "Making the cut" left and I guess I won't get the same results as doing the whole 30-day program at a stretch.

(But I had a lot of bike-fun )

[redrhodie]

Good job! You get extra points for being flexible. You never know when the next good ride day will be. I bet your results will still be good. It's not like you took time off the program to eat bonbons.

[Susan]

Finally I am through the "30 day" program, but obviously it really took me 1 and a half month.

I still don't have a sixpack but I can see a lot of definition in my muscles that wasn't there before, I can see my leg, shoulder an arm muscles and even some definition on my belly which really is an achievement for me because I tend to look flabby despite doing a lot of sport.
I haven't weighted myself in yet (have to visit my parents to use their scale first ) but I don't think I managed to lose those last 10 pounds I wanted to.

The exercises definitely made me stronger, I can do quite a lot of pushups or burpees or other nasty stuff without much effort and I can even manage to do some pullups with a little cheating.
The intervals that last 1 or 2 minutes (for example step plyos or mountain climbers) were unbearable in the beginning and I can deal with them now.
I also notice that I can achieve better form in some exercises that I had to do with a little cheating in the beginning (like lunges/chair pose/one legged squats).
I really notice this difference in strength while climbing on my bike.

Generally I enjoy biking and running more that this kind of circle/weight-training, but still I decided to continue to do those exercises on a regular basis, because I really can see results that I don't get from my usual workouts.
It was also perfectly doable at home after changing or swapping some of the exercises - so its a good alternative if the weather is bad or I don't feel like going outside in the evening.

So I'm quite happy with the outcome of this program so far!

[Susan]

A small update: As expected, I didn't lose those 10 pounds, but I lost 6 and I'll take it