30 day shred

When we lived in Kentucky I was a huge fan of Jazzercise and went about 3 times every week. I love to dance and it was one of the only things that didn't feel like a workout to me. Many times I have purchased gym memberships only to go a few times. That's a lot of wasted money! They have Jazzercise where we live now, but since we're trying to save money I figured it made the most sense to just rent a fitness DVD from Netflix. From reading Weddingbee and other wedding blogs, I heard a lot of good things about Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm not really interested in losing weight, but rather maintaining and toning and the reviews said that these workouts were a good way to build lean muscle.

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The DVD contains three, 20 minute workouts. You're supposed to start at Level 1, which is the easiest, and work yourself up to Level 3, which is the most difficult. Each workout is based on Jillian's 3-2-1 strength/cardio/ab training circuit. First you start with three minutes of strength training, then move on to two minutes of cardio, and finish with one minute of ab work.

Let me tell you, after the first day I wanted to die. It may only be 20 minutes, but it's a very difficult 20 minutes! I don't think I ever worked that hard in Jazzercise and those classes were an hour long! I woke up the next morning and thought that maybe I had been run over by a truck in my sleep. So I skipped day two. But I picked back up on day three and I've just finished day five. Although it's still difficult, I'm finding that it gets just a little bit easier every day. I'm hoping to work my way up to level two on day 10 and then level three on day 20. I'll let you know my final conclusions when I'm finished with the 30 days.

What are your tips for staying fit leading up to the wedding?