Fitness DVD Review: Jillian Michaels' One Week Shred

So, I like this one!  No huge shock, given that I'm a long-time fan of her old 30 Day Shred video.

Like that DVD, Jillian Michaels' "One Week Shred" consists of workouts that last about 30 minutes, and it gives you a great calorie burn for those 30 minutes.

The big difference between this DVD and its predecessor is that this one is divided into two workouts instead of three, and of those two workouts, one consists of strictly cardio and the other of strictly weights.

Now, Jillian suggests that you use this video for a straight 7 days, using one workout in the morning and one in the evening. I disagree. For me, the virtue of this DVD is that you can alternate cardio and weights on alternate days.

The weights workout is a bit over 30 minutes and the cardio a bit under 30. I'm a bit out of shape right now, and so I really appreciated the fact that Jillian provided good modifications to the various exercises. Even with the modifications, I felt like I got a great workout.

In sum, this one is a win for me, with the caveat that I wouldn't use it as suggested. Work out the amount of time that works for you - a crazy 7-day attempt to lose a bunch of weight doesn't sound healthy to me. But the workouts themselves? They're pretty good stuff.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell



This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Bob Harper's Totally Ripped Core, Revisited

I first reviewed this fitness DVD here, but today I did the long (about 45 minutes) workout on Bob Harper's Totally Ripped Core, again. And I am now just the teensiest bit light-headed.

Gosh, Harper just makes it very clear that the common conception of abdominal crunches being ineffective only exists because every other instructor out there is a wuss. He has you do them fast, without rest, and at a variety of angles and oh my gosh does it hurt.

Also? His plank circuits are vicious enough that you're relieved when you finally get to do stand up and do insane-jumping-around cardio stuff. Only not for long, because the insane-jumping-around cardio stuff is vicious, too.

 But it's so well-designed. None of the pain is injury-inducing pain, just muscles-being-pushed-to-get-stronger pain.* Love this workout.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

*For me. Your mileage might vary. I don't recommend it as a beginner DVD, but if you're familiar with the general rules of good form in exercise and don't have any injuries, it's just going to be a really fun challenge.

Exercise DVD Review: Bob Harper's "Totally Ripped Core"

Bob Harper's "Totally Ripped Core" is only about an hour long, but it was enough to make me sore for days and days afterwards.

In other words: I recommend it. :)

Some of the moves included:
-slow-motion one-legged deadlifts
-"killer" plank twists that actually are killer, because on top of your normal plank twist (bringing your knee to your armpit while you hold plank), he has you then drop your hip and stick your leg out straight underneath your suspended torso. Ow . . .
-lots of other body-weighted isometrics

This DVD certainly worked my core, but it also hit the shoulders, and big muscle groups like the quads and hamstrings, so there was never any question about whether or not I was burning a ton of calories.

If you're looking for a challenge that's varied enough that it's fun too, give this one a try.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

DVD Review: Jillian Michaels Kickbox FastFix

Oh, my goodness. Just finished this - all three levels, 'cause I'm nuts - and am I ever sucking wind right now. Good GRIEF. This is an AWESOME workout - I love it!

Whew. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Right, trying to get my breath back so I can do a proper review. Let's start with:

What is it?
There are three workouts on the DVD, each about 20 minutes long. And this time she really does stick to 20 minutes, which is nice. (Jillian Michaels often advertises "20 minute workouts" that are more like half an hour.)

The first workout concentrates on the upper body, the second on the lower, and the third on abs, but really it's all just kickboxing, with about one resistance move per circuit to let you catch your breath.

There are four circuits in each level, each repeated twice, and each consisting of about five moves repeated for 30 seconds each. Absolutely no time to get bored here, which I like.

Some of the kickboxing combos are a bit complicated, and I expect to enjoy this DVD more as I do it more and get the combos memorized. Prepare for a bit of frustration the first time through as you try to get the combos down.

Cons
My martial arts training was in Tang Soo Do karate, so I prefer to perform my kicks and punches slightly differently than Michaels does. I don't like how often she has you put your foot down for balance, but I can see how that would be useful if you weren't well-trained. I also don't like that she has you do each exercise only on your dominant side (and lefties will have to switch everything she does) because I like training both sides of my body equally. But I didn't find it too hard to switch sides on the second repeat of each circuit.


This isn't a beginner workout - not at all - but that's primarily because of the speed at which the moves are performed and because of the aerobic capacity required. I think that a beginner could make good use of this DVD if she were willing to perform everything at a half-time speed. And that would still be a really good workout!

TL;DR
Great workout, AWESOME at-home cardio option, advanced, highly recommended.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Exercise DVD Review: Killer Buns and Thighs (Jillian Michaels)

This is a review of Killer Buns and Thighs, a new-ish Jillian Michaels exercise DVD.

Level 1 - Lets get the time thing out of the way first: this is advertised as being about thirty minutes long; the workout itself is 37 minutes long by my clock, and the whole first level, including intro and stretching, is a full 40. Truth in advertising? Not so much.

Now, the workout is excellent. I was feeling the promised burn by the end of the first circuit, and not just because I'd been roller-skating earlier. This first level is a nice mix of the familiar (squats and lunges) and the innovative. I really liked some of the yoga and martial-arts inspired moves, including going from a very low lunge up into Warrior 3, and a combo move that involved front kick, side kick, and back kick from karate, with a squat in between each kick. The plie squat with heel raises? Ouch. The static chair pose on one leg? Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Level 2 - I can barely begin to express the terrible, terrible, terrible things Jillian managed to think up for this level. It seems like everything in here is either isometric or plyometric or both. Let me just list a few of the terrible, terrible, terrible things:

-one-legged burpies. ONE-LEGGED BURPIES, people. This means you're squatting down on one leg, jumping back into plank on one leg, jumping back up into a squat on one leg, and jumping up into the air on. one. leg. Owwwww.
-reverse squats. You start in "goddess squat" (name from yoga), which means you're down as far as you can go, flat-footed, bottom just above the ground. Then you go up into a normal squart, i.e., your thighs are parallel to the ground. Then back down. And start over. Ow, ow, ow.
-star jumps. I just . . . so you start in a squat with your feet right next to each other, all curled up. Then you jump up, arms and legs wide, as if you were in the second half of a jumping jack, except you're way up off the ground, in mid-air. Then you gather yourself back into the starting position before you hit the ground. It's like a very extreme version of a jumping jack.

And on and on it goes. Let me say this: you certainly get your money's worth on this level.

Level 3 - Not so bad. A few repeats from her "Ripped in 30" DVD. Definitely some pain, but I liked this level - especially the one-legged deadlifts. That hurt good.


Conclusion? Great DVD. When Jillian puts her mind to it, she makes the best exercise DVDs out there.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Exercise DVD Review: "Billy Blanks: Boot Camp S.O.S." (Tae-Bo)

Another library DVD! This one was a perfect day for a fit when I had a longer time to exercise, because the DVD clocks in at just under 50 minutes.

It's funny that, although this is a much tougher workout, the instructor Billy Blanks reminds me most of is the sweet and gentle Leslie Sansone, of "Walk Away the Pounds" fame. She might be having you walk in place for 30 minutes, while Blanks has you doing kickboxing for almost an hour, but the share the same encouraging spirit. I was surprised at how often Blanks' cues included something like, "hang in there, you're doing well, take a break if you need to and go at your own pace, but then come back in and join us again, you can do it."

And that was kind of nice, especially as I didn't feel inclined to do, say, jumping back-kicks. Nothing against jumping (well, hopping, in this case) back-kicks, but I know enough about them to know that I don't want to do them in my small living room, especially when I haven't practiced karate in so long. I think this DVD is one where you need to be aware that there are some moves that might injure you if you're not careful.

But that caveat aside, I really liked "Boot Camp S.O.S." It got my heart rate up nicely and gave a good burn in the big muscles of the legs. Blanks has you run through each sequence at half-speed before turning it up full-throttle, and for all but a few of the sequences, that bit of practice was enough to let me go all out when it was time.

The back-up exercisers are hilariously into the workout. They'd be totally annoying if you were in a bad mood, but I was inclined to enjoy myself, and so I found all the yipping and high-fiving in the background funny this time around.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Movie Review: Source Code

Source Code is a bit like Die Hard crossed with Groundhog Day. In other words, it was a pleasant surprise. I queued it because, well, because I'll give most sci-fi movies a chance. What can I say? I'm a fan of the genre.

But Source Code, though it had one gaping hole that I think any sci-fi fan would scratch their head over (it's spoiler-y, so see a discussion of it below my signature, if you're interested), was a good movie, with an interesting set-up, a solid main character, and a plot that kept up both the tension and the action.

A military helicopter pilot wakes up in another man's body, and before he's even had much time to start trying to figure out his situation, the train he's a passenger on explodes and he wakes up again, this time in his own body, in some kind of a capsule/cockpit, being given instructions via a monitor from an officer he's never met. He's told his job is to find out who blew up the train, and he's sent back, again and again (hence the Groundhog Day reference) to the same eight minutes before the train's explosion, in order to try to finger the culprit.

To say much more would spoil some of the surprises, and though there's no shocking twist of the "I see dead people" variety, there are some cool plot-and-character moments that are (and here's the key) really, really well played by the actors, and it's fun to watch them happen.

The movie does include violence but no objectionable sexual content that I can recall. Recommended for viewers who like action and/or sci fi.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

SPOILER-Y OBJECTION: In the end , what happens to the consciousness of the man whose body the pilot's inhabiting? Not addressed at all. You kind of have to ignore that omission to be really satisfied with the ending.

Review: the Firm: Turbocharge Weight Loss

I got "The Firm: Turbocharge Weight Loss" out of my library, and I think this might be a case where having it for such a short time lessened my potential liking for the DVD, because it feels like a workout that would grow on me if I did it regularly. This seems like a workout DVD that would be nice to have sitting on your shelves for those days where you really only have time for just a twenty-minute workout - and not a workout that claims to be "only twenty minutes", Jillian*.

This DVD contains two workouts. One is strictly cardio, and the other incorporates some weights. Both move fast and certainly got my heart-rate up, though not so much as the circuit-training DVDs I usually use.

The instructors move quickly from exercise to exercise, and though this adds to the fun I'm-taking-a-gym-class feeling, it does mean that you don't really have time to get each sometimes-complicated move right before it's time to move onto the next one. However, though the moves are a bit involved (e.g., "do this with your legs. Okay, now add in the arms"), they're still simple enough that I think this difficulty would disappear the second or third time you did the DVD.

Verdict: Fun workout, would probably grow on you, moves a bit fast for something that still somehow doesn't raise my heart-rate quite as much as I like. Wouldn't be bad to have on the shelf for days when you didn't have much time. I'd probably rather just do a series of jumping jacks and burpies to fast music rather than spend the money, but if someone gave it to me, I'd keep it and use it.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell



*I still do love the "30 Day Shred", and use it all the time. But it is not only twenty-minutes long. Closer to thirty. And sometimes, when dinner needs to be made, thirty minutes is something I do not have.

Movie Review: Cary Fukunaga's "Jane Eyre"

This is a film I meant to see in theater, but just missed, and having watched it now on DVD, I'm even sorrier I didn't get to see it on the big screen, because it's one of the most visually stunning films I've ever watched.
Cary Fukunaga's "Jane Eyre" stars Michael Fassbender as Rochester and Mia Wasikowska as the titular Jane, and if the visuals are the best part of this movie, the acting is the second best part. Fassbender is utterly convincing as the compelling, brilliant, and sometimes cruel master of Thornfield Hall, and Wasikowska manages to play Jane as both reserved and strong, while also conveying her inexperience. And all this without making Jane the least bit boring; instead Jane comes across as intelligent and interesting - interesting precisely because of how interested she is in the world and people around her.
Despite these strengths - and they're huge strengths that I think make the movie worth a viewing despite what I'm going to say next - the movie suffers when it comes to the script. As with any adaptation, what the scriptwriters leave out matters almost more than what they leave (or add) in. While I didn't notice anything in the movie that departed greatly from Brontë's words, I noticed a lot that wasn't there.
Most especially, I missed Jane's faith. In this movie, you're left with the impression that the story is all about Jane's self-respect. And that's true as far as it goes. But it's the basis for Jane's self-respect that is missing. In the book, it's very clear that the reason Jane sees herself as a worthy match for Rochester is that she, like he, is a creature of God. It's her value as a created being who abides by God's law that bears her up in the worst of her struggles.
I found it very telling that in the scene when Rochester is pleading with Jane to stay (a scene that the actors hit out of the park, btw), Jane's impassioned speech about the purpose of law is missing:
Still indomitable was the reply: "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad - as I am now. Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth - so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane - quite insane, with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations are all I have at this hour to stand by; there I plant my foot."
It's as if the screenwriters were looking at the book with a magnifying glass and found all of the passion and self-determination, but missed the larger frame surrounding it. Which made it feel, in the end, disappointingly empty.

But still so very pretty. And there were several scenes that I feel like I understand better after watching them acted by Fassbender and Wasikowska - I think having their interpretations of the characters in my head during my next read-through will add to my enjoyment of the book. So I would still recommend it to fans of the book, with the caveat that it'll feel a little bit like you've had a lovely dessert that tasted great but left you a bit empty, rather than filling up on the glorious, full, five-course feast you might have been expecting.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

links!

Drowning doesn't look like drowning. This was a scary read, but I'm very glad I read it. If you're going to be near the pool or beach with your kids this summer, you'll be glad you read it too.

I haven't used this site, so I don't know if it's legit, but it does look interesting: it's a site like paperbackswap, except it's for kids' clothes.

bearing blog is doing a series on St. Francis de Sales Introduction to the Devout Life. Both the book and the blogs are worth reading. I really, really, really appreciate her thoughts on needing to be "cheerfully interruptible".

A great article from First Things about Hamlet. It's good both as an aid to understanding the theological problem of the play and also good as a review of the new DVD version of the work staring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. An excerpt:

Revenge, after all, was never a problem for the ancient world, as Homer’s Achilles and Seneca’s plays glaringly demonstrate, nor was suicide ever condemned as such. Consider Shakespeare’s Brutus in his Julius Caesar, who shares many of Hamlet’s traits: he is introspective, takes forever to make up his mind, and bungles the job when he finally decides to act. Yet at the end of the play, he commits suicide with no compunction whatever.

But Hamlet cannot follow that route, because Christianity forbids both suicide and revenge (Rom. 12: 17-21). Brutus might well have had only the vaguest idea of an afterlife. But not so for Hamlet, who knows full well that the Almighty has set “his canon ’gainst self-slaughter.” This idea of the afterlife “puzzles the will” and forces Hamlet to “lose the name of action.”

True enough, says Stephen Greenblatt in Hamlet in Purgatory, but Hamlet lived not just in the time of the Renaissance but also during the Reformation, which raises the issue of which version of the afterlife had been puzzling Hamlet’s will: the Protestant version, with its outright denial of purgatory, or the traditional Catholic one, which included a very elaborate heaven, hell, and purgatory, as we know from Dante.

This link from First Things talks about "dancing a short story" and has five wonderful clips from So You Think You Can Dance as examples of what they're talking about. Beware, the last one might make you cry at the end.

Um, this one might take a bit to explain. My favorite-ever entertainment writer is Linda Holmes. Though I discovered her first via her recaps of Survivor at Television Without Pity (under the pseudonym of "Miss Alli"), she now writes for NPR.  And she just received her own personal shoutout from the Man Your Man Could Smell Like. I just . . . to be frank, I'm just tickled pink on her behalf. Not that I have any right to be or anything, but as a fan of both Ms. Holmes and of Old Spice's brilliant ad campaign, I just love seeing the two come together.

Exercise DVD Reviews: Dance Off the Inches: Hip-Hop Party

This is the second in my series of exercise DVD reviews. Today we have Dance Off the Inches: Hip-Hop Party (instructor: Jennifer Gilardi).
Whew! I'm trying to write these reviews right after I do the DVD in question, so right now I am typing while slightly out of breath!
This DVD is a bit goofy, but it's a real workout. Actually, I take it back: the first two of the three routines are totally goofy; I honestly find the last one just a lot of fun.
There are three routines in this DVD and "old-school" hip-hop one (which is terribly goofy, with butterflys and booty pops and everything), a sort of "sexy" one (again, probably more goofy than sexy) and then a "world" one, that includes some fun Bollywood-style stuff.
All three will get you out of breath and sweating. If you're like me, you really wouldn't want to have anyone watch you do any but the last one, but the last one will make you had a bunch of friends dressed in saris to jump around with.
I do like that Galardi's instruction is solid and her prompts are always there when you need them. It does take a couple times through to be able to dance along in any sort of satisfying way, and there are parts I'm still not good at, but she's a good enough instructor that you can get moving pretty quickly and learn some new moves that will make you feel like you're really dancing and not just messing around. (And the cameraman helpful does NOT constantly cut away from the dancer's feet, as the cameramen of several other dance DVDs I tried did).
Bottom line: this is one of my favorite dance DVDs. In the privacy of my own home.  :) Great for getting in some very solid cardio and for making yourself laugh.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a new series: exercise DVD reviews

One of the things I've missed these past two weeks that I've been sick has been working out. Ever since early last spring, when I first discovered Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, working out has been a regular, refreshing part of my week. And after finding and using that one, I branched out and found more workouts that made me want to pick up my weights, rather than making me want to pretend I didn't own a dumbbell.
Since what really changed me from someone who worked out occasionally to someone who worked out regularly was finding the right DVD, I thought it would be useful to have an occasional feature on the blog where I reviewed exercise DVDs I've used and liked. I'm not going to review the ones I tried and disliked because, well, I've forgotten about most of them.
I often get DVDs through our library system, but when they're really good, I end up buying them. It's cheaper to have a DVD library than a gym membership!
Oh, and maybe I should offer a bit of an apologetic for DVDs as a basis for a good exercise routine. For me, they're what makes working out a realistic proposition. As I said, a gym membership is out of my budget, and not just my financial budget, but my time budget. With DVDs, I don't have any travel time. I just pop it in the player and start working out. I don't have to find a babysitter (I usually work out during my twins' naptime/big  kids' quiet time). Working out with my kids doesn't make much sense at this point, though I'm hoping when they're older we'll do lots of family hikes and bike rides and swim sessions. So DVDs really fit the bill. Affordable, quick and super-local.
When it comes to these reviews, I should give fair warning that I tend to like DVDs that  lean more towards vigorous, muscle-building activity like weights and plyometrics, just because my body responds best to that kind of activity, and also because I find that working out hard gives me more bang for my buck, i.e., less time equals more results when you use that time working really really hard. Just wanted to be clear on my bias, because I know some people like longer, more time-consuming workouts (that would be you walkers and joggers. ;) ). What works for me might not work for you, but it might still give you an idea of what's out there. After all, you might like what I like for entirely different reasons than I like it.
But I also have a fondness for fun workouts that will tempt me to go ahead and exercise on days I don't feel like it, so there'll be some dance DVDs in this series as well.
Hope you enjoy the reviews! I'll try to post at least one a week for as long as they last. I'm hoping it'll help you find something that you'll like, if you're in the market. Sticking to a workout routine really seems to be a matter not just of finding something that's good for you, but of finding something that you like enough to keep doing it. Other people's reviews got me started on this track, so I thought I'd try to pass on the favor.
Plus, it's just fun to write about something I enjoy. :)
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Exercise DVD Review: Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout

Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout.  This is my favorite DVD to do on Sunday afternoons. It's long - over an hour - and it builds as it goes, so you don't really want to do it unless you have enough time to do the whole thing.
This is not at all a fast workout, but it gets pretty strenuous by the end, as he has you hold various standing poses and, eventually, full upward bows. I would recommend doing one of his beginner DVDs first if you haven't done yoga before, but Yee is great at verbal cuing, and once you know what the poses are, you don't have to look up at the screen much to see what you need to do (which is good when you're upside down).
What I really love about this is the symmetry. You do something on the right, and then you do it on the left. Then you go back to center and put every part of you straight again. Over and over. And every move is done to completion; it's a great remedy for that frequent, harassed feeling of never getting to spend enough time on your tasks to do them thoroughly and well. Here, for an hour, you get to do things thoroughly and well, with your body. I find that very soothing.
There isn't a lot of yoga philosophy in this one, so it's easy for me to take the physical instruction and not worry about spiritual instructions I might disagree with. Whenever Yee says anything about emptying or surrendering the mind, I just use the Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus, have mercy on me") instead. I would warn that I think following the instructions to empty or surrender your mind is a very bad and dangerous idea (what, after all, might enter into that empty space you make?). Instead, invite the Lord in to the relaxed, meditative space these exercises can help produce.* But if you're comfortable taking what's good while tossing what's useless, you will find a lot of good to take with this DVD. Yee's instruction is excellent and this vigorous workout is, paradoxically, one of the most relaxing things I do all week.
Here's a video clip from the DVD:

 Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
*I know there's a lot of debate over whether Christians can do yoga, and I think it's only rational to acknowledge that it comes from an opposing religious tradition. (I also imagine some yogis would argue that I'm not really doing yoga if I reject the spiritual component.) For what it's worth, my take is that it's been a normal thing in Christian history to take what we see as good from other traditions under the belief that all good is God's good (see Aquinas using Aristotle as an example of this). I think you can take what's good in yoga - and the practitioners have certainly tapped into something true about the mind-body connection in human beings - and use it in a Christian way.

30 Day Shred

I think everyone who reads this blog knows that no one is paying me to shill for anything. (Though, y’know, if you want me to pay me to shill for something for you, drop me a line, eh?) But, I’ll still say: no one’s paying me to shill for this product.

Here’s the product: Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I love, love, love this DVD. I got it two or three months ago, and have been doing it 4-6 times a week ever since then. I just wanted to share in case anyone else is looking for something like this.

I’m not sure everyone would love it, but here’s why I do: it’s really short and it’s really hard. Short is good, because there is only so long I can keep the kids from crawling on me (and each other) while I’m working out. Hard is good, because if I’m going to invest the time (and even half an hour is a huge investment when you have four kids), I want it to really work. (It says it's 20 minutes, but it's closer to 30 with the warm-up before and stretching after.)

I was a jumper (pole vault, long jump, triple jump) in high school and somewhat into weight-lifting in college, and this reminds me of a lot of the stuff I did during those times of my life. It’s got a lot of jumping (squat jumps, jumping lunges, plank jacks) and lots of weight-lifting and some ab work. I’m finding that I can make it harder as I go by slowly upping the amount of weight I’m using. There are some of the moves (chair squat with a v-raise) that I still need to do using 5 lbs. weights, but some (press and clean) that I can do with a 15 lbs. dumbbell, and still get through all the repetitions. On most of them, I’m starting with the 15 lbs. and switching to the 5 lbs. halfway through.

But here’s the lovely thing: I have muscles again! I’m a mesomorph, and my body is happiest when it’s muscley. I never get skinny, but I can get nice and lean and defined, and I love it when I look (and feel) that way. Despite the stretched-out skin from my twin pregnancy, I can see my abs again (hi, abs!). And (truly) doing this workout regularly has made it much, much easier to lift my almost-25-lbs twin toddlers, which is a great blessing. I can get by on a bit less sleep too, and feel more cheerful (you know, once I can breathe again). It’s like my muscles say, “Just work us really hard for 20 minutes a day, and I promise you, we’ll be really nice to you for the 23 2/3 hours that are left.” Fair deal. They double that promise if I stay away from sugar. :)

I also love that Jillian is not girly. She’s great at saying actually-motivating things. Not things like, “Oh, look how well you’re doing!” Ick. No. Things like, “This is no fun at all, but if you want change, you have to actually put stress on your body to force it to change.” (I paraphrase.)

Honestly, the things she says about physical fitness always lead me to think about spiritual fitness. About how God puts stress in my life to force me to change, tests and refines me. Puts me through my paces, as it were. And how, if I commit to the process, dive into the exercise despite the pain, I get so much more out of it. (“Don’t you dare phone this in,” says Jillian, and I think about more than just the stupid, stupid, stupidly painful side-lunges-with-an-anterior-raise.) I think the discipline from this DVD is leaking into other areas of my life, and I’m all for that kind of cross-training.

Anyway, this is something that has helped me greatly. Again, if you’re the sort who would rather go run a few miles rather than touch a weight, don't buy this. Have fun running! But if you’re like me, and you like circuit-training, and might only have 20 minutes a day, I highly recommend this DVD. It’s awesome. Hurts, but works.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell