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.

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

Book Notes: "The Skinny Rules" by Bob Harper

The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin by Bob Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read diet books like I read parenting books: never looking to adopt a whole new system, just looking for a few tips for tweaking the one I already have.

And maybe the reason I liked this book is because Harper's system is very close to the one I already have. What does he advise? Eat lots of veggies, don't eat fake stuff, eat enough protein, don't eat too many calories, work out. Yep.

So is it everything you've heard before? Yes. But here that's a good thing, because the same old advice is delivered well and in a voice full of humor. (Points to Harper's ghost writer, who managed to write a book that reads like Harper talks, yet has the clarity you expect from the written word.)

What else is there to like besides the good advice and good delivery? The realism. Harper points out that healthy living in our unhealthy society is *hard*, and I, for one, thank him for admitting that. I've read way too many diet books that talk about how easy their system is, and it's never true. I much prefer Harper's "hard, but worth it" take on things.

What didn't I like? Well, I thought his advice of no carbs after lunch was unrealistic. Not bad advice (the biological reasons behind it were interesting), just impractical if you're cooking for a family.

And . . . well, really, that's about it. I liked the rest, and the recipes at the back of the book look great - the few I tried were delicious, and I look forward to trying some more. If you're looking for a primer on good eating or, like me, just a reminder, this is a good book to pick up.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

View all my reviews

Links! work, stories, weight loss, epic fantasy, & more!

Anne Kennedy waxes wonderful about work - in all its repetitive monotony - and about the "very very few things . . . . that we do one time only for complete lasting satisfaction and joy."

Lars Walker writes about the Apologetic of Story (that's part one, and part two is here) and why - except for the witness of the actual lives of the saints - it is story that most compellingly convinces us of the truth of the gospel.

Betsy Barber writes about the Tale of Two Daughters in the gospel of Mark. I liked these two parts especially:

. . . she reaches out, and touches Jesus’ clothes and immediately the flow of blood stops and she feels in her body that she is healed of the disease. . . . Touching Jesus should have made him unclean, instead the touch made the woman clean! . . .

and then in regard to Jairus' daughter:

We are told in Numbers 5 that touching dead bodies defiles a living person. But again, the holy power differential flows the other way with the Lord Jesus.

(Hi, Mom!)

(The author is my mom.)

(Okay, I'm done with parenthetical statements; onto the rest of the links.)

This article explains why Ravelry is so awesome. It's the perfect cross-referencing. It really, really is.

Over at Learning As We Go, read about a huge study from the New England Journal of Medicine and what does and does not (statistically) lead to weight maintenance.

Annnnnnd, this is why I'm in favor of continuing to protect the second amendment. A story of a family fighting back against a home invader.

A guest blog by the awesome Elizabeth Moon on the subject of epic fantasy. I found this part particularly interesting:

Transformation, in epic, is as much bigger than the “growth” the usual story protagonist manages as the epic challenge is greater than the problems of ordinary characters. Transformation goes deeper, affects more of the character. At the end, the once lumpy and awkward caterpillar in the confining chrysalis breaks out, and has that triumph…but is so changed that it’s rare for an epic hero to go home and live a quiet life–sit by the fire, grow a few vegetables, settle down with the family, bore the grandchildren with familiar stories.

Frodo couldn’t. (Sam could, and that’s particularly interesting since without Sam, Frodo wouldn’t have been successful. Tolkien was showing something very, very interesting about character in that.)

Become An Email Jedi In 7 Steps. Love it! (Using it, too.)

This dance routine made me tear up; it's just beautiful. The story line is that they're two statues who can dance at night, but that have to become still once the sun rises, and it's a bit of a love story, and it's just amazing:

I went for a run!

And this is novel enough to deserve its own blog entry apparently.

I learned:

-That I'm in shape enough to go off and run a 5K, just because I want to.

-If by "run" you mean "run most of the time, but stop and walk every five or ten minutes."

-Nonetheless, it was a run and not a walk.

-That it only takes half an hour to give myself blisters.

-That my town is full of lots of friendly people.

-That most of them are not stupid enough to go running when the sun's blazing.

-That, instead, these hours are properly to be spent sitting in the shade and eating something.

-Or, at the most, slowly walking one's dog.

-That, nonetheless, they will smile and wave at the crazy, sweaty running person.

-That I am no spring chicken.

-That my legs especially want me to know that I am No Spring Chicken.

-"You are No Spring Chicken" my legs say to me.

-That I still have a knee that complains when I run.

-That when my knee complains, it makes my hip complain.

-That running gives me just as much of an endorphin high as weight-lifting does.

-That it might be better than weight-lifting because I can stare at the trees and sky and birds while I run. No trees and birds and sky when I weight-lift.

-That I still want to weight-lift because I don't want to turn into a puny runner person with bad joints.

-That running is a great way to get alone time.

-That I have an awesome husband, who's okay with me going off for a 5k run, even though it's Father's Day.

Peace of Christ to you,

(and happy Trinity Sunday!)

Jessica Snell

update on the push-ups and pull-ups challenge

I blogged here about how my husband and I were taking on the 100 push-ups and 20 pull-ups challenges.
And since now is just about the time that such resolutions begin to fade, I thought I'd report in.
Are we still doing it? Yep.
On the pull-ups: well, I can do one now! I can almost do two. I completed Week -2 and Week -1, but the truth is, I'm not ready for Week 1 itself yet. So, instead, I am just doing my max five times in a row every other night (throwing some slow, negative pull-ups in there as well) and will keep doing that until I can do 3 pull-ups in a row, and then I'll start Week 1. I'm hoping I'll be ready for Week 1 in ten days or so.
On the push-ups: I'm on Week 4! I just did Week 4, Day one last night. Ouch, ouch, ouch. On round 5 last night I only did 18 push-ups (instead of the 25 I was supposed to hit), so I'm going to repeat Week 4, Day 1. When I can complete that, I'll go on to Week 4, Day 2. I'm hoping I can get it on the next try - I was so close!
I felt badly about not hitting that 25 max on the fifth round (it's only the second time in the whole program I haven't made it all the way through all five rounds), but then my husband counted up for me that - all said and done - I'd just done 90 push-ups in the last ten minutes. That made me feel better.

I'm excited because at the end of Week 4, whenever I get there, I get to do another test-to-exhaustion, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much I've improved since I started.

And the last question: is it worth it? Well, so far, I think it is. It surely does hurt to do that many push-ups in a row. But during the 23+ hours a day I'm not doing push-ups, I feel really good. My arms and shoulders have a lot more shape, and I feel stronger. It's doing lots of good for my tummy region too, and let me tell you, after four kids, that's a great good thing! Push-ups really are an amazing all-body exercise. And you combine them pull-ups? Wow. They're just killer.

I'm beginning to have a new goal: some day, I want to do this kind of burpees:

(Um, probably not that many though. I know my limits. I think.) (Oh, and, warning: there is a small bit of profanity at the very end of that video.)
So, have I inspired anyone else to give this a try? It really is amazing to push yourself and see change happen.
For me, doing this physical challenge, and seeing tangible results, is having a strange effect . . . it's reminding me that the same principle is true in less tangible things: in my writing, and in my devotional life, in particular. If I push myself as far as I can go, I do hit a wall. And that can feel like failure. But the truth is, by pushing myself all the way until I hit that wall, the next time I try, I can go further.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Pick Your Line and Follow Jesus

Two of the things that inspired me the most this past year weren’t lessons I learned by reading good books or by watching stories brilliantly conveyed on the silver screen. They were a couple of sentences from my brother and my sister.

They were uttered in two different settings: one on my brother’s blog, and one by my sister as we talked about the Episcopal Church. But when I put them together, I found something that’s no less than a life manifesto.

My sister, when speaking of church, and all the disaster that was going on around us, shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you don’t follow Jesus.” Simple and devastating. (My sister, btw, combines candor and compassion in one rare personality. She’ll be the first to tell you the hard truths, but also the first to help you out of any hole you’ve dug yourself into.)

My brother, on the other hand, reminded me of something my dad taught us when we were learning to do downhill mountain-biking back when we were teenagers: “pick your line and follow it; the bike can take you over more than you think it can.” (This was the kind of downhilling where you’d ride a ski-lift up to the top of a mountain in the summer, and then ride your bike, exhilaratingly fast, all the way back down, taking fire roads and singletrack in criss-cross through the forest and over the granite ridges.)

What he meant was that when you’re downhilling, you need to look where you want to go (not where you don’t) and then let the bike’s momentum do the work. You have to trust to the line you’ve picked and to the speed you’ve picked up. Your momentum will carry you over roots and rocks and bumps, if you just choose well and then let yourself go.

Both of those things resonated in my mind for a long time. They’re resonating still. Together, what I get is that I need to look where I’m going – at Jesus – and then I just need to go.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Resolutions

Happy ninth day of Christmas, folks!

I love New Year’s resolutions. They work for me. Even when I don’t completely follow them, they always make a positive impact, either by getting me further towards a goal, or by showing me what methods of reaching that goal don’t work for me.

 Like last year, I’m giving myself till Epiphany to figure out exactly what my New Year’s resolutions will be. Trying to solidify my intentions for the year during the week after Christmas never works – it’s always too full of celebrating the season! And I want to take the time to properly think and pray through my ideas for resolutions before I decide on them.

 (btw, this is a long, rambling post - I'm posting it because I've enjoyed so much the past few days looking at other folks' resolution posts, and thought others might enjoy looking at mine. But if this isn't your sort of thing, feel free to skip it.)

Last Year

I was looking at last year’s resolutions to see how I did. I did lose the weight from the twins' pregnancy, and I’ve almost finished reading all the way through the Bible (I’m about 10 days behind on the scheduled readings, so I should finish it this week). I wanted to do more regular devotions with the kids, and that happened because we started homeschooling, and Bible reading and Bible verse memorization is part of the curriculum (funny how that one worked out – not how I expected, but it’s good!). 

 At the beginning of last year, I also wanted to make some housekeeping resolutions, but couldn’t figure out a good way to do it, and so didn’t make any. But that worked itself out too, because we started doing our Saturday morning chores, and though the house isn’t perfect, it’s much more reliably clean that it was before.

 I did not end up praying the hours. I’m thinking about trying again, but am not certain that’s how I want to do devotions.

 Doing Devotions vs. Being Devoted

“Do devotions” by the way, is a phrase that’s been rolling around in my mind for about a month. That’s how it was phrased in the churches of my childhood (“make sure you do your daily devotions”), and I’ve been thinking about rephrasing it as “be devoted”. That's what's really meant, I think. Why, after all, would a Christian regularly pray and read the Bible? Because he is devoted to his Lord, and the prayer and listening (reading the Bible is, after all, the practice of listening to the Lord) come out of that devotion. What I think of as “doing my devotions” is really the fruit of being devoted.

The fruit and the food, actually, because praying and listening also increase devotion, I think, if done sincerely. Because after we pray and listen, we then obey, and that makes us more wholly devoted, makes more of our selves available to be  devoted.

The thing is, though praying the hours is still attractive (both the idea of praying the Anglican rosary, and the idea of doing morning and evening prayer), I’m not sure it’s what I’m supposed to resolve this year.

Devotionally, I think what’s going to be more important for me is to memorize Scripture and to journal about what I’m memorizing. However, I would like to more often have times in my life where I do read Morning Prayer, do sing the hymns, do pray the Anglican rosary. I want, when I am remembering my devotedness (how’s that for rephrasing?), to remember also those good, old, tried-and-true methods for expressing it. Too often, I think, “I love Jesus,” without thinking of sitting and taking the time to praise Him or to meditate on His mercies. And those devotional practices of prayer and singing would be profitable to me, I think, and honoring to Him.

(Also reverberating through my head as I think of these things is a line from a song I learned in childhood: “read your Bible/pray everyday/and you’ll grow, grow, grow”. True that!)

 Writing

Then, there is writing . . . last year this time, Lucy and Anna (our twins) were still waking at night to nurse (a lot!) and I planned on waking early to write once they were sleeping through the night. I’ve done this with limited success for the past six months: I’ve managed to get an average of about 3-4 solid hours a week in on the book, and right now it’s standing at about 35,000 words (out of a likely 75,000). Given the year we’ve had, I’m pretty pleased with this.  But in the new year, I’d like to regularly be doing an hour every weekday morning.

And the truth is, I want it to be more like ten. I want writing to be what I think of doing in the evenings, what I think of doing when the twins are napping. I want it to become something I turn to easily and often, my default behavior. And there would be the dedicated hours of writing in the morning, those would be strictly for the novel, but at other times I want to be journaling, I want to be taking down those small ideas here or there of a funny conversation or a poignant moment, making a file of them for reference for later stories, I want to be thinking in type about what I’ve been reading, I just want to be always writing, writing, writing, so that I get good at it, so that I gain a facility at it, greater than the one I already have.

 But, the resolution? An hour a day on weekdays, working on the novel. Yes? No? This one I need to think about a bit more, because I don’t feel happy about it yet.

 Spanish

Then, there is improving my Spanish. Learning Spanish, I’m not sure is a New Year’s resolution. I’ve been thinking of it more as something I want to be a lot better at by the time I’m thirty (about eleven months from now!). I’m listening to more Spanish music and learning the lyrics, and working on practicing it more with the children. I’ve gotten a couple of Spanish novels out of the library, to read with dictionary in hand, and I’m still researching to find a curriculum for myself that will let me systematically solidify what I know and learn what I don’t. I would like to be fluent in a few years - it’s scary to admit that, because it’s such a huge goal, but at least I’m not starting from scratch (I passed the AP test in high school, and I’m finding I retained more than I had the right to hope I did!).  And I really, really want my children to be bilingual. My sister (who is bilingual, and teaches Spanish for a living) has been a huge help in getting us started, and I want to go further this year, building on the foundation we already have.

 Housekeeping

Then, there is housekeeping . . . here, I would like to be more efficient? I would like to clear and declutter . . . soon, we’ll be able to get rid of all the baby stuff. Soon, we’ll be able to have more things lower, because hopefully this year the twins will learn what not to touch or they will be old enough to play with the things they couldn’t before. So, this year might be a year of changing things around in this house so that it’s a house for kids and not a house for babies. Not sure if this is resolution-material, or just something to be aware of and work on . . . .

 Parenting

And the kids . . . I half-listened to a conversation my mom was having with her best friend, talking about how she used to, every six months, think and pray over each of us kids, and think about what we needed and how we needed to grow . . . or something like that. I didn’t actually hear all of the conversation, but it made me curious, and I’d like to ask her about this and see if it’s something I want to do with the kids. Intentional parenting. Not that we aren’t already being intentional in our parenting – we are – but this sounded like it might be a good tool to be moreso. So, I’d like to ask her about this next time I see her.

I also want to think about making a resolution to become less passionate when caring for my children. "Passionless" in the way the Christian fathers meant it: in being controlled by the Holy Spirit and not by my own wants and desires. It's amazing how little toddler tempers can trigger my own temper! Anne Kennedy wrote recently about doing things slooooowly with her kids, and that's close to what I'm thinking about . . . parenting with less haste and pride and anger, and with more love and reason and kindness. This is something I want to deliberately work on.

Homeschooling 

And homeschooling . . . not sure this is resolution-material either, but I do want to think about what I’m doing for this second semester – how to make it better, how to get to things we haven’t managed to get to yet, at least not in the depth I’d like to get to them (esp. science and music and the church year), how to do some things better (especially Spanish).

 Fitness

I'm pretty happy with my current routine (though I've dropped it for the past week while celebrating Christmas - adding a little vacation to my holiday!). I might want to make some specific resolutions just to add some spice to things. But doing the 30 Day Shred regularly, and adding in other fun DVD workouts when I get the chance, + more or less following the No S Diet seems to be pretty sustainable. I'm also doing fun stuff like the 100 push-up and 20 pull-up challenges. But I might want to specifically resolve to a certain number of workouts just to hold myself accountable . . . gonna think more about this one too!

Btw, something cool? I’m starting to dream in Spanish sometimes.

So . . . I'll update when I figure out what I'm doing on all these things. But I have to admit: a great deal of the fun is in the pondering.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

p.s. For more on why I think resolutions are cool, see last year's post called A Sinner's New Year.

100 push-ups, 20 chin-ups, and a hand-stand just for fun

My husband and I are contemplating (contemplating! I'm not quite sold yet, though I'm close) taking on a couple of fitness challenges. If I were a running type, this would be going for my first half-marathon. But I'm not a running type, I'm a strength-training type, and so here's what's piqued my interest:

-One Hundred Push-ups: it's a six-week training program that gradually builds you up to the point where you can do 100 push-ups. My reason for wanting to try it: being able to do 100 push-ups would be hecka cool (as my Texan friend Linds would say). And I'm not getting younger, so if I'm ever going to do it, now would be the time. Downside? Push-ups stinkin' hurt. But I tried their initial test, to see what level I'd be starting at, and I actually managed to do 20 regulation push-ups. I was kind of surprised - guess the Shred really works. But I have the sinking feeling that doing 100 push-ups wouldn't just be five times as much; it feels like it would be 20x20x20x20x20 times as much. 

I argued with Adam that surely there's a set point of push-ups beyond which your body just will not go, and he argued back that he was pretty sure that set point was well beyond 100, because eventually, it'd just be like walking: once you've got the muscle to do it, it's really more aerobic than anaerobic. I'm not sure it's exactly the same, but it's not a bad point. 

-The Twenty Pull-ups Challenge: I have to admit, this one intimidates me way more than the push-up challenge. I can do 20 push-ups; I'm not sure I can do even one pull-up.

Okay, I just went and checked. No, I can not. I can almost do one. I can do it if I jump, but if I hang, I can get my forehead level with the bar, but not my chin.

See, this makes it much more intimidating.

Happily, the challenge has an option at starting at Week -1, or even Week -2, rather than jumping in at Week 1. In Week -2, you start with negative pull-ups, i.e., climbing up to the top and then slowly lowering yourself down.

Would it work? I don't know. But honestly, even being about to do 5 pull-ups would be pretty cool.

(btw, we do not actually have a pull-up bar at our house, however, our children's trapeze swing, which is hung underneath our stairs, can be adjusted up to pull-up height, and I think that'll do as a substitute. It's what I just tested myself on anyways.)

-The Handstand Challenge - this one is entirely made up by my husband. Adam just thinks it would be fun to learn how to do handstands. There once was a time when I could do a handstand for, oh, 15 seconds at a time, and I think it'd be cool to get at least that good at it again. Adam's goal is to be able to hold a handstand for at least 30 seconds.

I am not the most coordinated person in the world, so I think this one might be the challenge that plays most to my weak points. But spotting each other doing handstands in the living room makes for a good date night, right? right? At least it costs less than two tickets to the movies and a couple of hours of baby-sitting. :D

And knowing us, it'll probably make us laugh a lot more.

So . . . do any of those look like fun to anyone else? Or do you have a fitness goal you're working towards, or a different challenge you're taking on?

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Links: Christ the King, egalitarianism, weight-lifting and more!

Amy of Splendor in the Ordinary has a great post up about Christ the King Sunday (my favorite Sunday of the church year!), with ideas for how to celebrate it as a family. (Okay, this is a little late - but hey! ideas for next year!)

Allen Yeh's Biblical defense of egalitarianism is well-worth reading. He explains what he's trying to do at the start:

I am not trying to prove egalitarianism without doubt from Scripture. I think it is impossible to prove either egalitarianism or complementarianism without doubt from Scripture, which is why it is considered one of these indeterminate nonessential things, like paedobaptism vs. credobaptism, premill vs. amill vs. postmill, and Calvinism vs. Arminianism. What I hope to do is show that a case can be made from Scripture about egalitarianism. I’m afraid that some complementarians often hold the Scriptural “high ground” as if somehow egalitarianism is a non-Biblical position. All I want to do is show that it is not as clear-cut as all that; that a case can be made for egalitarianism; and hopefully we can be more charitable toward each other recognizing that good evangelicals can hold various interpretations on such disputed nonessential, non-heretical matters.

I liked this interview with fitness trainer, Mike Heatlie. He advocates women lifting heavy weights (yay!) and points out that you're not going to see a six-pack unless you have a low body-fat percentage (somehow, all those ab-machine people forget to point that out). I think cardio is more useful than he seems to - but it's useful for general health, and he's right that resistance is the way to go to lose fat (though all cardio is a bit resistance and all resistance is a bit cardio). And I like tricep kickbacks, but I know they're not as efficient as squats :)

Here's a new webcomic, and aside from the fact that a quick glance could fool you into thinking the characters are Starbucks coffee cups, I don't see anything to dislike about it.

And speaking of webcomics, this one my husband forwarded me (and that I've seen other places too) about natural parenting is hilarious. (Reminds me of the old joke: what do you call people who practice NFP? Parents.)

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell