sprained my ankle :sad: :sad: so no progress for me. I guess I just have to watch my diet very carefully in the meantime...

Hope everyone is going well

Very true, although I have to confess that I'm off at the moment so I don't have to do it before work or anything, I just get up, drop hubby at work, come back, have breakfast, look on here for a while, then do the shred. In that sense it's quite a lot easier for me than you guys.

Today was day 4 of level 2. It was really hard but worth it, I got more done again than last time and really pleased that I'm almost half way through. I can really see and feel a difference, but terrified of my next weigh in in case I haven't lost any weight or inches, I don't know why I feel like that every week but I do. Anybody else?

I feel the same now supermom, I'm just having to force myself to do it, hopefully I'll feel better after a rest tomorrow

i@m wearing so much tubegrip i look like a mummy, the egyptian kind not the parent kind.. :sad:

sorry I've had a few days off due to various parties etc. I'm going to do day 16 today and I don't much care for level 2 either. I have 5 second breaks for a mouthful of water whenever I feel I need to. My upper body strength is pants so I really find the plank stuff hard, and press ups? forget about it.

I don't think the breaks you are taking mean you are not ready to move on though, I do know from my course that the challenge of doing something that is so hard is what makes you stronger, particularly in terms of exercise, so I wouldn't be worried about taking breaks and moving on is what makes your body change so that's good.

In terms of weight loss and even inch loss, this type of high impact exercise can mess with both the scales and the tape measure. If you are retaining tonnes of water due to micro-trauma in the muscles, that will increase inches as well as weight, which most people on here seem not to observe. Or even if you're retaining water for some other reason like high sodium, it's only like you gaining inches whilst you're on your period, that's just water and it doesn't only affect the scales. You might find that once you've finished the whole thing, and had a week of rest, maybe using lots of walking to burn your calories that week, or something else low impact, then you drop a load of weight and inches once your body has recovered from the shred.

That's what I'm hoping for, and even if it doesn't happen, my metabolism will be faster because of altered muscle bulk, and I will be fitter and ready to face the next challenge, which in my case is stepping up my running a gear.

Chezilegh just remember you are doing the best you can! you got up put your gym gear on and made your best effort!! I am sure there are a ton of exercises your friend cant do that someone else can, rememeber she is not the one pushing and challenging herself to achieve something amazing every day!! And...well some days are just tougher than others.

I was so tired at the end of last week I decided to have a lie in on Friday instead of getting up at my usual 5:55am to shred -then lay in bed feeling horribly guilty and wishing I had just sucked it up and gone and done it! ... Worse still, then on Saturday you would have thought I was going to the toruture champer rather than a quick 20min work out, I just did not want to do it. But I did. It was really tough, I hated every minute of it and felt like a massive failure.

I took sunday off and then came back stronger than ever yesterday and today, jumped out of bed ready to go ... nothing different, my head just seemed to be in the right place..... its so weird what a difference a day makes they say.....how true!!

the one thing I have to admit that it really getting to me is not loosing ANY WEIGHT or inches ...day 16 (6 of L2) and nothing trying to stay postive, but its strating to get me down. Have decided I really need to up my exercise, 20min a day just isnt cutting it.

WOW, thats a long post.

I hope you guys are all getting through it and staying strong, have a great Tuesday
x

Thanks for the support Chezileigh.

I did level 3 today. I liked it much better than level 2. Felt some new muscles getting worked on with this level. Had to take some breaks but I felt like I did pretty well. It wasn't so hard on my shoulders which I think made me feel better. On level 2 I didn't feel like my shoulders were getting stronger. It was just hard on them the whole time.

Luce, it is really frustrating! There is no way that this work isn't gonna pay off though. I'm curious, how much weight do you have to loose?

Oh I just wrote a big reply and deleted it. That's very annoying.

For running a fantastic resource is about.com I used one of their training programmes to help me train for a half Marathon last year, they use a run walk run system which really helps build up endurance. There some other great articles there too, and some info and training programmes for more advanced runners. Something for everyone

http://running.about.com/od/runningforbeginners/Running_for_Beginners.htm

http://running.about.com/od/getstartedwithrunning/a/quickstartrunningguide.htm

http://exercise.about.com/cs/running/a/begrunning.htm

Day 18 done.

For those of you who may not have seen my other thread, I am now doing the shred only on alternative days, with my running schedule inbetween.

I ran last night. I hadn't run since Thursday last week. That day was my first day of running 7 minutes and walking for 3, and although I found I was recovering well before the 3 minutes was over, the workout as a whole was difficult, and I was conscious that I was running at the absolute slowest pace you ever could. Last night was daunting because having not run for one week, and having found the last workout quite hard, I wasn't sure how it would go. I ran for 7, then after walking for 1 I felt fully recovered, so I decided to step it up to running for 8 and walking for 2. After walking for 2 I ran for 9 to make up for the first interval, then walked for 2 then ran for 8. So 24 minutes of running in a 30 minute workout, and I DID run faster. I'm really pleased with this and feel that the rest has helped not hindered me, and the fact that I hadn't done the shred that morning as I would have done previously, was definitely part of that. Those static lunges, plus all the plank stuff was tiring my legs out too much to run later the same day I think.

My form was definitely better doing the shred this morning too, I completely knackered myself out, but I know it's because I worked harder.

Dead pleased. At the rate I'm now going I won't get to my first day of level 3 until next Thursday! But I don't mind it taking longer.

How are you lot getting on? Supermom? Luce? Hellllllooooooo.........where are youuuuuuuuuu....

xxx
Che

Do I smell this week? Lol!

Well I didn't manage the shred today as the car is brown bread again, so I had to walk 9 miles instead, which I thought was enough peril for the one day.

Hopefully back on it tomorrow as won't need to walk nearly as far, provided the car gets fixed at some point during the day. Wish me luck!

well, I have to say I agree. It goes against everything everyone knows, however, if you put your body under that much stress it will find a way to get stronger, and the idea is that you get good results quick. However, there is a risk of injury and it's very uncomfortable so probably makes us more likely to throw in the towel. I think from a business point of view they wanted to make wild claims about the results, and they recognised they would have to stress you to deliver on those claims. I think your way is more sensible and will have slower but longer lasting results.

bummer, hope you're feeling better tomorrow x

Hi All,

I am still plugging away, just slower lately. I haven't been on much because my business takes me out of town to work events for 3 days at a time. When I'm working the events its activity from 7:00 am to 10:00 or later each day. There is no time to work out at all. Plus I'm exhaused and sore just from being on my feet that much. Eating is really challenging at these events too. It's all snack bar type food. Surprisingly though I usually loose a little weight over these work weekends. I think its all the activity.

So then on top of that I have been sick. So sick that they did an Endoscopy on me yesterday and thankfully didn't find anything wrong. I slep all day afterwards though. Today I feel better and I did day 2 of level 3. And I think I did pretty dang well since i haven't workout in a week.

Some of you have said that you don't want to do the Shred everyday. You know I have to agree. During the first two levels I have done it daily some of the time and other times I skipped days. When I do it everyday I feel like I'm not getting any stronger and have a lot of fatigue during the workout. I have noticed that when I do it every other day I rock the workout. I feel stronger and better able to finish everything with out so many breaks. I only have 8 more Shreds to go before I can say I finished it but I'll be doing mine everyother day from now on too. My husband really wants to do the couch to 5k, so I think we are going to start that on the days we don't Shred.

What do you think Chezileigh? Isn't that what you are doing now too. How is it working for you?

sorry to hear that choosing life, our thoughts are with you and we look forward to your return. xx

I ended up having a rest yesterday and got back to it today.. Lvl 2, Day 3! I felt fab today, felt really strong and pushed myself really hard and it paid off with an excellent calorie burn of 280 in 28 minutes, woo! I try to aim for 100 calories/10 minutes in my workouts. I often just miss it with the shred, so felt great to get there. Went for a light 30 minute walk straight after and my HR was still sky high so helped with that burn too!

Something I just wanted to add in case others haven't considered it, I have started shredding (and all workout DVDs actually) in front of a mirror.. finding it is really helping, I focus on my form heaps more which is great in itself, but it helps me 'get lost' a bit more which helps with boredom and ignoring my screaming muscles. So if this is possible for people I totally recommend it, even if you can pop your DVD in a laptop or something.

Awesome job on level 3 chez! You are going to be done in no time. You said you are planning on doing ripped in 30 next yeah? I actually tried level one of that last week and quite liked it. I am keen to give that one a go once I finish focusing on shred.

/End epic post!!