30 Day Shred Tips?

I would always say start today. Don't keep put off until tomorrow, you may find you keep putting it off; and really, why not today, you are thinking about it, so just go do it.

Everyone seems to have a different way of doing things. I just did the 30DS and tried to do it consistently every day (only missing a couple because of assignments). This was part of the challenge I set myself - all in or nothing. It helped that I was doing it with my sister who also has a MFP account. We would check up on each other each week and chat about how we were finding it and stuff.

Diet wise, you have MFP to do most of the work for you. If you dont have a Heart Rate Monitor, then you can just submit the workout under 'circuit training'. This is where we then get into whether you should eat your extra calories back or not. All debate aside, the general rule everyone seems to agree on is - if you have calories left and your hungry - eat-baby-eat!

For stretching, the DVD does NOT do a proper stretch at the end at all. She only holds the stretches for a few seconds. If you do extra stretching after the DVD, holding stretchees for at least 30 seconds each and then trying to get a little lower (always with good form) and hold that for another 20-30 seconds you will be amazed at the difference it makes to your flexibility and how you hold your body. Stretching will also reduce some of the pain you will end up feeling if you havent done exercise like this before.

One last thing, if you feel really sore the next day, don't stop. This feeling is your muscles growing. It is a great feeling when you know that it is actually working your body and growing your muscles. As my old sensei would say - love that feeling!

From the comments I have read, after 3-5 days of doing it, it won't hurt at all. For me, it was a little scewed because I had gone to the gym for the first time in ages a couple days before I started and was already sore from that. But I found the pain nothing out of the norm (unlike others who say it is terrible). I think this is because I did a lot of karate when I was in primary and high school, so I was use to what it feels like when my muscles are sore.

She has a warm-up and cool-down included with the workout, but you could always stretch more when you're done. I would use whatever calorie allowance MFP gives you, and eat back most of your calories. She said on her radio show that it was meant to be done 4-5 days a week. You need to at least give yourself one rest day to give your muscles a chance to repair themselves. You're going to be doing a lot of planks, so your arms are going to be getting a heck of a workout! The only thing is, I don't know what to tell you about figuring your calorie burn if you're not using a heart rate monitor. You can enter it into the database here as circuit training, but it's going to overestimate your burn. Hopefully someone will post with a solution to that.