My 30 Day Shred, day 4.

Really, all I have to say about day 4, is that I deserve this Shrek sized chai tea soy latte, thankyouverymuch.

I stepped it up a notch, to level 2 of Jillian's program. What, in the heck, was I thinking? My original plan was to stay on level 1 for the first 10 days. But today as I regained control of over 75% of my leg muscles, I wondered to myself "how hard could it be?". I rolled out my pink mat, laced up my Adidas, and while the baby went back and forth in his swing, I pressed play on the remote. Because I took on this challenge while both kids were awake, I had to stop a few times for "get out of mommy's workout space or else" threats, and a few times to replace binkys into crying mouths.

It started out like the last one, same arm stretching, jumping jacks... pffft, I got this. Just as I think the push ups are coming, she throws an even deadlier move at me, a walking push up? Sounds easy enough. I mean, walking is easy, right? Within seconds, I'm out of breath and laughing out loud at just how bad at this I am. Go from a standing position, bend over, touch your hands to the floor, use your upper body strength to bring yourself to a push up position (without letting your knees touch the ground ever), do a push up (or just hold it, if you lack upper arm strength like me), and then walk it back up. And then do it again. And again. And again. And... Jillian please! I'm embarrassed to say, I could not keep up, and didn't do all of them. I heard the baby crying for his binky and immediately was like "oh, yes Charlie? Here comes Mommy!!" in hopes of covering up my failure. I did dive right back into the routine though, doing whatever awful body slashing move she threw at me. I couldn't do the last minute of abs, because again, I just don't have that much upper arm strength. Instead, I got down on the mat, and did the bicycle abs from level 1. All in all, I felt like level 2 challenged me way more, and left me feeling much more fulfilled in the "I just got my butt kicked!" department. I think I'm going to challenge myself to it again tomorrow, with a few alterations. I have no shame in admitting that some things I just cannot do, and probably won't be able to do even when I'm finished with the 30 day set. So in place of those moves, I'll use some of the moves from level 1.

When Christopher came home for lunch I asked him not to look at me. My hair was sweat/greased into place with the aid of way too many bobby pins, and I was still walking around in my stretched out sweat pants and double bra ensemble. Not so sexy. I ran up and took a shower while he read Eleanore her nap time story (he sang it to her actually, it was really cute), and now that I'm clean I feel 100x better. I'd be lying if I said I haven't been stepping on the scale daily. The numbers haven't really budged, but my measurements have. I'm not going to do an "official" weigh in until my mid point, but, I can see changes, and it feels painfully great.