Transcending Limitations

happyhealthyhopeful:

And contrary to popular belief- it’s not instant. It’s not something easily achieved. But it is so, so worth it. So just start, today.

It’s so wonderful to have a computer again! Thank goodness for refurbished; all the technology for half the price. Unfortunately all of my much older equipment isn’t compatible with the new version of Windows. I guess I’ll just be without a scanner and printer for a while. I did, however, buy a bottle of the raspberry ketones I previously mentioned. I’ve been using them for about a week now and haven’t seen any changes. It may take some time to tell if it works so I’ll keep everyone updated.

I’m really proud of myself for sticking to my workouts (I’ve only missed a couple of days) and eating plan without a support system. A couple slips here and there but at least it wasn’t a meltdown. The best part is that I can honestly see results in the mirror. Jillian’s drill instructor approach just seems to work well for me. The only possible thing that I can complain about is the dreaded PCOS belly isn’t going down like I was hoping. It’s moving at a snails pace compared to everything around it, thus making me look like a very pregnant lady. To be fair everything around it was basically just chunky looking in comparison. I just keep telling myself that it will go down eventually. It’ll just take diligence and a lot of patience.

Sorry about missing the 5th week wrap up, lack of technology and all, but I do have my summery of week 7 on Jillian’s Body Revolution. As you can see I’m still extremely doughy in the middle but it’s finally noticeably slimmer. I can look in a mirror and see a dip at my waist. Up until this point my biggest motivator has been my measurements. My weight has been roller coasting like crazy since the beginning; up 8 pounds, down 5, then back up 4. This is why you have to remember to measure before you begin a program. Honestly, there isn’t much that most of us are looking forward to more then seeing our weight start with the number 1 but your measurements will be a better indicator of your progress.

Personally I think this program would be amazing for people who only had to lose maybe 10-30 pounds or just wanted to tone up. My reasoning is, the larger you are the more you have to lose before you can see your progress. Where as if you’re smaller to begin with you get the benefit of actually seeing the changes early on and are more likely to stay motivated. This program is extremely challenging and without something to help keep you focused I can see a lot of people quitting before getting to this point.

So far my only big complaint with the program is that Jillian doesn’t offer enough low impact modifications after the first 4 weeks. She constantly shows how to make things more challenging and encourages the higher impact versions, but there’s little for people who have damaged joints. There were days I had to pull back on a few of the moves or completely substitute in an alternative from either the Hollywood Trainer or Turbo Fire.

Even though I have to sub in my own modifications Jillian’s workouts are still my favorites. They are the perfect combination of strength training and cardio for me. I’m guaranteed to be sweating by the end and I actually feel like I had a complete workout in less then 40 minutes. I might whine about the scale but the fact is I haven’t seen this much progress in a long time. It makes these grueling workouts worth while.