Friday Fitness: Jillian Michaels Body Shred

Ok, first off - sorry this post is late. It's been a busy weekend!

And second - I am not being paid for this review, I did not get Body Shred for free (though I did buy it for a great price as an Amazon deal of the day!) - it is my experience and nothing more.

So what is Body Shred? It's a 60 day fitness program. It comes with 10 workouts (8 cardio/sculpt and 2 cardio) and a calendar to follow. Weeks 1/2 you do Workouts 1 & 2, Weeks 3/4 Workouts 3 & 4, you get the idea. Plus there are two cardio workouts to mix in there. It also comes with a "Meet the Trainers" dvd (which I never was remotely interested in so I have no idea what's on that dvd) and a bonus workout called "Opus" which from the sound of it - well, it sounds impossible, so I haven't watched that one yet either to even see what it's about. Oh, and it has a meal plan but as a Weight Watcher I just pulled out a couple of recipes and calculated the points. I didn't follow the meals at all. But if you were interested it gives you a complete 60 day calendar to follow for meals and snacks.

The workouts follow a 6 day rotation. Day 1 - chest, triceps, quads. Day 2 - back, biceps, hams/glutes. Day 3 Cardio. Repeat. Day 7 is a total rest day. The workouts all follow 30 second intervals. The idea is to do as many reps as possible with good form in the 30 seconds. They have trainers that show modified moves - from easier to the impossible (can you say 1 handed push-ups?). And if you're more advanced she encourages you to either pick up heavier weights or to do the moves as fast as you can. The cardio/sculpt workouts have 4 circuits: 3 minutes sculpt, 2 minutes cardio, and 1 minute abs. Plus a warm up and cool down, the workouts are each about 30 minutes long. The cardio workouts are also 30 second intervals. There are 3 circuits, 9 minutes each and a cool down.

Let's start with results:
After about 8 weeks (I did take one week off while I was traveling to Disney) I'm down about 5 pounds. Not too bad. Keep in mind I am currently at a healthy weight so when I started these workouts I didn't have much to lose to begin with. I've lost a few inches around my waist and thighs (I haven't had a chance to measure since the last day of the program so I'm not 100% certain on the numbers.) My husband says he sees a difference in the shape of my body (which is nice!). And I do feel stronger overall. At the beginning I couldn't do pushups on my toes at all. Now I can probably squeeze out a few. And by the second week of workout 8 I was using a 12 dumbbell for biceps curls. Not too shabby!

So, did I like it? In general, yes. The workouts were great. Challenging but able to be modified if you're not an elite trainer/athelete. Jillian Michaels was very motivating throughout - you'd think she'd be yelling at you like on The Biggest Loser but really not so much. She was more like, "Focus on your why!" or "You got this!" or "Progress not perfection!"

I would say if you're a beginner to fitness maybe wait a while before you jump into Body Shred. It was definitely geared towards people starting with some level of fitness. But if you're an intermediate to advanced exerciser I would say wait for it to be on sale on Amazon and go for it.

But I got to be honest - at the end of the day, I didn't like it as much as I like The FIRM workouts. I didn't feel sore the next day like I used to with The FIRM. So I'm looking forward to getting back into FIRM workouts next week. I got my Zip Trainer from Amazon and I'll be doing that for the next 60 days! So in a couple of months you can look for my review of the ZIP trainer system.

Until then, thanks for reading (sorry it was late!) and I'll be posting my Monday Weigh-In in just a little bit!