Oh.My.Word

I did it. I have officially begun my shred. Mind you, I would much prefer to be shredding lettuce, cheese or even bank statements...but no, I have joined the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. Consider me ready to be committed...not to the 30 day process...but to the psych ward.

Back to Ms. Michaels. A number of bloggers have begun to do this...so I thought (mistakenly), why not give it a try? Good thing I only "see" these women over the 'net...as I may have to pull a Bob Sanders and throw someone down if I saw them in person (I say this as if I could actually throw someone down right now). I do believe that I have discovered Saddam Hussein reborn in a sports bra. This woman is not very nice...she has no qualms about forcing an out of shape, overweight, middle-aged, I-work-at-a-desk, chocolate-is-my-happiness woman into a quivering pile of rubbery muscles (term used loosely) and sweaty pits. You know, there is a level 1--for beginners, right? Wrong! Level 1 had me doing numerous ...are you ready for this...push-ups!!! Who does push-ups as a beginner??? Even though I did the girly kind...that is a lot of abuse for the part of my body that normally only holds a 32 oz. soft drink. (used to be 44--down-sizing :))

I began my descent into h-e-double hockey sticks very early this morning (why does my son have to be at school at 7 on the day I decided to start?)...with optimistic enthusiasm. I enjoyed the warm-up...I was tempted to just keep replaying that part...but 20 minutes of just swinging my arms wasn't going to achieve my intended results, was it? Ok, so I liked the warm-up...at first. Then we went into jumping jacks (short term memory is bad...I think I was still in warm up). I was a little disappointed that I was not dressed appropriately for his part. Shorts-check, shirt-check, bra-check check (teehee), diaper--oops...What the heck? Why in the world was it not written on the cover that I would need to wear a Pampers Cruiser? I.have.3 (count 'em). 3.children. I should not do jumping jacks without "back-up".

Not only was I doing jumping jacks, but we soon switched to jump-roping (imaginary) and butt kicks, which is simply jogging like a perky cheerleader. Now, if I could kick my butt with my heels, why would I need to be doing this video? Never mind that…the bigger problem was doing all of these moves that required removing your feet from the padded comfort of the carpet and letting them flail about in the cold confines of thin air (who says there isn’t thin air at 2 inches above floor level). So here I am fearful of waking the family up (4:30 AM), but between my jumping and flailing (yes, I flailed), I was afraid of all of them thinking that Indiana was having another earthquake. Geesh!!!

Long story short…too late, huh? I made it through the entire thing. I did have some choice words for Jillian when we did more push-ups. But I made it nonetheless. I may not have done every push-up or jumping jack (I did 98% of them), but what the heck…I am the beginner, right? One of the best parts was doing the ab work…’cause that meant that I got to lie down on the floor…just a little snooze, ok? I finished…and after a short recovery period beneath the ceiling fan with my bottle of water…I went upstairs to take a shower. No problem. The problem began when I came back down the stairs. By then I was already starting to feel the burn…as in with each step down, I felt as if my legs were buckling a little. Oh no, this is not looking good. Looks as if I will be showering outside tomorrow…with the garden hose.