It seemed like everywhere I turned on the internet, people were talking about some kind of hardcore workout and loving it. Or at least having a love-hate relationship with it. It seemed everyone was talking about the “30 Day Shred” with Jillian Michaels.

At first I paid no mind to it because I’m not an exercise fan. Fitness, sure, but if you can actually call it exercise I lose interest. About ten years ago I was in the best shape of my life. Every muscle in my body was rock hard, I had excellent balance and flexibility, and I was super fit. I was doing Kung Fu back then, going at least 5 days out of 7, and usually it was 6 days. On most of the days I was doing two back-to-back hour-long sessions. I was seriously into my martial arts. But it worked for me because it was fun. It made me strong and I felt like I could kick someone’s ass (though I was never stupid enough to put myself in dangerous situations to test that!), so to me it wasn’t exercise. It was just something I loved that happened to have the added benefit of turning me into a well-toned machine.

Now the gym, on the other hand, was one of the lamest ways I have ever wasted money because I signed up for a year, went about five or six times, and then decided I hated it, never to return. I’m just not a gym person. MAYBE if I worked in an office building with a gym downstairs, it might work. But I just hated the whole commitment of having to go TO the gym, work out for an hour or so, and then come BACK from the gym. I didn’t feel engaged or motivated.

On top of that, I have several workout videos that have been collecting dust for YEARS. I have both Cindy Crawford workouts, one that (god is this embarrassing) Jennie Garth put out in the height of the original 90210 years (that girl had great legs!), and two yoga videos. Yeah, like I said, collecting dust.

And yet something compelled me to try the 30 Day Shred. People were so enthused about it. Everyone said that they hated Jillian with a passion and yet they loved her too because it was working. So I got it and tried it out.

Today was day 3 of 30 so I’m being cautiously optimistic – I know myself and my boredom levels (plus laziness) well enough to realize I may just shrug and say “ehh” in a few days. Working out every damn day is not necessarily appealing.

However! The workout is only 20 minutes (a bit longer with the warm-up and cool-down). Even I can’t find a good reason to be unable to find 20 minutes during the day. I can easily spend 20 minutes poking around Flickr or watching bad TV, why not this?

The good thing is that even though I woke up today with incredible muscle pain in my calves, I was actually eager to do my workout. I could barely wait for Breanna’s nap time so I could get busy shredding, pain and all. And then when I came out to find George watching a movie, I simply shrugged, grabbed my laptop, put the DVD in, and did my workout in the other room. That’s motivation.

I like the way she circuits through the 3-minute strength, 2-minute cardio, and 1-minute abs workouts through the 20 minutes. It keeps me hopping enough that I’m not bored yet, and after ten days you jump up to the next level (there are three). Right now I’m doing the modified version because damn, I am not able to keep up with the advanced moves yet, but that means that after my 30 days, I can start over and try those.

I have already uttered threats against Jillian at times when I feel like I just might want to keel over and die – they don’t “allow” breaks at all, she even says that if you must, you can stop to catch your breath for “no more than five seconds” but that’s it. It’s HARD. It’s so hard it’s unbelievable.

It’s possibly killing me, but let me tell you something – after three days I can already see results. Not massively huge results, but *I* can see them. That’s something impressive after a short time frame.

I’m not doing it to lose weight. I know that some people who know me or who have seen pictures will tell me I don’t need to lose weight but that’s not my motivation. For one thing, I have an extremely sedentary job, sitting here at my desk. I always have, but working from home means that my daily commute is, you know, down the hall. It’s easy to not move for a long time every day, unless using your fingers to type counts (it doesn’t do much for my heart rate, so I’m guessing no). Doing this workout gets me doing something fitness-oriented for 20 minutes every day. It’s also making me alert. Sure, I’m EXHAUSTED when I’m done, but my brain wakes right up.

Also, while I may have good numbers on the scale, I just want to, er, *tone* some stuff up. I told George that I am challenging myself to buy a bikini this summer. Last year I bought a two-piece suit but it’s a tankini so not much is visible in the middle. I want to buy and wear an honest-to-God bikini (maybe this is my mid-life crisis?) and the only way I will do that is if I have some ab definition. Considering the fact that after today’s workout I saw that there was a faint line at the top and sides of my abs, I can tell you right now that this works. It will kick your ass and when you do the punching routine you just might aim towards the TV so that you can pretend you’re punching Jillian RIGHT IN THE FACE, but it works.

Here’s hoping I can keep it up for the full 30 days. I have shopping to do.

I’ve never really made any fitness related resolutions. Oh, I’ve made the half-hearted “I should move more” goals, but never those really big ones that gym owners love, the ones that get people flocking on January 2nd to the nearest gym to sign up for a year-long membership. It wouldn’t do me any good anyway, I know from past experience that I really hate gyms in a major way.

The thing is, though, while I’m not looking to lose weight, I do miss the feeling of being fit. When I did kung fu so many years ago (I can’t believe it’s been ten years!), I had muscles, flexibility, balance (something I’d never had before, not even when I did ballet!), and stamina. Now I get tired so easily, I have less energy than I ever remember, and while I may be small I have no tone. None. I am a noodle.

I still had no real concrete plans to, you know, do anything about it. And I’m not completely sedentary. I do a fair amount of walking thanks to the kids and the dog, and when you have 35 steps to climb up and down each time, that helps too. But I know I need more.

So enter Laura. I went to her blog solely because I know she’s been doing Holidailies as well and thought she might have a new entry. She did indeed, and in it, she mentioned that she had signed up for the SparkPeople Boot Camp. To put it simply, the Boot Camp offers up a workout video each day for a month, starting today. They mix it up so that you aren’t always doing the same thing over and over again (which is why I have several workout tapes that are covered in dust). Today’s video incorporated a bit of kickboxing, something that I obviously can enjoy what with the roundhouse kicks and sidekicks that I used to love.

The videos are only ten minutes long and that includes the warm up and cool down time. It’s not hard to fit into my schedule no matter how busy I think I am. Aside from that, they encourage 30 minutes of any type of cardio five days per week. Since I walk the dog for 20-30 minutes once or twice a day, that’s not a problem.

So I signed up. I did it for a lot of reasons. The main ones are that I want to be fit again. I want to FEEL like I’m in shape and not be so tired all the time. I’m sick of the panic attacks but I’m still scared of medication so I’m going to try exercise as a non-medicinal approach. Also, if you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that frustrating ache in your calves that come from nerves being pushed around by a baby, especially the sciatic nerve. Well, with Breanna I waited and waited to give birth so that ache would go away. Three years later, I’m still waiting for it to go away. Hopefully some regular exercise will do something to help.

If you want to join me or if you’re already a SparkPeople member, you can see my page here. Let me know if you’re doing the boot camp challenge too, even if you join up later than the 4th of the month.

Here’s hoping I can do this – they say it’s 21 days to build a habit right? Let’s see.