She's back!

Wow, five months.  I really apologize.  As you can imagine, a LOT has happened.  so, what I'm going to do is start with what I've been doing the last few days and work my way backwards.  I've got some more free time, I'll fill it working on entries for the coming days.

This week I started on Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.  You can check it out here. She's the bad ass trainer from The Biggest Loser.  She's got this DVD with 3 workouts of varying levels of difficulty.  They're each only 20 minutes long but they are TOUGH.  At least, they're tough for ME.

It's embarrassing how out of shape I am.  Despite spending a year on my feet sweating over a stove my legs and arms are saying "Hey!  What the hell is you're problem?!"  And my abs are just angry all the time.  They're angry more because I approach this thinking of all the other stuff I've done in the past and the advice I received from both trainers I've worked with personally and from commercial exercise products.

Jillian tells me that there is no modification for jumping jacks.  I have to disagree.  It hurts my kneesies and my breastseses, so I do a modified version using my arms but moving only one leg at a time.  I can't do a full, all the way down to the floor push up, so I go halfway.  On my knees, of course.  Sometimes I have to stop and just hold push up position. 

Stephana, the woman who ran the boot camp I did in the summer of 2011 told me if any of the moves hurt, tell her right away and we'd work out a modification.  Susan Powter, who I liked until she went a little off the deep end, preached modify modify modify, especially when just starting out or if you were heavier, needing to avoid injury to your knees.  Or if you had an injury that needed to be taken into account.   Kathy Smith, who was big in the 80s was a fan of doing a move perfectly instead of faking it.  One repetition, done in perfect form, would give greater results than 20 reps done without thinking.

Stephana and Susan also tell us to lift our abdominal wall, just tighten it up, throughout the day.  I do this a lot, so my abs are angry at me.  I'm eating a little better.  At least one meal a day I'm eating better and drinking a bunch of water.

And no, I don't wear my lipstick when I'm exercising because I sweat like a horse, which I will absentmindedly wipe away.  I always smear my lipstick all over my face.  I know this from experience.  I'll leave you with that picture.

I'll be filling in the last 1/3 of the year in the coming days.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  If you work with food, it's not a good idea to wear nail polish.  But, you can get beautiful results from buffing.  Get online and order an old school chamois buffer, they're much better than the blocks that seem to be everywhere.