Shredding and Shedding

So in my travels in bloggyland the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing an awful lot of talk about a certain workout DVD. It’s produced by Jillian Michaels (of Biggest Loser fame) and everyone swears on their mother’s grave that it is the best little workout they’ve done in years. I have to admit as I looked into it that I was skeptical since the workout is only 20 minutes. I mean, 20 minutes? There are A LOT of things I can endure for 20 minutes. I can even handle a 20 minute RUN for Pete’s sake, and I hate running. So really, how hard could it be?

But the more I read, the more intrigued I became. One mom said that after doing the workout for 30 days, her 13 year old son walked in and said in shock, “Mom, you’ve got abs!”

Another girl about my age did the workout with her husband and he said that it was the hardest workout he had done since football camp his senior year of high school.

Since these are real people who, to my knowledge, are not being compensated in any way for their promotion of the DVD, I have no reason to believe that they are lying. So because I have a particular weakness for buying workout DVD’s, and because this one was only $8.99 on Amazon.com…I bought it.

And I did it this morning for the first time.

And I’m just gonna go ahead and hop on the bandwagon.

It felt like the longest 20 minutes of my life.

Ok that might be an exaggeration, I did after all just give birth 7 months ago and I haven’t forgotten what THAT felt like.

But seriously? It is a good workout. In Jillian’s own words, “If you want to only workout for 20 minutes a day YOU DON’T GET ANY BREAKS.” No kidding.

But even though it brought me immense pain, I have to say I really liked the workout. Jillian isn’t one of those really perky annoying instructors who says things like, “Give me more than you have!” (Umm…hello, if I don’t have it, how can I give it to you?)

But she does keep you motivated by saying things like, “I have seen 400 pound men that can do jumping jacks, so I think you can too.” Well now, there’s really no room for me to argue with that, is there?

I have to add that Lily was playing in her exersaucer during my workout and evidently I looked as ridiculous as I felt because she was laughing her bald little head off during my attempt to do the static lunges with the bicep curls.

On another, completely unrelated topic, I have noticed today that I am shedding hair like crazy. This has only happened one other time in my life and that was not long after I had Lily. I was assured by all the books I read, and my doctor and my hairstylist that this was normal postpregnancy and that it would stop. It did.

I haven’t had any more babies since then so I’m wondering what is causing it this time around.

Naturally, I checked WebMD, the website that is making hypochondriacs and medical experts out of the population at large. Here is what they told me the problem could be:

1. I have male pattern baldness OR
2. My medication is causing it

Since I am a) not a man and b) not on any medications that really was no help at all. I also learned the following bits of not-so-helpful information:

• I am probably not a Japanese man because they are less likely to develop hair loss
• If baldness should occur, I can style my hair differently to hide it
• If I develop severe hair loss, negative body image may occur (NO KIDDING?!?)
• I am in good company because chimpanzees also lose their hair sometimes.

Thank you Oh Great WebMD Physicians, I feel much better now.

So I’ll keep you posted both on the shredding and the shedding. Hopefully I will stop losing hair and start losing inches.

Oh, and by the way, I think Lily may have picked up on a move or two from watching me workout today…check it out :)

Oblique crunches anyone?

Nah, she doesn't need any crunches -- she makes being chubby look cute :)