My friend Cheryl is back to share with us her experience using Phase 2 of the new Jillian Michael's Body Revolution program....
Hi
everyone! I’m back for Part 2 of my review of Jillian Michael's Body
Revolution program. I just finished Phase 2. There’s only one more phase
left. I admit, I’m kind of scared.
I
started off Phase 2 assuming it was going to be a step harder than the
last set of DVDs. I popped in the DVD and OMG, I thought I was going to
die. Workout 5 was killer! New moves, harder things, and Jillian pushes
you. Yikes! My first thought was, “so is this what people are scared
about when they hear the name Jillian Michaels, because now I
understand. Do I ever
understand.” After doing Workout 5, I have to admit, I was scared of
the Cardio. When I popped it in, I realized the moves are things we’ve
been doing. For me, I felt it was about as hard as the first Cardio DVD.
The circuits are now 30 seconds (versus the previous minute), so when
my muscles burn, oh thankfully, we move onto something else. But it
moves fast and it still burns. Repeating these circuits are harder for
me, because you do so much, I’m getting bored again. Surprisingly,
Workout 6 wasn’t as bad. In fact, I felt it was a lot easier.
Week
7 and 8 DVDs aren’t too bad. Week 8 is easier than 7 in the sense that I
don’t burn as many calories and don’t feel like I’m going to die. It’s
the same cardio and by the end of week 7, I was actually completing the
entire thing.
This
phase focuses a lot on super-sets. A super-set is when you work on, say,
shoulders and back and when you go to the next move, you’re working on,
yup, shoulders and back. So you feel a burn and it burns and burns
and……well, you get the point.
The
one (mentally) difficult thing for me is that because each DVD set gets
progressively harder, I couldn’t tell if my endurance level was getting
better or not. Let’s just say, it is! I wasn’t able to run with my dog
for more than a few seconds before getting winded. Now, I can go for
minutes. I didn’t even realize it until someone pointed it out to me.
Cardio is obviously working. Yay!
At 7.5 weeks in, I got my first compliment from someone who noticed I have lost weight. It felt sooooo good to hear it too.
I
am still loving this program. The only negative item I’d like to point
out is that the cool-downs are way too short for me. There are many
times I have to stretch out areas that we used, but she didn’t touch on
in the cool-down. And since I like working out now for the energy I get
all day, a stretching (or yoga) DVD would have been a nice touch.
At
the end of Phase 2, I lost 2 pounds (total of 8.8lbs since day 1) and
4.75 inches (for a total of 16.25 inches since day 1). Here’s the change
in my inches so you can see where I’ve lost it.
|
Phase 1
|
Phase 2
|
| Upper Chest |
0
|
-1.5
|
| Bust |
-1.00
|
0
|
| Midriff |
-1.50
|
-0.5
|
| Upper Arm (R) |
-0.25
|
-0.5
|
| Waist |
-1.75
|
-1.00
|
| Upper Hips |
-1.75
|
-1.25
|
| Lower Hips |
-1.75
|
-0.5
|
| Upper Thigh (R) |
0
|
-0.75
|
| Mid Thigh (R) |
-1.50
|
-0.5
|
| Calf |
-1.00
|
-0.5
|
Total
|
-10.5
|
-4.75
|
I
really believe if you followed this program closer than I have, you’d
lose more weight/inches. In all honesty, I have been slacking a lot on
the cardio and I can’t do all the moves with weights/bands (due to my
injuries - which these exercises are aggravating). But, the fact that
I’ve been doing this consistently
for 8 full weeks is more important to me. I’ve also been slacking more
on food this Phase, but still doing good. I feel the weight hasn’t been
coming off due to me building muscle from the morning circuits and lack
of cardio. I hope to stick to Phase 3 a lot more.
Things
happen, things come up, and this is when it hard to stick to a routine.
I have been traveling every weekend for the past month, which means no
working out. On the upside, I was still exercising the day I left (as
in, AM workout, then go catch a plane, yay me!), on the downside, it
meant eating more than usual; although I’d say I made better choices
than I would have 8 weeks ago. I also had my downstairs neighbor
complain about my AM workouts, so those have been nixed (indoors). At
this point, I may continue Phase 3 later than expected.
I
am leaving for a two week vacation in a few days and when I return,
I’ll be moving, so I’m thinking I may start up Phase 3 after I move into
my first floor apartment where no neighbors should complain. My goal is
to do a quick run through Phase 1 and 2 DVDs before starting Phase 3. I
should complete Phase 3 no later than August (sorry it’s going to be so
late, but I want to be able to do this program correctly and review it
as it should be, versus changing it up due to the neighbors).
If
you’d like to follow my daily/weekly progress, check out my blog at
taoofcher.blogspot.com. Thanks for reading. I hope this helps you decide
if this program is for you….or not. ~Cheryl
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