So I have found that as the summer nears the end I’m seeming to get more relaxed about my fitness. We all know that feeling. The warm comfy winter is coming soon which means lots of treats, large sweaters and the pounds sneak back. So I decided that I need some good old fashioned motivation! And in my life one of the greatest fitness motivators has been Billy Blanks. So I took some time to give a try to This Is Tae Bo his newest DVD.

This Is Tae Bo is Tae Bo at it’s best. It’s very old school, so if you come from the Amped up era – this may not be for you. But if you are one of those people that has worn out your old VHS of the original Tae Bo tapes – you have found a new love in this DVD.  It’s got good pace, loads of cardio, nicely timed recovery and you’ll burn the calories you need to get rid of the fat.

Now – cardio isn’t the whole picture, however. I trained for about six months with a great trainer here in town, and saw some really fantastic results. I did need to move my cardio to the next level, but now that I’m not at the gym I really needed to advance my strength training at home with some more motivating workouts. There is only so many times you can do the old routines before you need something new. So I added two great trainers into the mix.

The first is Jackie from Workout! Jackie Warner is great. And her DVD Personal Training with Jackie: Power Circuit Training is a great system to use. It has five great workouts that you can mix it up with. Right now I’m using the upper and lower as separates and finishing up with some cardio on two of my strength training days. If you’ve never done much in the way of strength training it’s a great DVD because anyone can do the 15 minutes of strength training. And Jackie is very technical so you don’t have to worry if you are doing it correctly.  Once you have mastered it the long strength training session will keep you gaining and growing.

The second trainer I added is Bob Harper of Biggest Loser fame. I’ve done some of Jillian Micheal’s workouts, but they just don’t do it for me. Personal opinion. Bob has a new line of DVD’s called the Inside Out Method. I recently purchased the Pure Burn Super Strength DVD to give it a try. I started with the beginners 25 minute strength training session, and it was more than hard enough for any beginner. It recommends you use 2 – 3 lb weights to start, but since I’ve been training for awhile I used my 5 lb. weights. I thought it was a well thought out workout, with good calorie burn. I haven’t tried the larger session yet, but I’m sure it’s a killer.

My biggest problem with this DVD is that he seems to be trying too hard to be hardcore in the video. I think maybe he’s gotten tired of the “my best friend Bob”  visual that The Biggest Loser has given him. His team is not the best choice I think for the video for his target audience, but I guess we aren’t there for the workout crew, right?  Bob doesn’t always give the best direction, but he does give you some motivation to keep going and keep trying. I haven’t tried the other DVD’s in the group – I’m really wanting to try the Yoga Warrior video. It looks intense. You can also combine with the tools and tips at his website – My Trainer Bob .

If you are looking for more of a cardio workout I prefer his portion of The Biggest Loser Workout: Cardio Max. It’s a hard 25 minutes of cardio with a little weights thrown in. This could be a good side cardio for those days when you don’t have the time. He does a far better job with both direction and motivation on this one, and it’s a lot of fun. You have the option to add on both Jillian and Kim’s cardio protion as well which would make it great for someone just building for a cardio foundation in their healthy life.

Finally I’m finishing my week by adding in three days of walking (3.5 miles per day) and I’m doing yoga or pilates one day a week. A great yoga basic that I love is living arts yoga conditioning for weight loss with suzanne deason since it has great direction and no movements that are dangerous. Stretching out is not only important for after every workout, it’s important to do a good deep stretch once a week for overall flexibility.  Stretching allows your joints to lubricate themselves as well as it lengthens your muscles so that you have the lean look that we all want to have.

So go ahead and challenge yourself! Get off the couch and try something new. If these videos don’t work for you – try something else. We each are so different that what works for me may not work for you. The key is to challenge yourself, stick with it, and have some discipline to it. No one can force you into health – but you!

Technorati Tags: Billy Blanks, Bob Harper, cardio, DVD's, exercise, Health, healthy living, Jackie Warner, pilates, strength training, Suzanne Deason, Tae Bo, The Inside Out Method, This Is Tae Bo, working out, Yoga

So – what is it with the thighs that make them so darn hard to get rid of? I read an article the other day that showed that the two key reasons for cellulite thighs in women are hormonal changes and genetics. Well if you’ve seen my moms chicken legs lately you know that I don’t get the two chunky monkeys from her. So it’s got to be hormonal — as my husband would say, “how do you make a whore moan?”. Bad joke. I know.

So you have to wonder about it. What to do?? I want to share the things I know to be true:

1. Low Calorie diets slow down your metabolism – so as much as I hate that I forget to eat, if you don’t stoke the metabolism fire your not going to be losing weight.

2. You do need carbs! The problem is that we all think of carbs as being grains and starchy foods. You get loads of carbs in great healthy vegetables. So the goal is to limit your grains to whole grains and to only get 2 servings per day. Get the rest of your carbs via your earthy foods. If you don’t get those carbs you’ll end up tired, and most likely will just fill up on them later in the day in a bad way.

3. Forget the programs out there. What really works is just getting off your buttocks and get moving. Watch what you put in your mouth and start to take some accountability for yourself and your actions. If you need someone else to weigh you in each week to be accountable that is understandable. But most of the “diet” foods are just processed crap. You need to learn to eat real foods. Real foods are good for you. Real foods aren’t full of soy and corn and all sorts of chemicals that are messing with your system.

4. Don’t lie to yourself. No one forced you to eat that pint of ice cream. You are the reason you are fat. Get over it and enjoy the fatness or get off your butt and do something about it.

I’m gearing up to revamp my website and I hope by fall to be offering some grocery store classes to teach people how to actually eat. I’ll also be gearing up to do some food psychology coaching this fall – and hopefully we’ll see some great changes in all of our eating and exercising patterns.

In the mean time – Yes I have a little more “post-baby” chunk to get rid off (I like to call it that but really it was just “me sitting on my lazy ass eating crap” chunk. ) So I’ll keep you posted.

Technorati Tags: exercise, fat, food psychology coaching, grocery store, Health, real food, self help