Jessica Smith Thin in 10 Day 1

What I picked and why

I've been wanting to do the exercise plan in Thin in 10, but I've been putting it off because there were other DVDs that I wanted to do so I could get them back to the library. I decided yesterday that I'm going to do the exercise plan, but not in conjunction with the eating plan. I'm still going to eat well, but I wasn't overly impressed with the meals, and for now, it's just not really feasible for me to eat a regimented food program. In a few weeks, things might change. I went with the Intermediate workout plan even though I tested as a Novice when I did the quiz in the book. 

Day 1

Walk 

Instead of going outside in the cold and dark for a walk, I did Jessica's 10 Minute Interval Walk on YouTube. I've done this walk before. It alternates 1 minute intervals of high intensity walking and lower intensity recovery. The high intensity part is walking in place while pumping your arms. She encourages us to pick up our feet to make it more intense. She suggested jogging during the last walking segment. I plan on doing more jogging when I do this walk again tomorrow. I did jog during the last segment. The lower intensity segments involve knee lifts, front kicks, a kick to the corner of the room, and something else that I can't remember. 

Strength Shot

This is the strength training section on the DVD that uses your own body weight as the resistance. I picked the DVD exercises over the book exercises since I thought it would be a lot faster for me because I could jut do what she was doing instead of re-reading the book to figure out what I was doing. This was also set up with 1 minute intervals. The first five minutes were the basic moves. It involved squats, push ups, lunges, planks, and a move that I can't remember the name of, but we laid on our bellies with our hands out in front of us to form a Y. We then raises our arms and upper bodies up off the ground while leaving our toes still touching the ground. It was very similar to doing just the upper body portion of a Superman. We did each move at our own pace for one minute. I kept up with her on the squats, but that was about it. I did horribly during the lunges and the planks. I need to figure out how to get my feet to stay put. Half my problem is that my feet keep sliding out. \

After we went through these five moves, we went through them again, but we made them a little bit more difficult. It's all a little fuzzy right now, but I think the squats had a knee lift as we came out of them, but don't quote me on that one. The push ups had a different position to the arms. Instead of both hands being under our shoulders, we put one hand a few inches forward and then alternated like that. The lunges involved stretching our arms out in front of us and then turning towards the front leg as we lunged back. The planks were hard enough for me to try and maintain for the 1 minute, so I didn't try the advanced move. I don't remember what she did, but it was probably moving left and right while doing them. The Y thing turned into a Y, T, I. We started with are arms in front and then once they were lifted, we moved them out perpendicular and then down along our sides before bringing them forward again.

Stretch & De-Stress

This was the stretch routine on the DVD. I did the DVD stretch for the same reason as the Strength training one. Why take the time to read the book when I can just do the DVD. This was actually very relaxing. I'm not big into stretching, but the music was pretty cool for the relaxing side of things. This wasn't yoga type stuff like I thought it would be. It was mostly just the normal stretches you would do after a workout, but we just did more of them and held them longer. It was pretty effective at the de-stress thing. At one point, she said something about not thinking about what we had to do for the day, and at that point, I realized I hadn't been thinking about anything. I had my eyes closed and I was just listening to the music and her. I totally need that music to play during bed time so I can fall asleep faster! 

BodyMedia Screen Shots

Here are my BodyMedia screen shots for the workout. I did a new workout tab for each segment of the workout. The first screen shot is the 10 Minute Interval Walk, the second screen shot is the Strength Shot from the DVD, and the third screen shot is Stretch and De-Stress. I was surprised that I got 7 minutes of vigorous activity in the walk. It didn't feel like it was 7 minutes of vigorous. I knew I wouldn't get any vigorous on the other two. Overall, it was a decent calorie burn for the effort that I put into it, but I'm just not a fan of stuff like lunges, planks and push ups. I need a workout that makes me feel good about myself, but the Strength Shot just reminds me about all of my short comings. I liked the walk, but I wish she had more like it. It could get pretty boring doing this walk for 7 days. Maybe I can get my hubby to go outside with me and we can do the walk like in the book. I just don't like walking outside in the early morning hours. Oddly enough, I'm not worried about getting attacked by people, but I would be a little concerned about coyotes!