I thought I loved you then...

No, this isn't an early Valentine's Day post. It's something much more pathetic.

For years (really, wow...it has been 4 years), I have been watching the Biggest Loser and knew Jillian Michaels was my kind of trainer. I bought one of her books and I have been poking around with some of her workouts for months. I already thought she was pretty much tops.

Tonight though, I finally got around to my first day of "The Shred." My first video workout led by Jillian. And it was fantastic. I've got a whole new respect for her.

I know it's really weird to wax poetic about a DVD workout, but I'd dabbled in many over the years and this one is the first that I'm really wild over. Most of the leaders in these videos encourage you "not to push it," "take a break anytime you need it," and "follow Jessica if you're not quite ready for the full workout." (Jessica being the girl in the back of the video who is just kinda scooting around with 1 pound weights.)

With most of these DVDs, I either get bored about 5 minutes in or just kinda wimp out on the hard parts (read: lunges, push-ups, etc) and bounce through the cardio. Jillian kept me going through the whole workout though. Every time my arms started feeling wimpy and I thought about putting down the weights, Jillian would start going on about "change hurts" or "don't wimp out now...the pain means it's working."

So, I'm really excited about keeping it up through the 3 levels! Oh, and I guess it's about time to run again...