DVD workout: reviews.

You probably won't be interested in this series of posts unless you are also doing some kind of fitness program or routine, but a lot of my friends are doing Jillian or do training for some mudder or other. I'm going to blog everything that's in my head, because that is why I have blogs.

Ah, the many advantages of fitness DVDs! The VALUE! A one off spend of $25ish (plus a mat and 2 weights if you are too fancy for a towel and 2 tinned foods) for unlimited training! The PRIVACY! It doesn't matter how ungraceful you are or what you are wearing or how ugly you look when you sweat, nobody is judging you in your own lounge room! The EFFICIENCY! No commuting to and from a gym or pool or park. The only disadvantage is a lack of accountability to spur you on if you get tired, bored or lazy, so I find I need a really good routine to stick to (my Monday is all about leaving work at 5pm ON THE DOT so that I can be doing Jillian before 6pm). It is really good to work out with a friend, so I sometimes do that.

If you are considering converting to Jillian Michaels, here are three DVD reviews. There are other DVDs I don't own or haven't tried. I have tried Tracy Anderson once and some kick-boxing woman once, but I prefer Jillian. Once you get over her intimidating abs (she has no body fat) she is a good trainer. Not too bright and perky. She just gets down to business.




NO MORE TROUBLE ZONES
This is where I began. It takes the best part of an hour to do the whole thing, and it mixes and combines a lot of different moves in short sets so you don't get bored. It's pretty much all just strength training: circuits of lunges, squats, planks, crunches and arm stuff. The moves are good for beginners, as they don't require much skill or balance: they are simple, but tiring. I feel like this workout covers the whole body, so for me this is the DVD to use regularly. If you want to begin, start with 3 or 4 circuits which will take you about half an hour, and don't go too hard on the lunges and squats for about the first week, or else you won't be able to walk. (I only did Jillian once last week, lost a bit of fitness, and am walking a little stiffly today from my session last night!) Build up to the 7 complete circuits over a month or two. Start with no hand weights, or just 0.5 kg. Do the DVD 3 to 5 times a week. 3 times is about enough for me to maintain.

KILLER BUNS AND THIGHS
Yes, the name is funny. But "killer" is not an exaggeration. This is the hardest DVD I've tried. It's not a friendly workout, it's a maniac workout. There is a stuff like balancing on one leg and kicking slowly in the air. It's the sort of workout that I feel amazed at even finishing. It's a little bit shorter than NMTZ, about 45 min to do the whole thing. George gave me this DVD and I do it occasionally, when I want a real challenge.

30 DAY SHRED
This is for when you do a 30 minute workout every day, which doesn't suit my routine at the moment. I've never gone past level one. There is a good mix of strength and cardio on this DVD, whereas NMTZ doesn't have any pure cardio at all (NMTZ still gets your heart pumping though). I like it, it is short and manageable but I still feel physically tired at the end, particularly my upper body.

Jillian DVDs are pretty much all hard. They are a proper, sweaty workout for a fit person. But they are easy to use and get into if you start small and work up, adding circuits and weights over a few weeks.

It's 50 days til Christmas.

Hardest person to buy a Christmas present for.

In my family, it's not the dad or the brother. There are no in-laws. I know what DVDs people will like. Even if I haven't seen the DVDs myself. My greatest triumph was getting dad Life on Mars, even though I hadn't watched it.

For me it's Grandma.

The jessenomics of food waste.

I think it's something like a quarter or a third of groceries are spoiled and wasted. Australian stats. I think it's often good intentions and bad planning—people want to buy fresh food, but they don't have the lifestyle suited to cooking and eating it. All it takes is shopping for what you realistically WILL eat, and giving up the idol of freshness—tins and frozen food don't waste as easily. Cooking shows make such a big deal about fresh food, perhaps because the supermarkets pay for the ads and get the most benefit from food you buy and don't eat.

Waste is against my nature anyway. I just can't allow it happen, if I can possibly help it. I feel like a moral failure if I throw anything out. For me, a waste of food is both a waste of money and a waste of effort, because of carting it home from the shops on foot and unpacking it into the fridge only to fill up the kitchen bin and carry it out to the wheelie bin. So there's the jessenomics of it, 10 minutes each week of thinking properly about what to buy and cook can save your money, and effort, and the environment. Apparently it's bad for the environment because it's a waste of water and fuel and landfill—not wasting food is the easiest way to reduce "food miles" and all that footprint stuff, it's just not so trendy a "solution". A "solution" has to involve a farmer's market or a veggie patch or something.

No Eat Street on 8th Nov.

It is someone's birthday, so we may see you at that do.

2rph

I recently discovered a radio station of reading out loud. Newspapers, books and magazines. This is an excellent thing, even if you don't have a reading impairment. I think the night programing is pretty good for falling asleep. I don't listen during the day.

Community radio stations have almost completely taken over my ABC radio time! I didn't realise there were so many non-commercial radio options for an ad-hater.

Shoot.

Check if there will be food before RSVPing No.

No-treats-vember.

One of my sisters is a woman after my own heart. Not that the other one isn't too. She is instigating her own month of a challenge, with a cool name. I don't do cool names other than putting "challenge" on the end of something, so this is a good one. If you have been wanting to do a challenge, this might be just the wit to convince you. No-credi-tcard-vember or No-cheese-vember or No-tv-vember. I'm thinking of doing No-tv-vember, but I probably can't.

Long skirt.

A long skirt is a little less warm than jeans, but a little warmer than a normal skirt. It's like a cardigan for the legs. A cardigan is less than a jacket, more than just a shirt.

Information.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/david-allen-on-how-to-fix-your-life/263883/#.UIns-Apttro.mailto


I like "your psyche is not your system". And I like how he prefers paper—I use my phone or iCal for automatic reminders, but day to day stuff goes on paper or in my diary, because I am more likely to see it. Hooray for lists!

Friendship goals.

There is a part of my social life that sustains itself, with eat-streets and facebook and one catch-up flowing naturally into another. When I want to do something, I have a default group of people I recruit from.

For various reasons, I decided I need to invest a little more deeply in some of the other people around me. To build some more friendships that would be mutually beneficial, and also to love people who need a bit more love, and also to sustain friendships that I value through changes in life like marriage (theirs not mine). To fight the sometimes selfish gravity of old friends and comfortable ruts and isolation. The thing is, it's hard to know where to start, other than just by feeling like a failure or deciding I have enough friends anyway or putting it off until something happens spontaneously. I've got the means and the time and the energy at the moment, I want to actually do something, instead of vaguely wish and hope.

I decided instead that I should write down 5 things to do with 5 people, and do them before the end of the year. Then I would know I have invested some of my time in others. It sounds weird and cold, a list of "friendship goals". I'm not that kind of person. It's just that it is easier to do something overwhelming if you have a simple first step, like "1. see a movie with T". So I actually have a list.  I have no expectations of amazing results, and relationships aren't very measurable anyway; I just want to know that I've made an effort.

Eat street other plan.

Sculpture by the Sea this Friday night, I'll be starting at the Bondi end at around 6, and meeting others there or at other points, most of you have my contact details so you can find us there as you arrive. Sunset is at 7.15 so that's why I'm saying 6pm.

Buying the physical thing.

You'll never guess what. I bought a CD today, Sigh No More was $10 at jb hifi so Christmas ahoy, brother. He doesn't read my blog, I bet. Anyway, I got myself one as well. (See, Spotify HASN'T killed MY music sales.) I can't remember when I last bought a CD. I had a little moment of nostalgia. I forgot how clear and shiny a new plastic jewel case is, it used to be as magical to me as new car smell or unbroken book spine. I forgot that you can see the album art bigger in a CD than you can on your iTunes screen. I forgot that they come with booklets with song lyrics in them and pictures of the band and stuff. It was a journey of rediscovery. I still will buy downloads mainly, because I think the CD experience is often clutter rather than nostalgia or excitement, but it was delightful to remember the excitement of my youth, except that this time it's not an *NSync album.

By the way, I trialed ordering online at JBhifi and collecting it in store. It saves looking around for ages in the shop (I had a few things to get) and it's quicker than postage as well. Order at my computer, get emailed a few hours later saying I can collect it, and pop out at lunch.

I loathe My Bad.

I really really hate it when people say "my bad!". Especially if they've already done something to annoy me. "My bad!" is not an apology. "Sorry" is an apology, "my bad!" is a careless dismissal, and makes me want to punch your mouth. Also, it's stupid English.

Breaking the silence.

A man overtook me walking to work, and I noticed his backpack was open. So I though I should tell him. But I did it awkwardly, it took many moments for me to pull my ipod out of my ears and form words with my brain and mouth. It's talking to a stranger, it's breaking that zone everyone locks themselves into with their morning commute, I felt weird and unnatural, plus it was probably the first words I'd spoken that day so my voice was still getting out of bed. "Your backpack is open" came out all slow, blurry and singsong, at an inappropriate volume—I sounded like a one of those talking dogs on youtube. He took like 5 seconds to understand me as well, before checking his backpack.

How a mess starts.

I didn't do Jillian after work yesterday. I was going to do Jillian right up until I walked in the door, and then my brain just couldn't cope. So, it was a mental health break slash mental health house-tidy. The house still looked OK from the BIG CLEAN 2 weeks ago, but there was the beginning of mess. Which is a slippery slope. It starts out innocently enough, with a few small things that are annoying to deal with. Like a piece of mail I need to ring up and query something. Or a nice postcard that I need to find some bluetak to stick up. And then all of a sudden there are 25 small annoying things scattered around, and it's more than I can deal with any more. And it provides a cluttered environment for bigger mess to lay down and grow. And in 3 weeks we are back where we started, unable to use the kitchen table or the dresser.  So I spent an hour putting stuff away, throwing out dead flowers, dealing with a broken shirt, sorting through papers, and drinking tea while listening to an audiobook—and cut the vicious cycle off before it could get going. And then I walked to work this morning, because exercise is still important.

Move over, engagement ring.

I read an article some time ago, I might have already raved about it, saying how the diamond engagement ring tradition is really very modern, an invention of the diamond cartels to flog diamonds to the prosperous middle class of the 50s. Basically it was a really successful advertising campaign, with "diamonds are forever" and "diamonds are a girls best friend" and all that, fed to the public through movies and film stars and songs. Actually, according to that article, diamonds are a pretty poor investment, they decrease in value after you buy them and diamond dealers never buy them back. So all they have is really good branding.

It's still a nice thing to do, a pretty ring is a lovely symbol of a promise, I'd be pleased to get one myself. But it's just doubling up on the job the wedding ring does, really. So if it came to my choice, I now feel like there would be other things I'd like to spend that money on than propping up the diamond industry. Someone in the office reported last week that a ministry they are part of received a donation of the money they would have spent on a ring. He thought that his fiancés faith was the real treasure and they agreed to donate the ring money instead to the ministry she had most benefited from as a young Christian. That's awesome. Myself, I'm a Jane Austen heroine, and I think an engagement piano would be lovely. It worked for Marianne Dashwood and Jane Fairfax. Romantic, nice to look at, and a lot more useful to me. All theoretical, of course.  I can always buy my own piano. See how I worked this whole post into justification for buying myself a piano?

TV is a fickle master.

My flatmate mentioned last week that I should check the TV guides, because all the TV shows we like are being fast-tracked here all of a sudden without much warning. And lo, as she told, I had already missed the first episode of the new season of The Mentalist. I have not been watching ch 9 since they started showing nothing but Big Brother, but surely I would have caught one ad, if they had been promoting it at all. Booo :(

Invention involving a rubber band, an ipod and a bus ticket.

iPod with rubber band wrapped around it. Will hold headphones neat and tidy.

 

On the other side, it will hold bus ticket! Since I always have my ipod on the bus, it's an excellent way to keep my ticket safe AND handy. A wallet is safe, but annoying to get into all the time, and a pocket is handy, but easy to lose.

 

 

In the outside access pocket of my bag.

DESC.

We've been umming and ahhing about it this week. Elsie can't come. She suggested the night noodle markets in Hyde Park. So we're doing that tomorrow night, and it's not really DESC at all, just a catch up. The night noodle markets have always been a bit underwhelming to me, sort of the worst of a food court combined with the worst of a picnic, but I haven't been for a few years so I'm happy to try it again. Let me know if you're coming, we'll be meeting at 6pm but if you're late you can find us by phone.

The downside of taxes.

Having to pay a tax bill is not much of a reward for doing my tax return. (When I say "doing my tax return", I mean my dad doing my tax return.) To me, the refund is the whole point of the exercise. It's fair payment for me keeping my receipts organised for a year. It's my main incentive. I deserve it. Filing is annoying. This year I have to pay for the privilege, unfortunately. I know, first world problem. At least I get to use my cheque book, which is a rare treat.