Sunrise, Sunset

Ahhh, ok.  I promise not to be a ridiculous hot mess about my cool vacation for the next ten weeks.  Only once a week, deal?  The rest of the time we can discuss healthy eats (and not so healthy), workin' out, (I WORK OUT!), racing, and, ya know, my corny humor.  All the reasons you love tolerate TFB.  Cool?  Cool.

So what's up today?  Well, I had a prior commitment during the lunch hour, so instead of two mini workouts, I got it all done after work.  Since January (off season), my goal every day has been an hour (save for an optional rest day, of course!) of movement.  It's the sunrise, sunset plan.  Sometimes it's 30 minutes before work and after work.  Sometimes, 30 minutes during lunch, 30 minutes after work.  Sometimes it's an hour after work.  According to NASM, one hour of moderate exercise per day is beneficial for aerobic fitness and has been shown to significantly suppress appetite and maintain weight.  Not sure how well that works for my appetite, but I won't argue with it :-)

Lately I've been going outside the swim bike run scope a bit....I've talked about Cross Fit (lamely), P90x (loosely following this), weight training, and gym classes.  This month, I seem to be on a kick with workout DVDs (Hey, I'm fickle.  Jack of all trades, expert of none).  With my handy dandy library card and a few bucks on Amazon, I've reviewed the following DVDs in the past few weeks:

Billy Blank's Favorite Moves DVD (Library) A 45 minute DVD with the "best" moves from Tae Bo all thrown together.  A big fan of Tae Bo's advanced workout, I took this on eagerly.  Meh.  It was okay.  Got me sweating and the burn up, but a bit too dancy and jumpy for me.  I got a decent workout, but not the 'kick your a$$, sea bass' I like about Tae Bo.
Bob Harper's Biggest Loser Boot Camp (Library) A 30 minute workout from one of the trainers from biggest loser, it combines strength and low impact cardio moves to get you going.  I liked this workout in the morning as a wake me up, but if you're more intermediate, it might be a bit easy.

Denise Austin: Pilates for Every Body (Library) Broken into 4 segments-warm up, abs, legs, and integrated workout, this is a perfect "anytime" DVD for the days when you can't grab more than 10 minutes at a time to work out.  Denise Austin uses a band to work your legs and arms, which was kinda neat-I have one, but have never bothered to use it.  Good for cardio queens (me) who need other types of body sculpting in their repertoire!

Jillian Michaels Shred it With Weights (Amazon, 6.14) This hour long DVD is broken into two half hour segments.  You need a kettlebell or dumbbell (I used a 12 pound dumbbell) and is a pretty high intensity weights/cardio plyo combo.  The second segment is the "graduate" level and was pretty tough-I had to modify some moves, which is excellent-I hate it if I can easily do the whole workout in one go right off the bat.

Jillian Michaels Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism (Amazon, 7.64) This workout combines strength and high impact cardio in a 7 circuit series.  The whole workout is about 50 minutes- 5 minutes each for warm up and cool down, and 7 5-6 minute "circuits" that combine jumps, squats, kicks, and explosive movement to get you going!  I thought the first half was super rough, which scared me to finish, but Jillian does more ab and chest work toward the end, so you can catch your breath.  A solid choice.

Out of the 5 DVD's, so far I'm the biggest fan of the two I bought (whew!)  Either way, all of them are a great pick for getting in your 60 minutes a day!  Do you ever use DVD's to work out, or are you strictly a gym rat/runner/biker or swimmer?