Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred - Day 4

This exercising thing is a lark. Jillian Michaels has transformed me in just 4 days. I am exaggerating slightly, but the difference in 4 days is astonishing.

Last night my Mum and I did our 20 minutes exercise for Day 4 (before Greys Anatomy so we could skip through the adverts, clever) and everything went perfectly. On the reverse crunches, I really felt the pull in my stomach for the first time which I’m guessing means my body has started to find the muscles that were buried deep and have woken them up. I didn’t feel like my calves were going to rip (as much) during the skip rope cardio, though forward lunges does put strain on my knees slightly. It’s good to know that all the reviews I read in reference to this routine weren’t lying; you really do feel a change in yourself.

I should explain that before this, I did no exercise. I’m not unfit, I played Hockey in my last year at university, and I regularly take the dog for long walks but I’ve never been a fan of exercise, I don’t have the stamina to keep it up. That, and I physically can’t run.. My body/legs do not actually allow me to run. I’ve tried going running on the street and my lungs literally feel like they are going to collapse as well as my legs jumping on that bandwagon. I can’t go to the gym, 1 because I cannot afford it, and 2 I have no motivation. I think that is my downfall, I would much prefer to get in my pajamas and just nap on the sofa with a blanket. This is in fact what I have done for the past 8 months since leaving university and not being able to find a full time job. It wasn’t until I got my full time job a month ago that I realised I wanted to get healthier and tone up to meet my beach body criteria. So now I am doing 2 jobs, working 7 days a week and doing this 30 day shred. It’s a breeze. (ahem)

I highly recommend this DVD to anyone. If you are trying to lose weight/tone up/ get a healthier lifestyle or all 3 then this is brilliant for you. If you don’t like other people seeing you exercise, or like me cannot afford the gym or your legs won’t allow you to run, then what’s better than doing an exercise DVD in the safety and comfort of your own home. Get an exercise whim, put on the DVD. Feeling guilty about having 4 ice creams (you should be), whack on the DVD. You can wear what you want, look as silly as you want, and get the body that you want. It will become your best friend (and obviously, your worst enemy at the same time)

Bring on level 2!

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred - Day 3

I am superwoman!!!! 

I felt brilliant this morning. A few creaks as I bent my knees and when walking up and down escalators but apart from that, I don’t ache at all! I have got one over on the 30 day shred!! Yesss. Now I know this is probably going to be short-lived as come tomorrow morning, the pain will probably come back, as I feel there was just little pain from last night’s workout as I was extremely tired, I couldn’t even brush my teeth without yawning. But at the moment, I’m back to that good exercise feeling again.

I worked until 10pm, and didn’t get home until 10.30pm and I was umming and aahing about doing day 3, and as my mum said to do it, I couldn’t exactly let the side down so at 11o’clock at night, my mum and I were doing our exercise DVD with the dog watching on the sofa (she tries to join in if you don’t put her on the sofa) (Y). I struggled to keep up with the forward lunges, and skip rope literally made my calf’s feel like they were going to rip – was quite a scary feeling as I had visions of my calf’s ripping in half and then that’ll show me for trying to exercise! But clearly, they didn’t, and I pushed through. I can see me moving on to Level 2 (*gasp*) on perhaps.. day 6/7?.. maybe.. 

The most amazing thing was that I managed 15 push-ups in a row! In 3 days of regular exercise, I have managed to build up enough strength to do 15 push ups when I couldn’t even do 1, 3 days ago. A-maze-ing. Jillian Michael’s says during the workout that by day 5-7 you will see a difference in your stamina which there is already evidence of. I’ve got a very slight definition in my arms, and I had quite muscley legs anyway (they just were on an extended holiday). I probably should measure my waist to actually have evidence that this exercise routine works, but I’ll be able to notice and that’s the main thing. On to day 4!!!

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred - Day 2

Ooft, Eeek, Aah, Aah, Frick. These are the sounds I made getting out of bed this morning, sitting down on my sofa, walking down stairs & walking up escalators. Day 2 has officially taken over my body.

My mum and I actually did Day 2, the day after Day 1 and not a week later. Perhaps this will be a 30 day shred and not a 30 week shred like I had originally suspected. 

This does not mean that it hasn’t come at a price though. My thighs are punishing me today. The 20 minutes exercise went a lot quicker than Day 1, though I struggled to carry on with the jumping jacks. My legs just didn’t seem to want to jump! You know it’s bad when you’re relieved to get to the abs part of a workout. I did find that I managed to do a few push ups; considering the day before I couldn’t push myself up, this is a good sign. Maybe by the end of the week I’ll be able to do more than 10...

Today, the pain in my thighs and knees doesn’t feel as good as it did yesterday. Yesterday I felt like I’d done my body some good, today my body is angry at me, clearly quite content at having no muscles and my lazy lifestyle. However I do feel a lot more motivated to do Day 3 tonight, I only have an hour in between my day job and my evening job so we’ll see how motivated I am come 5pm but fingers crossed we do push through. 

Supposedly you start to see the benefits of this routine after 5 days, so that’s only 3 days to go.  Eager beaver.

Panorama - Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate

This post is about football, the Euro 2012 championships to be more specific, and as I’ve never been a huge fan of football, I apologise if some of my facts are incorrect.

Tonight I watched BBC's Panorama which investigated in to the racist violence in Polish and Ukrainian football and in the frankest way, I was disgusted. I have never been one for violence, in fact I hate it with a passion and anyone that I call a friend, will never be involved in mindless, day to day violence. I understand that maybe after a few drinks, things can get a bit heated in a pub or club where somebody accidentally knocked in to someone else, and that person got a bit mouthy to which the other person retaliated so on, so on, but even then, I will always walk away. I hate it.

Panorama called the programme: Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate and it is truly what these places are. The first 15 minutes of the programme was eas(ier) to watch, horrible to listen to though that these people in these countries treat football players, and innocent fan’s the way they do. Monkey chants at black players and their families, anti-Jew language, Hitler salutes and beating up random Asian men that were merely watching their home team play a game to name the obvious.

About half way through the programme, they showed a clip of a group of fans, bored of chanting and abusing players who saw a group of Asian boys (I use the word boys to describe them because they looked as if they were in their early twenties, not men that might defend themselves). They ran over to this group of boys and pulled them down from their seats and started kicking and hitting them, only for people that had been sitting around them the whole time, to join in. To make things even more sickening, is that these Asian boys were supporting the same team as these thugs that took it upon themselves to make the decision that they shouldn't be in the stadium. I found it so disturbing to watch, that I had to leave the room – seeing their faces of fear about what was happening to them brought tears to my eyes and I couldn’t watch the rest of the programme.

If this is clearly public knowledge that the fans in these countries act like this on a regular basis how have UEFA allowed these nations to host this huge football event? They have sent out a public warning to all black and Asian fans to keep a close eye on each other and to stay out of trouble as they will be targeted, or better still, stay at home. If you have to send a message like that out, what is it saying about these countries.

Even if they up their security for the games in the stadium (which doesn’t seem to help their local games as they just turn on the police when they have abused everyone else in the stadium), there’s no saying what could happen outside away from the games. Would you want to spend your time away constantly looking over your shoulder?

With football already being a rowdy sport as it is with players such as John Terry and Joey Barton under investigation for racism and violence, this behaviour should not be added to the equation. Fans are going to go over there and get riled up and join in with the fighting. Football fans already have a bad rep compared to other sport fans such as rugby, and I feel this is just going to blow up in UEFA’s faces.

To anyone that uses their fists to start or finish an argument, or because someone looked at you the wrong way, or aren’t the right colour in your eyes, then you are a thug. You are scum and it really upsets me that there are some people out there, who feel it is an acceptable thing to do. 

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred

 Day 1

Last night I completed day 1 of the 30 day shred. My mother and I decided it was about time we started it after the DVD had been sitting in the kitchen for over a week (it was on top of the crisp cupboard, exercise or crisps, tough decision...) Turns out I have no upper body strength and can just about handle 1 push up.. Technically, I can go down but can’t push myself up so it’s more of a push down and stay there for me.  

It felt good doing it though; it was only a 20 minute workout (I did have to check to see if it was almost 20 mins when it was only 11!) – and was a mixture of Cardio, Strength and Abs workout. Unlike other exercise DVD’s I have tried, there is no stopping to watch her do the exercise and then you copy – it’s a non-stop workout, which is clearly more beneficial as the second you stop, it’s hard to get going again. 

We built up a sweat doing the exercises which is always a good sign that you are actually doing them correctly and not cheating and I did have to sit down for 10 minutes with a bottle of water upon finishing, plus my knees felt like they wanted to pop out their sockets. This is surely a sign that I have had a “work-out”. About 3 hours after completing Level 1, my legs felt like jelly whilst walking down stairs and my knees were still a bit achy, but it was that good achy that exercise fanatics always talk about, like you know you have done some good with your body. 

Waking up in the morning wasn’t too bad; normally when exercising I skip the warm-down part and only do some brief stretches as at the time, you just want to collapse, but from what I have heard from other people, the morning after can be a bitch so I wanted to minimize that as much as possible. It must have worked, because I didn’t feel any different really, until I started walking down the escalator to the train that is, ouch. I thought my leg was going to give way and I would roll down the escalator taking innocent passengers down with me. As much as that would be entertaining if you were watching from the top of the escalator, being involved however would not. The real pain I am feeling is in my shoulders, neck and armpits, stretching behind to crack my back is a no-no. This is probably from where I got over enthusiastic at the start of the warm-up doing the windmill motion with the arms (swinging them in circles like you used to when you were younger until they went numb). My thighs are also wincing a little like I said previously, walking up and down stairs (or moving escalators which you would think would help ease the pain?) that is definitely from the squats, which even though they hurt, are always my favourite.. mainly as you can actually feel the burn of exercising.

I don’t like weighing myself (as I am part of the larger chest percentage of women, I like to believe that however high my weight is, it’s down to my chest. It’s much easier to blame boobs right). However I will be able to notice the difference in my stomach/legs/arm area to see if I am benefitting from this routine, I’m not doing it to lose weight, I just want to tone. Obviously, no matter how much Jillian will tell me I can get abs like hers, that’s a lie, she’s a machine. But to start my way to the beach body I have always desired will suit me nicely.

Here’s hoping I don’t collapse half-way through.

Buy Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred here 

Kristen Stewart - Snow White & the Huntsman Premiere

Monday night (14th May) saw the world premiere of the latest adaptation of the fairytale story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. Bringing out the darker side to the fairytale, Snow White and the Huntsman had a huge budget, and alongside that, an all-star cast. Twilight star, Kristen Stewart plays the lead role of Snow White, Thor’s Chris Hemsworth was cast as the Huntsman, The Italian Job’s Charlize Theron plays the evil stepmother Queen and other big names that feature are Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Lily Cole and Nick Frost to name a few. The film will be in theaters from Wednesday 30^th May in the UK, and it is definitely one to go and see, albeit just to oogle at the handsome Chris Hemsworth (that family has a very attractive gene pool).

London’s Leicester Square transformed in to an enchanted forest for the night to welcome in all the stars hitting the red carpet attending the premiere. The main star that everybody wanted to see was obviously Snow White, Kristen Stewart. Arriving wearing a pair of converse underneath her floor-length black gown, she quickly changed in to a pair of heels behind a bush before hitting the carpet.

Stewart wore a gothic black sheer detailed gown from Marchesa’s Fall 2012 collection, with skeleton design on the arms and back. This dress obviously matched perfectly to the theme of the event and reflected her Snow White character. Her porcelain skin was flawless and her hair swept in to a chic bun trimmed with gold lace. 

Glamour Magazine recently named Kristen “Best Dressed Woman in the World 2012”, and I really cannot work out why. Last night’s dress, made her look like a 10 year old boy. It was unflattering and in a way, creepy. Perhaps it would have been nicer if it was either or, but with the gothic lace, teamed with the skeleton detailing and tutu skirt, there was just too much.

I honestly cannot see how she was given that award. She beat women such as Victoria Beckham and Kate Middleton, who are clearly a lot better dressed than her. Did you see Kate’s turquoise Jenny Packham gown at the Olympic Gala last week – that is how you wear lace! Stewart is known for her preference of trainers and a t-shirt over a dress and although I too am a fan of the ‘comfy’ clothes, I feel someone who obviously cares about her outfit choices would have been more deserving.

When I use the term “creepy” with Kristen’s premiere dress, I mean in the way that the skeleton detailing gave me shivers down my spine, being able to see her spine (or replica of)! 

I am not naïve in to thinking everybody has the same taste, and there are some people who probably think she looked stunning (I’m looking towards Glamour offices who are obviously fans), but I just don’t think I’d attend a world premiere with my Grandma’s doilies on my chest.

At least she managed to look slightly happy about attending this event, as she is hardly known for her happy-go-lucky attitude. I used to dislike Kristen Stewart, and thought she was quite far up her own arse but I have to say, after watching her interview on Graham Norton’s show, although she is still not the most comfortable actress around, my opinion has changed of her slightly. Though perhaps not the opinion that she can only pull one face when acting; the “twilight face” seems to feature a lot in this new film, but when it is released, that opinion may change.

Snow White and the Huntsman IMDB

Joliebox

Joliebox is a beauty box subscription company based in France. They joined teams with Boudoir Privé in December 2011 and each month you get 5 deluxe samples of exclusive brands ranging from skincare, haircare, bodycare and makeup.

I was recommended Joliebox from a friend who subscribes to a couple of the other beauty subscriptions such as Glossybox and I decided to go with Jolie as once I’d done the research, I liked that it had the fancy French ‘oo la la’ vibe and that I knew the samples I would be getting would be exotic and not just something from Boots shelf (not that I am saying other subscription boxes are like that, but Joliebox stood out from the crowd) (I'm also not saying that the products Boots sell are bad, but I mean it as in the stuff sold are pretty standard).

Receiving my first box in February, I was very excited for its arrival and when it was delivered it was hard to be disappointed. The box the products came in itself was sophisticated and practically shouted at me that what was inside was going to be amazing. And it was. I received lip/cheek stain which has softened the way I make-up my cheeks, a tonic make-up remover which again, in the last few weeks I have used to death. I’ve always been a fan of the standard Johnson’s makeup wipe, but with the amount of mascara I brush on, my lashes have started needing extra care. There was a cleansing oil sample, and a hair mask sample which I have both used, but they were only one time appliances. The February box also contained a hand cream, but to be honest, I have already enough of them to soften every woman’s hands on the tube for a week, so that was pretty standard.

It was when the March box came around that I was completely blown away and the reason for this post. As a special treat, Joliebox decided that in the March month, rather than giving out sample sized items, they would give the full-size products. March contained:
- A small pocket size mirror with Joliebox logo
- A Yardley luxury body wash
- A LCN Nail polish, the Free Your Mind collection 2012 (a definite recommendation)
- Eyeko skinny eyeliner
and
- Davines Authentic Moisturising Face/Hair/Body Balm.

March box was perfect for me as I am a nail polish fanatic, a lover of the eyeliner, I have baths, and who doesn't need a spare mirror but it is the moisturising balm that stood out for me.

Funnily enough, I didn't start using this until last week. I tried it the day the box arrived, as you do, and I originally thought it was a moisturiser you leave on to soak, but when I read that you have to wash it off, I put it aside as I have enough facial creams for that (and I’m lazy). It wasn't until I decided to have a pamper sesh and figured I’d give it another go that I realised that I have depriving my face off the most amazing feeling of its life.

Joliebox describes this product as "Moisturising, organic, Safflower Oil base balm with a triple action: make-up remover for face, hair balm and body moisturiser."

I am yet to try it out on my hair or body, but if it has anywhere near as much effect on my body and hair as it did my face then we are on to a miracle cream.

It has literally transformed my face, my skin is softer than ever before. It leaves a light, subtle scent that is not overpowering, and as I have a strong sense of smell, that is a blessing.

Another thing is I realised that yes you do have to wash it off and pat dry, but that takes no time at all (who'd have thought it). I now use it as my (every other) evening facial routine, dampen your face, apply the moisturiser, brush teeth, and wash off moisturiser. Simples.

I would highly recommend this product, I didn't have terribly bad skin in the first place, but I have definitely noticed a difference. And most importantly, my face is as soft as it was when I was a baby.

When I next get a day off, I will experiment with the hair and body side to things, but for now, 1 out of its 3 uses is enough. I hope to experience more products like this from Joliebox please!

Joliebox: http://joliebox.co.uk/

Davines Authentic Moisturising Face/Hair/Body Balm: http://joliebox.co.uk/davines-authentic-moisturising-face-hair-body-balm