Jillian who?

It appears that things are finally set in stone enough that I feel comfortable giving a more thorough update on "bullet #2" from last week's post.

At the beginning of the year when I was getting serious again about keeping up a good health and fitness schedule, I mentioned to Michelle, the owner of my gym, my goals for the year. She is just an amazing woman and someone that I've come to think of as more than just the gym owner and instructor, but more as a friend. She was very supportive and even noted how my attendance at classes had been greatly increased in 2010. For the past 6 weeks, I've been pounding away in class and keeping my eating habits in check, more or less. The resulting changes have been small, but they're there and they've been nice to see. Even my brother remarked that I looked leaner than when he saw me over the holidays.

Skip to last Monday. I got to class early and Michelle cornered me. After confirming that I am, indeed, still trying to lose a few pounds and that I have a bit of flexibility in my work schedule, she started in on a proposition. She is partnering with Exerspy for a new focused fitness and weight-loss program designed for people with 10 or fewer pounds to lose or those that are already at their healthy weight and want to get ripped. There were still details to work out, but was I interested? Um, YES!

Last week was a flurry of emails back and forth, trying to change my work schedule around a bit and just trying to see if I could commit to the program fully. By Friday things looked good and last night I signed all of the paperwork. The 8 week program officially starts on Monday the 22nd. :) With "before" pictures. Eeek!

As Michelle said, I'm basically already doing a lot of what they are requiring of the participants. My gym schedule will be tweaked a bit since I have to fit in the required 3 workouts per week, but the supplemental workouts will be the classes that I'm attending on a weekly basis anyways. As for the food stuff, I'm currently tracking on Spark People, but will now track on the Exerspy program instead. Hell, I've even looked at my proposed calorie range and it's almost exactly what is suggested by Spark People. This program is just adding a bit more structure to the routine I've created for myself in 2010 and adds a few more weekly "beatings" to the mix. ;)

My goal is to lose 10lbs and tone up, but I'm also trying to keep an open mind and just see what happens by really sticking to the guidelines. I'm excited to be part of a really intense fitness program that is geared for folks like me, that are craving crazy intense workouts. Even though the program doesn't officially start until next week, I've already been minorly yelled at in class last night. Just a foreshadow of things to come, me thinks.

Oh, but I forgot one of the most exciting parts! There is no guarantee for this, but I'm hopeful that it will pan out - some of the participants will be selected to be in the home workout DVDs that will be filmed and released featuring this program. Eeeeeeee! And now you know why there was much squealing and jumping around last week. ;) Michelle has made a grip of fitness DVDs that are quite popular and I guess sell very well. This will be the next installment of her home workouts and I would just die if I were to be included. She was very upfront that the filming is long and hard and taxing, but I don't care. It just sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

[This whole DVD thing is particularly funny to me as I had an ex-boyfriend that tried his damnest to get me to be a little gym rat, but it just never happened. 10 years later and oh how things have changed. The idea that I could now potentially be in a fitness video makes me giggle to no end.]

So, there you have it. I'm willing signing up to have my arse beat on a weekly basis and I'm actually thrilled about it. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but most of you knew that about me anyways. I'll post sporadic updates here and will definitely let you all know the final results. If I'm feeling brave, maybe I'll even post the before and after pics. And if the DVD thing comes about, count on at least a post or two about that, as well.