Getting married in September...need workout advice

[vanessarene]

Good morning,

I've been a lurker on these boards since I found Cathe about a year ago. I really enjoy reading what everyone has to say. I need some workout/DVD advice since I would like to lose about 5 pounds by September for my wedding.

I've been doing Muscle Max a couple times a week since the end of January and just switched to the Gym Styles 3-day split. I haven't been doing cardio for the past 6-8 months because of foot problems, then surgery, but my feet are ready for cardio finally. So my question is what cardio DVD's would you recommend that have good premixes of about 45 minutes (besides Low Max, that one I got).

I'm limited in time, because I need to workout in the a.m. before the heat becomes unbearable. I live in Houston and workout in my garage, there's no way I could do cardio in the summer in the afternoon or evening, it'll be hard enough fighting the heat and humidity at 5a.m.

I know clean eating is a big part, but my boyfriend is a chef... I just want to get back to how I was before my surgery, so I'm not too buxom (read St. Pauly girl) in my wedding dress.

Thanks for any advice,

Vanessa

 

[marcy]

Why don't you try IMAX 2/Cardio & Weights or IMAX 3? You could do the blast premixes or the step premixes. Also, Step Blast/Step, Jump & Pump has many premixes within your time frame. But I agree clean eating is definitely a very important part. Also, try keeping a food journal. That has been the single most helpful thing I've done to lose weight.

Marcy

 

[Aquajock]

Hi, Vanessa! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

For the time-challenged, I don't think you can do much better than the following:

The Cross-Train Express (CTX) 2-DVD series; and

The Timesaver DVD from the Body Blast series.

CTX is comprised of 6 complete one-hour workouts, five of which have cardio components and isolated muscle group training, and the sixth of which is leg training ("Leaner Legs"). "Leaner Legs" also has one of the four ab / core routines. The cardio is a nice mix of step, interval step, step-kickbox, kickbox and hi/lo; there's a cardio-leg circuit workout as well ("Power Circuit"). It's designed so that if you do each workout in turn, one each day, by the end of the week you'll have done all of your muscle training and gotten good cardio. These DVDs are not as finely chaptered as Cathe's later ones but they are chaptered enough so that you can tailor them to your needs.

The Timesaver DVD is comprised of footage from several of Cathe's cardio and muscle workouts from the Body Blast series, and includes kickbox, step and hi/lo. This one is a 5-day split and none of the workouts go over an hour.

Give those a whirl, and I'll bet you see some good results!

A-Jock

 

[krisfitness]

Aquajock, Question...do you know about or have your tried either P90X or Barry's Bootcamp? You know I am a Cathe plyomaniac, just wanted to maybe try something a little different to shake things up. Thanks,

Kristen

 

[Aquajock]

Hi, Kristen! I've only previewed P90X (the plyo and ab workouts were lent to me by a Cathe friend several years ago) and I actually bought the Barry's Boot Camp workouts - and nixed both of them very quickly. I may be in the minority here, but the production values of each of these were atrocious, almost zero features that I've come to value with Cathe's workouts (fine chaptering, mix-n-match feature, premixes galore), the demonstrators were ham-fisted, and the drills not that challenging OR creative. I actually gave the Barry's Boot Camp series to another Cathe friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I feel I should have paid her to take it off my hands.

I am a Cathe monogamist!

A-Jock