So... a bit of history: I joined the Shredheads in March 2009 when I conquered The Shred. I did all 30 days in a row, and definitely became a lot stronger. I lost weight during the first couple weeks, but then reached a plateau and even gained a little. I got really grumpy and started having trouble sleeping, BUT, I was in much better shape from an aesthetic perspective.

I really enjoyed the next challenge - training for a 5k. That morphed into really enjoying running (or, at least the part where you race and get some bling at the end) and so I created Project 2010k for myself. The problem was that I got lazy. I was no longer working my upper body, and was only running, so my lower body had just that repetitive jogging movement. Plus, I didn't train properly for the races, so although the beginning of 2010 was fabulous, I started to slow down and gain weight by the time the year was over.

One of the reasons I'm excited about Ripped in 30, aside from the community aspect of doing the challenge with the Shredheads, is that this is meant to be a 5-6 days/week workout rather than all 7. As it stands now, I feel pretty fatigued if I work several days in a row, but the workout after my rest day ends up being fabulous. I need to mix up pushing myself through fatigue AND allowing myself the time off for muscle-repair. Likewise, I need to mix the strength, abs, cardio, and other things like stretching so that I'm not focusing on just one thing.

So, you probably want to know a bit about my "before" state, eh?

Well, I did take photos for posterity, but I'm not ready to show them yet. At least I'm not ready to show my bare middle just yet. Instead, to the right is a picture of me before Blogher's 5k Tutus-for-Tanner run last August. It was pictures like this - showing a much bigger belly than I thought I had - to really evaluate whether my whole "running shtick" was working physically. In my mind, I am much thinner than this, but the photo doesn't lie.

I have very few pics of me between last year's BlogHer and now. When the time is right, I'll whip out the ones I snapped this morning of me in revealing workout gear.

But here are some numbers to give an idea of my "starting point:"

In January 2011 on my first day of The Dailey Method, I weighed 158 pounds and had 39% body fat. (Believe me, that 39% shocked me; back when I did Shred, I started around 34% and went down to 31%.) By mid-February, I was down just three pounds to 155, and my body-fat percentage fluctuated between 36-38%, measuring 38% on February 14th, which was the last time I weighed in before today. Now here is where it gets interesting. Today I weighed 155 pounds, which is exactly what I did on February 14th; however, my body fat percentage measured 34%. So... thankfully I've improved my body fat percentage from the start of the year; but I've got a long ways to go.

Unfortunately, my starting point today is worse than before Shred in 2009. I weighed 137.5 then, and got down to 134.5 (with a few days lower than that.) More depressing, I look at those photos and while I definitely look better at 134.5, I still have a ways to go from there. Yet this time around, I'm starting 20 pounds heavier. YIKES!

But. If I get caught up in that, I won't be able to progress. Each little bit counts; I have to keep reminding myself of that!

In terms of other numbers, I wear a solid size 10. Sure I have some 8s that fit (and are probably vanity-sized) but really I'm a 10. On top I can get up to a 12 depending on how much is required in the chest region. I wear a "Large" in tops most of the time, but also have some "Medium"s. My pants are 30-waist, although around the holidays I bought some jeans with a 31-inch waist. I haven't taken the tags off of them, though, because I've been wearing old 30s that are probably stretched to 31. (By way of comparison, in 2009 the 30s were loose and I wore 29s comfortably.) I always wear a belt, and from January 2011 to now I've gone down one belt notch (approximately an inch) and am close to going down a second. So - I'm definitely better off than I was in January of this year - but I still have plenty of room for improvement!

So today I did Level 1 of Ripped. Two and a half hours before I did Ripped, I did an hour long Dailey Method class. Here's what I thought:

STRENGTH: Not surprisingly, some of the strength moves were harder than I would have anticipated because my muscles were already crying out from the weight-work at Dailey. Since today involved a lot of planks at Dailey, the push-ups and plank in Ripped were difficult. That said, I had to go up to my 5 pound weights for a couple of the exercises in Ripped to feel it.

CARDIO: This was good. I love boxing and the butt-kicks were great. I find skaters pretty easy, so I try to really get explosive with them. There was one bit towards the end (I think it was those vertical-leap ones) where I was getting really tired, so wasn't as explosive as I would have liked; but that means I have room for improvement!

ABS: Oh, abs. Oh, abs. Because of the ab-work at Dailey Method, I actually did better on some moves than I would have anticipated. For example, I was able to lift both legs off the floor, maintain a challenge-point, and do the crunches at the same time. That said, the side-thingy with stacking your feet on top of each other is pretty impossible at this stage for me. The plus side is that there is plenty of room for improvement here!

By the end of Ripped, my heart was definitely racing, I had sweat buckets, and I even started to wheeze. I'd say this challenge is off to a great start!

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Disclaimer: I purchased the Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30 DVD with my own money and will not receive compensation of any sort for this post; however, the link to the DVD contains my amazon affiliate code, so I get a few cents should you purchase it.