Jillian Michael's 30 day shred review

Up until a couple of years ago, I used to go to the gym regularly. (If you are curious why I stopped going, see old blog post here). Lately I've been missing the gym, I feel like I have less stamina and even though I'm a size 8/10, I'm feeling some wobbly bits where I shouldn't. For reasons that I quit in the first place, going back to the gym right now isn't an option, but I wanted to start getting some exercise in. So I decided a fitness DVD or two could be the way to go. This way I can fit the exercise around my schedule, cut out the travelling time and the expense of going to the gym.
I bought the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred DVD based on a recommendation from a friend. This was backed up by glowing reviews on Amazon as I went to buy it too.

After working out you can definitely feel it. I spent days with aches in muscles I didn't know I had. That's a bit of a tip though, to maybe take it gently for the first couple of times you do this, otherwise you need to rest for a number of days and then can't keep up with the work outs.

There are 3 levels of works outs, each get increasingly harder and each only lasts 20 minutes. That's part of the reason why I went for this particular DVD as time is of the essence for me. Plus, why spend an hour working out when you can lose the same amount of calories in 20 minutes with the right work out? I must admit, I've only braved levels 1 and 2 and yet to reach 3. The thing is I don't workout regularly, I do it sporadically. So I always start with level 1 and then if I do it continuously for a week or so I build up to level 2. But I've never done that for a long enough period of time to build up to level 3 so far.

Last summer I did this for 3-4 weeks in the build up to my holiday in Egypt along with tracking my calories on My Fitness Pal (app) and trying to cut down on my favourite sweet things. I 100% noticed a difference. It definitely increased my body confidence on holiday knowing that I had a flatter stomach and less cellulite on my thighs.

I need to get back in the swing of things with it again right now as we are currently hunting for an August late deal, so I have limited time to get in a decent shape.

What fitness DVDs do you recommend and why?

Konjac sponge review

I read about the Konjac sponge on another blog and the review was so positive I ordered one straight away.

Picture from Amazon.co.uk

This is the one I got from Amazon. They do a number of different ones, but I went for the bamboo charcoal as it is for oily and spot prone skin (me!). After rushing into the purchase and spending about £7 on it, I later took to eBay to have a browse and found them much cheaper there. Although they were unbranded, they were only about £1. Still, I told myself you can't beat branded products for skincare.

When it arrived I really did enjoy using it. It makes your skin feel really soft, much more so than your average face wash or scrub. I didn't want to cut out my face wash products all together although I think you can with these, so I tend to use this after my face wash to clean off any dead skin cells. It doesn't banish my oily skin or spots, but it does seem to help any blemishes reduce that little bit quicker and not get so severe in the first place.

I left this hanging in my shower between uses and I think that is where it went wrong. After a couple of weeks it started to crumble and once it got too bad I had to throw it away. Looking back, when it arrived and I unpackaged it, it was wet. So I probably should have put it back in the packaging after using to keep in the moisture. 

Since then, I ordered one of the cheap unbranded ones from eBay (in case the crumbling happened again). This time, I've kept it in the bag it came in, not letting it dry out and it is still going strong. Also, there is little different between the branded and unbranded, certainly not something I can justify spending £7 on, when the £1 does the same job. 

The konjac sponge is definitely an addition to my skincare routine that I will be keeping. Also the branded ones make up a nice part of a gift or stocking filler.