Why Jillian Michaels and I Can't Be Friends Anymore

As you may recall, I've been on a campaign to lose weight. I had my cousin's wedding to get me started, but since then I've been losing momentum instead of pounds. I thought I'd remedy that by buying Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30 dvd. I started it back in May, knowing full well that I wasn't going to get ripped in 30, but rather maybe ripped in 60. I like to alternate those short but intense workouts with longer cardio workouts.

Jillian's big thing is alternating strength, cardio and abs. To keep things really intense, her workouts include a lot of jumping and similar explosive motions. I didn't exercise at all during our vacation, so when we got back I decided to up the intensity a little by adding some jump rope intervals to my regular cardio. I use an elliptical machine 30 to 40 minutes at a time, so every 10 minutes I would jump off and jump rope for about a minute. And I kept doing the Ripped in 30 video workout every other day.

I made it all the way up until level 3 before I injured myself. I've come down with a nasty case of the Turf Toe. Yes, the injury most often found among professional football players and ballerinas has descended upon a West Virginian house wife just trying to make her ass a bit smaller.

And you know, you don't really realize how often you use the end of your foot/big toe area until you injure it. Simple tasks like kicking around my blankets at night, or leaning over to hoist Maggie out of her crib all aggravate my injury. It's not severe, so the only thing I can do about it is tape it and rest it, but with 4 kids rest isn't really an option.

So I hobble through my day, while still trying to get in my workouts, minus the jumping. Because if I have to choose between a big ass and a sore toe, I'll take the pain over the gain.