"When you bring everything you have to every situation, that's when the magic happens."
-- Jillian Michaels
The words above are the words that motivate me to press on during circuit one of week one of Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30 fitness DVD. Those are the words that push me to keep going even though I feel like I'm going to vomit or faint or vomit and faint, landing face first in my own puke.
And those words are a great example of how Jillian Michaels makes me a better writer.
I started Ripped in 30 on Aug. 1 and spent June working through Michaels' wildly popular 30-Day Shred DVD. If you know me outside of the blogosphere, you know I talk about Jillian Michaels all the time. I call myself a true believer, a Jillian Michaels disciple. When at a birthday party this past weekend and someone mentioned that she was having trouble getting motivated to work out I saw this as a prime time to be a witness. I started encouraging her to try one of Michaels' videos.
My husband, who was also at the party, sighed and said, "You couldn't wait to preach the Jillian Michaels gospel."
Hallelujah!
My love for Jillian Michaels, however, surprisingly has more to do with my writing than my weight.
Michaels has a way of not only making you feel like you can accomplish fantastic fitness feats, but that you can accomplish anything you want in any other part of your life too. As I wrote last month in an article for See Jane Write Magazine:
In level two of 30-Day Shred, Jillian says, “When you see how strong you are physically, it’s going to transcend into every other facet of your life.”
I didn’t pay much attention to this statement at first. It’s hard to concentrate on words of encouragement when you feel like you’re going to vomit up your heart. But one day when the moves started to get a tiny bit easier and my arms started to feel a tiny bit stronger, I realized she was right.
When you complete a challenging workout, when you lift more weight than you ever thought you could, when you run your first marathon, something inside you changes, and not just your cholesterol. You stare at that exercise DVD, or those weights, or that finisher’s medal and you think, “If I can do that, I can do anything.”
If you can finish that marathon, you can finish writing that book. If you can stick with that Insanity DVD for 60 days, you can stick with your blog. If you can bench press all that weight, you can press send on that pitch letter to your favorite magazine.
You can do it.
Jillian Michaels said so.
What are you fitness plans for August?
