Fitness Friday - the Jane Fonda way

Are you familiar with the expression 'seemed like a good idea at the time'? What it means is that sometimes a person has an idea that seems good but then really, it's not a very good one. I think that maybe that's what this Friday Fitness program may have been. You see the one fatal flaw in this plan is that Jane Fonda, John Travolta and the Super Firm guys wrote entire books about their fitness program and I thought I could just write one little post about each and we'd all get fit? Who do I think I am?!

But I made a promise guys, I told you I'd give you Jane and I'm gonna. But don't expect me to be thorough or entertaining.

So Jane encourages us to take a sensible approach to our fitness regime. Sure, there is a little confusion. Like, she is all, "this isn't about losing weight, it's about feeling better, getting strong and healthy". But then she is all, "If you follow this you'll lose weight, but don't rush it". She does have good tips like, don't be bulimic and set realistic goals. Both important.



But there are some things I like about this book. Well mainly one thing, it's Jane's eat carbs, ditch meat approach to eating. Now that is a diet I approve of. Me, I actually only do care about getting buff so I am not following Jane's diet. Also because this is what she says we can eat in one day:


2 choices of dark green vegetables (1/4 cup broccoli and 1 cup spinach, for example)
1 choice another vegetable (a carrot, or a LARGE MUSHROOM! for example)
1-2 choices of fruit (an apple and an apricot, for example)
2 choices cereal/grain (1 piece of bread and 1/2 cup oats, for example)
1 choice protein (1 egg or maybe 1/2 cup cooked lentils, for example)
2 choices dairy (1 cup low fat milk, 1 cup low fat yoghurt, for example)
1 choice fat (1 tablespoon oil, for example)

Jesus Christ, Jane Fonda are you trying to kill me? One large mushroom! Are you effing kidding me. This seemed like a tiny amount but I tried it for a day. By about 1PM I had exhausted my 1 non-dark green vegetable (1/4 avocado), fruit (a few strawberries and an apple), grain (1 piece of bread, one bowl porridge) allocations. Also, I'd had a couple of spoonfuls of custard that I'd been making for ice-cream. So that was probably half my dairy and all my fat intake. Which meant for the rest of the day I could eat 2 green vegetable serves, 1 protein and one dairy serve. Get real Jane, I'm a human. Incredulous that this was all I could eat for the rest of the day I did a calorie count and saw that I had eaten less than half the calories Jane suggested for the day. A mushroom has 3 calories and I can only have one of them? Of course I went off the diet. BUT, I am going to try and loosely follow it. That is I'm going to try and eat a little less food and a little more carefully and cut down on fats and cut out sugar. I feel like Jane would approve.

Okay, now comes the regime. Obviously I can't type it out word for word. Also there about 40 things she wants you to do broken down into warm-up (TWELVE WARM-UP EXERCISES! Fair suck of the sav, Jane!), upper body, aerobics, aerobics cool down, abs, legs and hips, buttocks, cool down. Sheesh Jane, way to make your New Workout plagiarism-proof from the lazy blogger. Boy did she have foresight.

I can't tell you everything that Jane suggests so here is a selection of things I may do (and let's all remember I have no extra knowledge about health or fitness other than what I picked up living as a human for the last 30something years and skim reading this book. I promise nothing, I know nothing):

Warm-up 

Head presses (moving head for side to side, stretching neck each side for a count of 4. Twice each side.)
Shoulder rolls (you know, lift up shoulders roll them backwards in a circle. Do 8 times.)
Elbow circles (put hands on shoulders then circle them forward up and down. Do it 16 times.)
Waist lifts (stretching arms up and leaning to each side stretching the waist)
Hamstring stretch, toe raises, tendon stretch, knee bends (basically all variations of forward bends)
Push-ups (girl style, as many as you can, yesterday I did 10)
 

Upper body

Bicep curls
Pectoral presses
Tricep extensions
Deltoid presses
Side arm lifts
Do eight of each. Jane suggests no weights, but as I am not a pussy I am going to use small weights. Except for the deltoid weights because in truth I am a little bit of a pussy. Finish with a shoulder stretch

Aerobics

Your goal, according to Jane, is to reach 20-30 mins of aerobic exercises here. Go for a brisk walk or jog, dance around the room run on the spot. You know, get aerobic. Do a stretchy cool-down.

Abs

Sit-ups (from lying with knees bent, do 20)
Crunches (legs up in the air, curl head and shoulder up to knees, do 24)
Crossovers (as above but you direct your elbows towards the opposite knee, do 16)
Hip stretch (lie on back bring knees up to your chest)

Legs and hips and ass

A variety of leg lifts (google them, shit you guys I'm totally bored of the sound of my internal voice)
Pelvic curls (do a bunch)

Cool down

Hip and hamstring stretch
Groin stretch
Side stretch

Shit, Jane Fonda, where do you find the time?! Seriously. Yesterday was my first go. Because I wanted to run but was home alone with Baby I skipped the aerobics portion just did the stretching and resistance stuff and went for a run later. I've decided that I will do the stretching and resistance stuff 3 days a week and go for a run three days a week. Because shit, I have a small child, I can't be doing hour long work outs all the time. Not at home anyway. So really this isn't Jane's workout at all. It's more J does Jane. Whoopsee.