Prevention Dance it Off DVD Review

As we know, I've lost quite a bit of weight recently. I often have people ask me what DVDs, exercises, and or books I have used to lose this weight. So I am going to do a series of reviews of some of my favorite DVDs.

Today, let's talk about my ultimate favorite DVD. The one I always reach for when I want something fun and motivating. Prevention Dance it Off .

This DVD, like it says, is a dance DVD. It starts off with a bit of a warm up. They teach you a few steps and moves.

After the warm up are four different dance styles. You have hip hop, latin, jazz, and ballet. These are all followed by a cool down.

You can choose to do routines in a continuous order for a workout that is about 50 minutes long, or you can choose to do just one style.

Each dance routine is about 10 minutes long and the warm up and cool down are each 5 minutes.

The routines do take some time to get to know. I think it took me about 3 to 5 times with each routine to really figure it out. I would suggest doing one routine until you figure out the steps before moving on to the next one.

However, once you have the routines down, this DVD is so fun and enjoyable (if you like to dance anyway). The moves are challenging and I work up a pretty good sweat when I do the entire DVD. The ladies dancing on the DVD are fun and upbeat and they present a range of body types.

This is by far my favorite DVD, but I did have to learn it first. It's not one of those you can pick up and expect to start sweating to right away.

What is your favorite type of exercise? Do you have any favorite DVDs?

Fitness, Shoes and Cake!

Today was another one of those good/bad days. It had some good...it had some bad.

Got up this morning and made my cake for tonight's class. My stepmom had bought me a "decadent carrot cake" to make this time. It's a boxed cake but it comes with a pouch of carrots and raisins that you add into the cake mix.

After my cake was done I helped my stepmom make hers and I went to jump on the treadmill. One of my challenges from my JM buddy for this week is to do 21 miles of walking/jogging. I was able to get in 4.5 miles yesterday and 4.5 miles today. I only have 5 days to fit in all these miles because I'm leaving on Friday evening.

While I was on the treadmill my newest pair of ShoeDazzle shoes came! They are super cute and the first pair of flats I've ordered from them.

After my workout and shower we got a phone call from the cake decorating instructor letting us know our cake class was canceled because of flash flood and tornado warnings. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed. I am especially disheartened because they've moved the final class to Monday and I'm leaving Friday. The instructor is going to stay after class with me and give me my certificate of completion on Thursday though. I'm a self learner anyway so I'm sure I'll be fine.

My stepmom and I sat around kind of sad for a while. We decided we would go ahead and exchange gifts tonight. We also started talking about the carrot cake I had sitting on the stove. My stepmom mentioned that we should go get some cream cheese frosting and just have the cake tonight and make another one before Thursday's class. Well, I jumped on the computer and looked up a recipe and made home made cream cheese frosting. I also had some leftover spiced nuts from my holiday care packages and we decided to decorate the cake with those.

Here's how it turned out:


I didn't try any of the cake but my dad said it was good.

We did our gift exchange this evening. I gave my dad some Denver Broncos stuff, my stepmom a professional cake decorating book, and my stepbro a Visa giftcard. Lily received a huge dollhouse that is bigger than her and a snowman snow globe that plays music. They gave me a 20 piece set of cake decorating tips, a creme brulee torch, and 8 ramekins. I'm so excited to make an oatmeal creme brulee I found the recipe for a while back. My parental units even thought of Otty and his gift is sitting wrapped over there by the fire place. I know what it is and I'm very excited and jealous about it but I can't post it here because I never know if he'll read this or not.

So here I am now, wide awake. I should be doing some exercises because I have a bunch I need to do. I'm supposed to at least do 8 minutes of lunges (each leg) and 100 donkey kicks today. Let's not talk about all the rest of the stuff. So far I've done 8 minutes of lunges total (4 on each leg) and 75 donkey kicks. I'll knock out the donkey kicks easily but the lunges are another story. I'll get them done. Don't worry.