I first heard about Zuzana from BodyRock.tv about a month ago. Stefan showed me one of her workout videos which was being passed around the stock broker network in Frankfurt and I was both awed and inspired by her right then. Check her out in the video below; it’s just one of many simple yet killer workouts that she has online.

After I saw my first Zuzana video, I said to Stefan: “I’m going to start doing her workouts cause I want to look like that!” But where to start? She has tons of workout videos online but instead of starting with something that may leave me in pain for weeks, I think starting at the beginning it a good way to go. Thankfully Zuzana has been kind enough to make a 6 part beginner’s video workout which is perfect for starting out.

I intend to get up at about 6 am (shortly after Stefan gets out of bed in the morning) and do the workout then. Mackenzie usually sleeps until 8 or so which will give me plenty of time to exercise and shower before she gets up. I’ll work out Monday-Friday and rest on Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, this is hard on the body and I may end up doing a cardio day on Wednesday instead (maybe with my boxing program on Wii) but we’ll see how it goes.

As I starting off point, I’m 5’11” (180cm) tall, weigh 127 pounds and have 27% body fat (according to my digital scale which calculates that for me.) Obviously I don’t have much fat to burn but rather want to get my muscles in shape and well toned. I haven’t worked out much in the last year (since before I was pregnant with Mackenzie) but take two daily walks with Ayla which are about 30 minutes each…and lately they’ve become more challenging while pushing a stroller through 7+ inches of snow! 🙂 I tried a Wii Fit program for a while but always found it too time consuming while cycling through exercises.

I always feel better when I’m working out, though, and certainly need the core training for my back these days. Mackenzie isn’t getting any lighter and now that she’s getting closer to walking, we’ll be trying to take on some of the projects around here that we didn’t get to last year. To me, exercise is a core component of living a healthy life. Diet is another one of those aspects. Thankfully we eat very little fast food and have home-cooked meals nearly every night. The only thing we’ll need to work on is adding more fresh veggies and fruits to our diet…so we better find a way to get our salad table warmed up quickly so we have fresh greens to eat!

I also need to reintroduce myself to my 2 liter bottle of water and start chugging water down again. I drank tons of water while pregnant and right after Mackenzie was born, but now that I’m chasing her all over the house, my bottle is rarely nearby. The advantage of using one large water bottle that you need to polish off every day is that you don’t need to keep track of how much water you drank during the day…the bottle does that for you. Fill it up once in the morning and drink it all during the day until it’s gone!

What I like about the BodyRock beginner’s program is that you can do it virtually anywhere with very little equipment, assuming you can remember the steps (or have a cheat sheet for yourself). Even on the more advanced stuff, Zuzana mixes things up and you can pick or chose your workouts based on what you have available. A lot of the more advanced workouts are done as quickly as possible so you not only get your workout done quickly (10-20 minutes for the entire workout) but you also get a really hard workout. This is especially helpful for parents working from home whose time is precious as they balance all their various hats on their heads.

So let’s get started! Do you want to workout with me? I’ll be posting a new BodyRock Challenge post every Friday. There I will recap my own progress from the previous week, leave some motivation for all of us and announce any changes to the workout routine. If you aren’t ready to move up to the next level, don’t worry; just keep working out at the current level until you feel it’s too easy or you notice you aren’t winded at the end of the workout.

Please leave a comment below if you’ll be working out with me. I’ll add a Mr. Linky to the bottom of each BodyRock meme post if there’s a lot of responses. If you are linking to your blog, please link DIRECTLY to your own post so that those of us who want to give you some encouragement can easily find your post. If you don’t have your own blog or website where you can talk about your progress, then just tell us how you did in your comment! Also feel free to save this image to your computer and upload it to your BodyRock Challenge blog posts!

The full BodyRock beginner’s workout routine will be posted tomorrow so start getting yourself ready. I’ve tried it out and although it may not look so challenging, you’ll definitely feel the burn!