You already know how I love a good workout video and fitness class. I started off 2025 with a Barre Fitness class at the community center. I didn’t stick with that for too long because when the session started over, I signed up for Strength and Tone.

This was at a much greater intensity. The music playlist had us jamming! It was upbeat! It was fun! I found myself really looking forward to this class. The instructor (same teacher as for barre) made each week different. Some weeks were a 3-2-1 pack of minutes of cardio-strength-abdominals. Sometime she had us randomly pick index cards off the wall that dictated the exercise to be performed. The variety was great!

I kept signing up for each 6-week pack session until June – when I was leaving for a big vacation to Hawaii. I would have missed three of the six sessions and though these community classes are at a lower rate than what can be found in the city, I still didn’t want to take the loss. I loved the weekly commitment that surely supplemented my Memorial Day Weekend Half Marathon (more on that another time). When I returned from the trip, it was almost the Fourth of July. Instead of signing up for the next 6-week session, I committed myself to a weekly at-home strength and tone exercise video. I was hoping to make use of the weekday evening freedom for meeting up with friends or playing pickleball.

Y’all did I find a great video! I’ve been a long-time fan of Gilad and his Body in Motion (now Still Moving) fitness series. It all started when I got his DVD called “Phenomenal Abs & Core” from the local library. This might’ve been 2023. My husband scoffed at first. “No way! 60 minutes of abs?” Lo and behold! He bought the DVD from Amazon. We’ve done the workout with friends a few times, I’d like to think we’ve convinced them it’s good. But it’s fantastic. (Honestly, I rarely make it through the entire video myself, it is so tough.)

I think it was around last Christmas when I bought another DVD from Gilad, this time, “Sculpt and Tone.” It is also fantastic! For me – it’s definitely a bit of strength. I started using it in the springtime. When I first did the video with my friend Matt, our weights were way too heavy. It reminded me of the barre class – how one needs lighter weights for the higher reps. The smallest weight he had for me was 10-lbs. I’m not mad, I assure you, I used two hands or dropped the weight as needed. Soon after, I did the DVD again. My 8-lbs dumbbells were still too much. At this point in the year, I was using 2-3-lbs at the barre fitness class and later, moved up to 5-lbs for the strength and tone class.

This called for a trip to Target! I justified it with having a gift card to use. I purchased 5-lbs dumbbells to complement my 3-lbs dumbbells I already had at home. This was an excellent idea! Now I could do Gilad’s Sculpt and Tone DVD in full, adjusting weights as needed. This is another reason I liked the community class – there’s a huge age range of participants and everyone can pick what weight is right for them.

Now, Gilad is still teaching classes at a studio in Oahu, Hawaii. I looked up where it was, how far from the hotel, how much time needed to walk or Lyft, which days he was teaching. On the website, he had a live class at 1 or 2 pm on Thursdays. I intentionally chose to start my trip to Hawaii with us arriving on Wednesday in order to take his Thursday class. Unbelievably, on Wednesday when I checked the site and clicked to register: NO CLASS! WHAT?! I even contacted the studio to check. Nope! He was out of town. Ugh! I was disappointed, yes! The trip was still incredible. The only thing I will complain about is that I purposely brought my running shoes for that fitness class all that way from Michigan– this was annoying since I packed SUPER light, carry-on only, and, well, I pretty much wore either sandals or hiking boots. UGH!

As summer is winding down, I have to admit I feel like I lost all my fitness from the half marathon training in May. When I returned from the big trip, though I hadn’t ran there, I was sure I had maintained some level of fitness because we did SO MANY hikes, thousands of feet of elevation climbed. It was incredible and there’s so much to say about that. My summer goal was to focus on short distance by preparing for a fall speedy 5k race and a half marathon race to check progress.

  1. I didn’t run nearly as much I wanted to. If I did, it was 1-2 miles at a time, once or twice a week. IF THAT.
  2. I did keep up pretty well with the strength and tone (aka Gilad’s Sculpt and Tone) weekly.
  3. I also kept up with my 4x/month hot yoga classes (Bikram).
  4. The half marathon I had my eye on was the Niagara Falls half in Canada, which I found out last week that it is sold out. I might’ve learned this a month before I clicked to finally register if they had put that on their main home page, instead of clicking as if you’re going to actually register with a credit card at the ready…
  5. I am signed up for a 5k race. It is in less than two weeks. And it might not be pretty.

Today I ran 3 miles, averaged 10:00 pace. This felt tough! I can’t complain about weather as an excuse because the temperature was around 70F, which feels quite cool. And comfortable in the house as the A/C quit a few weeks ago (Guess we’ll wait for spring?). After a few minutes rest, we did Gilad’s Sculpt and Tone DVD. This felt like a great day of exercise.