Stars At The Shore: Jillian Michaels
By Veronica Dudo
ATLANTIC CITY (CBS) - Celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels recently taught a boot camp at Showboat Casino in Atlantic City for the inaugural Sweat AC Festival. The three day fitness expo was presented by Caesars Entertainment and focused on fitness, nutrition and health. In addition to being a trainer, Michaels is also a fitness expert, life coach, author, blogger and creator of DVDs and video games. She has appeared on numerous TV shows such as "The Doctors," "The Biggest Loser" and "Losing It With Jillian." While in Atlantic City, she talked about juggling her busy life and offered some everyday exercise tips.
You now have two children, how has that affected you're exercise routine?
It's definitely not the same! I haven't been back to Yoga in five months. It's a 90 minutes class-you have to drive there and then you have to drive home that never happens anymore. First, it was cute and then I was like, wow, I feel out of shape and I noticed a difference in my body and I had to make a decision. You really have to get to a place where you're like this is enough; I've got to get it together. One of the things I do is I'll take my kids with me. When we were on vacation, we didn't have help and my daughter had a little life vest on and I put her on a paddle board and went paddle boarding or I'll put my son in his carrier and I'll go hike with him or put them in their jogging stroller and go to Venice Beach and jog on the Boardwalk.
What is your diet?
It depends (laughs) on what I'm going through at the moment. For the most part it's pretty clean. I allow myself 200 calories a day of whatever I want but not exactly 'whatever' because I don't eat chemicals ever. The only thing I ever rule out completely are chemicals; they have no place in my diet. I don't eat artificial anything. If I'm out and the salmon is not wild, well okay fine but for the most part when I can control it. For me, I usually start out pretty good. I get worse as the day goes on which is exactly the opposite of how it should go.
Is there an exercise that you hate but think is beneficial?
There's an exercise that I hate more than anything on the planet and that's running and I hate it! I'm physically not built for it--it's amazing. For years I've forced myself and it's incredible because I show no progress. I can bike longer, harder and faster or row longer, harder and faster to get better results and I tried for years and I finally said that's it.
What are your top workout moves for someone who doesn't have a lot of equipment or space?
Anything from a plank or push-up position because you're basically engaging the entire front of your body and your core. Anything from that position is going to work as many muscle groups as you can hit in one swoop. I'm really big on body weight training so if you have a broomstick and you can put it over two chairs do body rows which are great for your arms and your back. I'm a really big fan of combo lifts so what I love for people to do is get a light pair of dumbbells and do their leg work with their arm work because arms are a waste of time but if you put them together with legs well now you're working multiple muscle groups at the same time, you're forcing your body to stabilize and you're being more three dimensional.
To bring your training to a specific place do you have to do weight training?
I'm not sold on throwing heavy weights around. I just don't think it was the way we were meant to function. I feel like I can get a perfectly good workout using my own body weight. For me it's about being fit to be functional.
