ZCUT Power Cardio DVDs review

Today's review is a little bit different, because it's health and fitness related, but I hope you like it anyways. I've been following Zuzana Light for many years now. I respect her and been doing her workouts almost on daily basis. So I decided to order her ZCUT Power Cardio Series DVDs, she released in March if I'm not mistaken. I knew I needed to include more cardio, I just didn't find a fun and short way to do it. Zuzana reads my mind ;)

3 DVDs + calendar

DVD set comes with 3 DVDs and easy to follow 30 day calendar poster for first month. Each DVD has 4 workouts, warm up routine, cool down & stretching routine and ab bonus workout. So that equals 12 different cardio workouts total, 1 ab workout, which is the same on all 3 DVDs, same goes for warm up and stretching after a workout.

You get a workout breakdown before an actual workout, so you know exactly what are you doing. Zuzana before real time workout, shows an explains you proper form and how many reps you have to make. Now that I already know the warm up routine, I usually watch explanation part whilst I warm up ;).

Warm up routine is dynamic, nothing like a warm up I was used to do before, but it's effective. I usually already start sweating doing it. Cool down and stretching routine is usually my best part, rolling on the floor, sweaty and sticky ;)

Last side of 1st DVD.

Now to the actual workouts ...
Like I said, there are 12 workouts, mainly cardio, but they are amazing strength wise as well, so you won't lose your muscles while doing cardio. You have different types of workouts:

• time challenge workouts: have to complete all exercises and reps in shortest amount of time. You write it down in calendar and try to finish faster next time doing it;
• interval training: they have no rest in between. You do one exercise for 30 or 40 seconds, then move to next one until time is up;
• tabata training: it's basically interval training, but you have 10 seconds rest in between exercises;
• as many rounds as possible (amrap): 10 minutes countdown. You have to push really hard and try to finish as many rounds as possible.

All workouts take around 12 minutes. The shortest workout is the first one, my record was 7 minutes 53 seconds, the longest workout took me 15 minutes 50 seconds. With warm up and cool down all together lasts around 20 - 25 minutes. And that's all what you need to do for workout in a day! I was thinking which workout I love most, but I just couldn't decide which one to pick! I like them all equally, even though I swear in my head a little while doing them! ;)

Calendar is easy to follow.

Best part? All workouts are REAL TIME, so you can follow along with her or you can try to do better than her or you could do them on your own. I've noticed that I push harder if I see her pushing hard along with me, and I always try to be few reps before her ;). You see her doing workouts with struggle. She starts doing push ups from her knees, or complains how it hurts ... She makes it real! That's why I love her. And her form is perfection. I think that's her trade mark - excellent form.

Another best part :P is that all workouts are BODY WEIGHT - no equipment needed. You basically need only a chair (couch will do too ;)) and stack of books (or imaginary object :P) to jump over it.

She wasn't in her best shape when she filmed these DVDs if you compare her to how she looks now. I think these makes her even more amazing, because that means her workouts and diet tips work.

Whole calendar.

The calendar that came with the DVDs is easy to follow, you have written which workout to do on certain day and you have 7 skinny tips total written on active rest days. You can do ab bonus workouts on these day, or do one of her ZWOWs (you can find them on her YT channel: here) or go for a walk, do yoga ... Or take day off to recover - listen to your body. Underneath the schedule you have before and after photo spot, so you can compare them at the end of the month and you can write down you stats for each week - weight, waist, arm, leg. I also measured my hips, calves and bust line.

Zuzana also followed first month calendar and did video for each day, you can find her videos with tips on her YouTube channel: here.

 
Do I recommend ZCUT Power Cardio DVD series?
YES, YES, YES. I bet some of the workouts are more intense than Insanity workouts! I recommend them to all who want to lose fat/weight and don't have a lot of time to workout. They are easy to travel with, you don't need Internet connection + they come in environment friendly packaging.

Price? $15,95 + p&p = it was around 20€, which I think it's reasonable price. I received the package in about 2 weeks. You can buy them on Amazon: HERE.

Oh, and I almost forgot to share my results for first month!
I weighted myself even though this is not my prefered method, but I lost 2,5 kgs, I've seen most changes around my belly, muffin tops are smaller and I lost some fat on my back. Legs are the most stubborn part of my body, fat wise :D. I lost 3 cms in my waist, 1 cm in my arm, 2 cms in my leg and 0,5 cms in my left calf. I'm impressed to be honest. My diet was as always: did my best to eat clean, gluten free vegetarian diet.

I didn't take first picture topless, I just covered my bra :D
From left to right: 1st day of Zcut, 1 month after, 1st day of Zcut, 1 month after.

Have you heard of Zuzka Light before? Do you follow her? Will you buy these DVDs? What kind of cardio routine do you do?

What I ate Friday + workout OTD

I realized I haven't posted any "what I ate" posts in a long long time. I decided to do that today :). This post is kinda related to getting in the best shape for my birthday, so you get an idea what I eat on an ordinary day.

Breakfast: half of Greek yogurt, handful of mixed nuts, one nectarine, one spoon of honey and of course a cup of green tea. Yum! (and of course I accidentally deleted picture of my breakfast. I wouldn't be Deja if I haven't done something wrong or forgotten something. Silly me :))

WOTD (workout of the day that is :)):
I kept it kinda old school and simple.
First part had three main exercises: jump lunges or switch lunges (however you'd like to call them), tricep dips and squat jumps (regular squat with a jump when you come back up). I did 16 repetitions for each exercise and in between I did 4 burpees (squat down, hand on the floor in front of you, jump your feet back, do a push up, jump your feet forward and jump up). I completed whole sequence three times in 9 minutes and 44 seconds.
Second part was 10 minutes of random ab, butt and leg exercises.
Third part was wall sit for 3 minutes and held plank for 45 seconds (and my record is 3 minutes. lol)

Post-workout shake: chocolate protein shake with half of banana.

Lunch: green salad, rucola, 6 olives, half of avocado, half of tomato, mozzarella cheese, salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mixed spices.

Afternoon snack: two corn waffles with little bit of Greek yogurt, honey, half of banana that was left from morning and shake of cinnamon. I would use peanut butter and honey, but I ran out of peanut butter, and my next "project" is to make homemade peanut butter :)

Dinner: omelette (one whole egg, two egg whites) with mixed veggies (zucchini, onion, carrot, rucola, green pepper and tomato) + evening tea :)

I usually have 4-6 meals per day, it really depends on when I wake up and what I do during the day.

Do you like this kind of posts?

xoxo Deja

Bye bye Cellulite

Or at least how to reduce it. You may never get rid of it completely, most of people have it. Even men, but they have less fat cells than women, that's why it's less visible. Even skinny girl have it.
Well, we all know how cellulite looks and that junk food will not help get rid of it. :)
So, I'll just mention some things that probably helped me to reduce cellulite.

1. Long time ago I read that lemonade can help you get rid of cellulite. What I usually do, is to mix one whole bottle of water (1,5 l) with juice from one lemon and drink it during whole day. No sugar! Sugar is no good for your body!

2. Drinking a lot of water help your body to stay hydrated and it helps you with losing weight. Cellulite is fat, water will "wash it away" :). I probably drink 4 liters a day.

3. Eating clean diet. No white sugar, white salt, white flour, no bad fats, noo highly processed foods ...Yes, there is still plenty food to eat, believe me :)

4. Exercise, exercise, exercise. I cannot put this out enough. Exercising helps me with everything - with losing wieght, sculpting my body, therefore losing cellulite ... and the most it helped me with my mentality. When you have a positive body image, weight just drops. Seriously.

5. No anti-cellulite cream will help you if you don't massage areas where you have it. I found this little massage thing-y not so long ago in Kik. I think it was 1 € or a little bit more (not more than 3 €). If I watch a movie (or whatever else I do) I rub it on my legs :D. It's not really time consuming.

6. I have probably tried a lot of anti-cellulite creams, and they can be quite expensive! The one and only treatment I love is this oil from Alverde. I used it last year, I use it this year and I think it helps. It's around 4 €. And no cream will help you if you don't exercise. Together they work magic :)

Don't deprive yourself from having fun because you think you have a lot of cellulite or because you think you're fat. When you start truly loving yourself, other people will fall in love with you, too. Even with cellulite.
And ladies, one more thing. Boys woudn't know about half of our "problems" if we would keep them to ourselves. :) So shhhh. If a boy likes you don't point out your flaws. :)

Summer is almost here!! Hope this helps!

xoxo Deja

P.S.: I changed my blog layout again. I really loved the previous one, but it was so slow on my computer and had quite some difficulties with it. Hope this one is better. Will probably do some more changes, but for now I'm quite satisfied with it :)

Time for a new challenge!

I actually have 2 challenges - one is just for myself and the other one is for whoever wants to join me:).

Firstly, I will start writing my posts in English, as you may have noticed already :). Please be kind, English has always been my weakness, so I take it as a challenge. Always do something that scares you, right? :)

Second challenge is more health related. I've been reading a lot of books lately and I always find myself in strange positions while reading It's kind of a "book-asutra" :P or however you'd like to call it. While I was laying on my belly with my legs extended, I remembered an easy but effective exercise from waaaay back when I was still going to physiotherapy for my hip joints (never been injured, they just hurt me when I was walking, standing and even sitting too long). All you have to do is squeeze your butt as much as you can and hold it for few seconds, then release. Repeat countless times :P. And you  can do it for 5, 10, 15 minutes or even half an hour. It's not really time consuming if you read a book while doing it.

There is another great exercise for your bottom: one leg squats. Even regular squats are challenging enough (make sure you make them properly), but one legged ones are really really tough. And you need only one week to start seeing massive changes. Been there.

(Source: click)

So what's the challenge, you ask?


Whenever you find yourself in a "book-asutra" position (sorry, I had to do it again :P) - laying on your belly on a flat surface, sqeeze your gluteus maximus muscles for as long as you want. One minute is always better than zero! This goes for everything workout-related. I repeat that all the time.

And do one leg squats five times a day for five repetitions on each leg (5 times X 5 reps X 2 legs = 50 squats). It really takes a minute to do them 10 in a row. Sqeeze them in to your day - do them after returning from the toilet to your work desk, do them while you wait for your veggies to get steamed, do them while watching Deseprate Housewives or whatever show you're watching ... there is one more rule: if you don't do them 5 times a day, you have to complete all 50 (or whatever number is to make them 50) before bed time. It may sound impossible, but I guarantee you will see a change in one week only! If you don't, pease feel free to unsubscribe, insult me or beat me up when you see me in the street :P But that won't be necessary :) 
Here is a decriptions how to make them properly: click.

So, let's start! :) I'm starting tomorrow, because I'm still kinda sick (who follows me on Twitter already knows that :)). And this is the main reason for lack of posts lately. Sorry :(.

I hope my English is understandable :)) I was first thinking about writing in Slovene and English, but time is precious and my posts are always informative and long ... And I don't have all time in the world. I need to workout and eat and be awesome when I don't write my blogs. It's not easy :D

Have a lovely weekend <3

xoxo Deja