I excitedly opened up the package waiting for diet instructions and what else to buy and…nothing. Just a DVD. With the same info that’s on the ordering page. Bummer.

Off to the DVD player. In it goes. Routine or Chapters? Hmmm. Let’s go through the chapters. Short little clip of Tracy talking. She looks much better than her pictures. Short clip of Gwyneth. LOVED her response to her friends who say that they don’t have time to exercise and they have kids, blah, blah. “Well I have kids too. You just have to make it a priority,” says angelic Gwyneth.

And one could say, well Gwyneth probably has chefs and nannies and maids. Maybe, (she says she does all the cooking) but with a celebrity life, she’s still swamped with stuff. Have we ever met anyone who’s not swamped? My retired mother is swamped.

Another clip of Tracy talking. She’s really only 5’ 1”? She said no past aerobic, Pilates, step, spinning class ever worked on her. OMG! Me too! And that dieting never worked on her. OMG again! Me too! She talks about her doing ballet dancing and I own a dance studio and I’m thinking, she’s not a dancer. At least not a professional dancer. And she used to be heavy? Where are the pictures? But, hey, I spent the money, I’m trying the routine.

The routine. Pressing play. Dark screen. Bass of the music. My windows are rattling! Are my windows going to fall out? I don’t even have the sound up that high. Are vases going to shake and fall off a table? What’s up with that bass? I feel like a pimp in a low ride. Is the whole DVD going to be like this?

I gotta hear her talk. Maybe I can turn down the bass. No. Okay short talking. We’re moving. We’re warming up. I always hate the warm-ups. I want to get to the exercise. Warm-up going well. I wonder who’s house this is filmed in? Madonna’s? (Turns out it’s Gwyneth’s’ house). Is that plywood on the walls? Tons of plies to finish it off. [Plie: squats but with the feet wider than the shoulders, toes turned out, back straight]

Okay, here comes the routine.

I am about to do the same routine that Madonna and Gwyneth do. This is exciting.

She’s asking for a chair to stand behind. I get one. New song. Thankfully. Bass is okay now. We start. Knee lifts to the side.

Knee lifts? That’s it? No fireworks? No weights strapped to the ankle tied off to a post with a pulley system? A knee lift? Okay I’m lifting. Now “attitude” lift to the side. I’m thinking, good thing I’m a dancer ‘cause no explanation given on that one. [Attitude is a slight bend in the leg.] Maybe she was a dancer. We’re lifting.