#progress and My Journey Towards Fitness

I’m officially in week three of pre-training of BBG, also known as the Bikini Body Guide. And let me tell you, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s been life-changing for me already.

If you’ve never heard of Kayla Itsines and BBG, you’re not alone. One minute I’m searching for the cast of Pretty Little Liars on Instagram, and the next second I’m searching fitness hashtags and I come across #bbg and #bbgtransformation. Not only did the physical transformations take my breath away, but the transformations inside women really took a hold of me. The encouragement of the BBG community also inspired me to take a closer look at the program.

Kayla’s BBG program is a progressive program progressive program, in that you gradually build up endurance over the 12 weeks. You have 3-4 days of resistance, and 2-3 days of LISS (low intensity steady state cardio, like walking or yoga), and one rest day. Since I was completely out of shape I started the four-week pre-training series of exercises. Had I dived right into the 12-week program I probably would have quit. Initially I started out with the Sweat with Kayla app, but after learning that it was $20/month and that her PDF manuals were essentially the same workouts, I canceled the trial and got the Bikini Body Guide PDF instead. I read it right from my iPhone as I workout. Here was Monday’s workout (which I’m still feeling today!):

This was my first workout using weights and not solely using my own body weight for resistance. My least favorite exercise is a toss-up between the jump squats and the burpees. For me, the burpees still require lots of upper body strength that I don’t have…yet.

However, I’m surprised at how quickly my body is building stamina and strength. The first week I wasn’t able to do even one straight-leg sit-up. Now I can do at least 6 back-to-back. Same goes for push-ups. My lower body is stronger, but after adding in the weights I’m definitely struggling to keep up.

In case you’re wondering, I use the second step of my staircase in lieu of a bench, an 8lbs medicine ball, and two 5lbs weights. I will probably move up to a 15lbs medicine ball pretty soon as the eight-pound one seems like it’s not challenging enough. In college I used a 20lb medicine ball for abs, so that’s the goal I’m working towards. I bought a set of 40lbs adjustable dumbbells a few years ago so I won’t need to buy new weights when I’m ready to increase resistance.

#truth

In all seriousness, I am really sticking with this program. I look forward each day to my next workout, and the carrot dangling in my face are all of the transformation photos on Instagram from women all over the world. This is the first program I have found that speaks to the visual learner in me, and I love that I can take it anywhere with me without needing a DVD-player or internet connection. After the painful experience of taking my before photos (which I probably will not share anytime soon, if ever) I can already see improvement. I tend to visibly lose weight on my bottom half first, followed by my face and arms, and lastly, my mid-section. However, I’ve started slim down everywhere except my face, so this is really encouraging!

Having friends and family members join me on this journey is what’s even more amazing. I check-in daily with them via Snapchat and the accountability is working.

Would you try BBG? Have you tried it? Let me know!