BBG Weeks 9-12

I was so excited to make it to the final phase of BBG. I had only made it as far as Week 10 before so I was determined to finish this time. I felt very motivated and confident about this final phase for two reasons. The first being the feedback I received from my Week 8 progress pic on Instagram.I received so many positive comments, a crazy amount of likes and gained hundreds of followers. I think the main reason for this was being lucky enough to have Kayla Itsine’s herself like my photo!

My 8 week progress pic

Kayla liked me photo!

This final phase was very hard for me. Week 9 was great because I was still coming off that high from receiving such great feedback. Week 10 was the complete opposite. It was almost that time of the month so I was an emotional mess and craving all the crap food, especially chocolate! I also got sick and ended up spending the weekend in bed. Add stress from work and other areas of my life into the mix and it’s a wonder I made it through to the other side but I did! Week 11 came and I was determined to get back on track and do my best for the last 2 weeks. I was so close to the finish line and I wasn’t going to give up this time!

This motivation and determination didn’t last long. Week 12 came and I felt like I was getting sick again. I don’t know if my body was fighting it the whole week or if I really was sick. I tried to keep a positive mindset and not think I was sick. But I wasn’t the only one struggling during Week 12. Thanks to the #bbgcommunity I found a few others girls were really struggling to stay motivated. As a serial 12 week challenger I have blogged about self sabotage and how whenever I get close to the finish line I drop the ball. I was reading about the theory of ‘fear of failure’ the other day. Sometimes our motivation isn’t to succeed. Sometimes it is to avoid failure. And how do you avoid failure? My Principles of Human Movement text lists the following strategies:

1. Undertake easy tasks (so success is guaranteed);
2. Invest little effort in the task (so they may blame the result on their lack of effort and not their abilities);
3. Undertake overly difficult tasks (failure is due to the difficulty of the task, not the person’s efforts/ability);
4. Cheat;
5. Take on too many tasks (failure is due to being overloaded with work).

I can’t speak for the other girls struggling with Week 12 but I can definitely identify with points 2 and 5! Do you relate to any of them? I think point is what happened to me in the end. I was so busy with Thermomix stuff and baking for my niece’s christening that I never found time in the final days of week 12. So I didn’t fail. I was just overloaded with work. But now that I know my fear of failure strategies I can make sure I don’t fall for them again.

Affirmation awakenings

I have been feeling the pull to find a new creative outlet lately but haven’t known how to go about it. I’m not the artistic one in my family. While I do have some talent it doesn’t even come close to my older sister. And when you’re older sister is a very talented graphic designer you kinda feel like there’s no point doing something that she would do way better.

But that’s my own belief and really have nothing to do with truth. So I have let that go and continued to find what my next creative outlet could be. Words have always been my thing but I feel like writing my blog has really channeled that energy for me. So what could I do that still involved words but was a bit more artistic? Well I love getting Danielle La Porte’s #truthbombs in my inbox everyday. It’s such a simple idea! But I don’t have any truthbombs lol! But it got me thinking about word art and manifestos and affirmations. Affirmations have actually been strong in my life this past week. I have my daily affirmation app which I no longer use every day but still check often enough to appreciate it. A new Thermomix incentive was announced this week and the affirmation I had that day was perfect to motivate me to go for it. I shared it with my team and my group leader shared the affirmation she had for that day. And as the universe would have it, that same affirmation was posted by Lisa Messenger on her Instagram the following day!

Today’s #truthbomb

My daily affirmation

Universal affirmation

So I’ve had affirmations on my mind and then today I checked out some fellow #perthBBGsquad blogs. I was amazed to find that @crosstichery has the same WordPress theme as me! We really are kindred spirits and I never would have ‘met’ Erin without BBG. I checked out @stephsayssmile blog and she actually has a range of affirmation products from her Etsy site on it. I had a look at her lovely range and thought that was kinda what I had been thinking of but since it was already being done it was time for me to move onto a new idea. If only ideas just fell out of the sky!

Confessions of a control freak

I had never thought of myself as a control freak. I guess with being a perfectionist it makes sense but I just thought I was too passive to be a control freak. But that’s because I thought control freaks controlled others. I hadn’t thought of my own control over all the fine details of my life. I had considered my organisation skills to be just that, a skill. But since attending Joanne Antoun’s event I have been looking at myself more closely.

I was blessed to have been given her book and I took it to work and had fun with my colleagues doing the personality tests on each other. Then one of my colleagues emailed the link to the personality test at www.16personalities.com and we all did that. I discovered I was a ISFJ personality (the defender) and this made just as much sense as ‘the doer’. I find personality tests so interesting and love gaining insights into myself. It was so funny that the following night I can across a personality test to do with my cat. She got the shy cat and that is exactly what she is! You can test your cat here.

So in light of all these personality tests I scrapped all my to-do lists for this week which I had taken off work. And it was a struggle. You can read about the beginning of my struggle here.

I moved passed it and enjoyed a day connecting with family. I rocked my crying 3 month old niece to sleep in my arms and I took my 3 year old nephew to Bounce where we had so much fun. I had such a great day and hadn’t thought about tomorrow or future plans. For the first time in a long time I was actually just in the moment.

BBG Weeks 5 – 8

Weeks 5 to 8 were a lot better than the first four weeks. I think the first four weeks are more about getting into a new routine and lifestyle change, if you are just starting out on your health and fitness journey. Or like me, recovering from adrenal fatigue – or any other illness.

They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit so I guess the first 4 weeks are more about creating new healthy habits and quitting any bad ones, like my sugar addiction!

The intensity of the workouts start to increase and there are more sessions to be do each week. The most noticeable increase is with the burpees. If you like burpees then you’ll be happy to know that you get to do an extra 5 burpees each time. No more 10 x burpees. This is not fun!

The fun doesn’t stop there. A few new moves also get added. Like the broad jump burpee. This is the same as a burpee but instead of jumping upwards you do a big jump forward. I actually prefer this over normal burpees. Must be something to do with my blood pressure! Another burpee type exercise is the drop push ups. This is basically a burpee without the jump but when you are on the ground you actually drop into a push up. My arms were like jelly doing these!

BBG Weeks 1-4

Four weeks ago I made the decision to restart BBG. At the time I still wasn’t feeling 100% and a global start date for Round 3 had been announced so it felt like the right choice to hit restart. During these past four weeks my health has improved and I felt like I was finally back in the game.

In my first part of my review on Kayla’s BBG I explained how it was a 12 week exercise plan incorporating a mix of resistance training sessions, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) cardio, and stretching. The intensity and number of sessions increases every four weeks to use a technique called progressive overload. The first four weeks are broken down like this:

2–3 sessions of resistance training 2–3 sessions of LISS cardio training 1 rehabilitation (stretch) session

The 2-3 resistance training sessions are what the BBG is all about and they are the same in weeks 1 and 3 and the same in weeks 2 and 4. I think this is great because you can try to push yourself a little harder the second time around. And with each week that goes by your fitness does improve. I really felt this in week 3. I think it was a combination of my health finally being 100% again and also my fitness getting back to what it was. When I re-started BBG I was getting through each 7 min circuit once and just making it through one more exercise… if I was lucky! By week 3 I was proud to say I was making it through each circuit twice before my alarm went off. I’m not saying those 7 minutes weren’t hell. The hashtag #deathbykayla wasn’t made up for fun! But I was finally able to make it to two rounds in those 7minutes. I’m not saying that you should be doing the same. I’m just saying that I knew my body was capable of doing that so I was happy to get back to that level again. It’s important that you go at your own pace. Push yourself but don’t do go overboard and push your own limits. Work within your own level of fitness and each week it will improve – whether it be making it to the next exercise or doing full push-ups.

Knowing when to hit restart

This past weekend I was struggling with an internal decision. I had technically just finished BBG Week 3 but had only done one workout. So I was trying to decide if I should move onto Week 4 or hit restart and go back to the beginning.

When I started BBG three weeks ago I was still struggling with adrenal fatigue and then last week I was struck by a nasty cold. So this is how my BBG had looked so far:

Week 1 – 30 min jog & Arms and Abs workout
Week 2 – Arms and Abs workout & Full Body workout
Week 3 – Legs and Cardio workout

The perfectionist in me wanted to restart so I could do better. In addition to my lack of movement I had also been eating a lot of crap so it wasn’t much of a surprise to find that I had put on 2kg! So that gave me another reason to want to hit restart.

Game changer

If you’ve been following my blog then you’ll know that I was hit by a virus a month ago and haven’t exercised at all since then. I was still eating quite well aside from my chocolate habit that seemed to increase each week! This week I began Kayla Itsine’s BBG program (I will post a blog about this after week 4 but if you want to know what it’s all about, you can sign up for a free 7 day trial here) and it’s made me feel like I’m at the beginning of my health and fitness journey all over again!

First of all, I know I need to ease back into working out because this time I am listening to my body and I know that while I finally feel better I don’t think I am at 100%. So I’ve rested, I’ve almost recovered and now I’m hitting restart and getting back into the game. My workout schedule this week was:

Monday – BBG workout
Tuesday – ‘run’ (aka walk, jog)
Wednesday – BBG workout
Thursday – LISS (low intensity steady state)
Friday – BBG workout (optional)
Saturday – LISS and Stretch
Sunday – Rest day

Being a Virgo, I am all about being organized and I plan everything. So in the past (pre health and fitness journey) I would have scheduled in these workouts and if I missed a workout or two then I would just write off the week. I was all or nothing – classic perfectionist! This changed in the past year, and if I had missed a workout or two then I would make sure I fit it in during the week e.g. do a double workout (which can lead to burn out if you don’t have rest days). This week I have been very relaxed about my approach and I’m still undecided if I am making excuses or not. I just want to find that happy place where I am balanced between ‘all or nothing’ and ‘doing nothing’.

Kayla’s Itsine’s BBG

I first discovered Kayla Itsine’s Bikini Body Guide (BBG) on Instagram while I was doing Maxine’s Challenge in 2014. I loved the fact that she was an Aussie (she’s from Adelaide) and she was helping so many women achieve amazing body transformations across the globe! I was keen to start her program but waited until I completed Maxine’s Challenge 2014. I only made it to about week 6 then I hit holiday mode in December! I started again on 5 January 2015 with Kayla and her Instagram followers all eager to kick start NYE resolutions. I made it to about week 10 but had also started Maxine’s Challenge 2015 and struggled to make the 2 programs work together. I’m now almost fully recovered from a virus that knocked me around for weeks so I feel like this program will be perfect for me as it is less demanding that my previous routine.  

So what is Kayla Itsine’s BBG? It’s a 12 week exercise and training plan. There’s also a healthy eating plan you can follow and you can get them both here. The exercise plan is a mix of resistance training sessions, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) cardio, and stretching. The intensity and number of sessions increases every four weeks to use a technique called progressive overload.

Challenge complete – Where to now?

The 12 week training and meal plans of the Maxine’s Challenge have finished but the challenge is not quite over yet. To complete it all Challengers have to upload their final picture. The requirements of this final photo is the same as the registration photo – you have to be holding the day’s newspaper, wear the same type of clothing in your ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos, and standing facing forward with arms at your sides – no posing.

I remember stressing so much about this final photo when I completed the challenge last year. Should I get a tan? Get a professional photograher? When to take the photo, where to take it and what to wear. I had put a lot of hard work in so obviously I wanted that hard work to show. In hindsight I don’t think it was worth all the stress. Maybe if I had made top 50 I would think differently. But I never entered the challenge in competition mode. Of course it would be nice to win, who doesn’t want to win. But I was always just competing against myself. This year I almost didn’t even bother taking my final photo because I hadn’t achieved much progress but I wanted to make sure I crossed that finish line. Read about my final week of the challenge here. 

But the completion process of the challenge is about more than that final photo. I love that you have to answer a few questions about the challenge when you upload your final photo. It gives you a chance to reflect on your journey – the complete journey – by asking the following questions:

• What did you like most about the challenge?
• What was the hardest thing about your challenge?
• What impact has the challenge had on your life?
• What would you say to people who are thinking of doing the challenge?
• Anything else you would like to tell us about your challenge?

I wish I had included my answers from last year in my Maxine’s Challenge 2014 review but unfortunately I didn’t. It would have been interesting to compare the two responses because both rounds have been completely different for me. And in saying that I realise that I can’t compare them just like I had to stop comparing my progress photos during this round against last year’s photos. The funny thing is last year I had to learn not to compare myself to others and this year I had to stop comparing myself to well, my former self.  And that’s what I love so much about Maxine’s Challenge – the lessons you learn about your self.

Challenge – Week 5

After last week’s chocolate binge I was determined to get back on track this week and eat clean and workout in the morning.  I still can’t believe how fast this Challenge is going. The first four weeks flew by and I was disappointed with my results but that will only push me harder. On Wednesday I went to my gym after work and had a Helix scan (body composition analysis).

 

 I had got one done towards the end of last year’s challenge. I obviously knew I had put on weight since then but it was good to compare the two scans. It was especially good to remind myself that I have lost weight before so I can do it again. I currently 2.7kg more than I did in September but I have also gained 400g of muscle. According to the scan my target weight should be 62.4kg. I would still like to get under 60kg and stay there this time.