Challenge Results: WHOOP!

Well, my first official Beachbody Challenge is complete, and I'm really happy with the results!

Here were my goals, as posted on 6/22:

• Replace breakfast with Shakeo every day for 60 days. 
• Follow the work out schedule (Supreme Warrior) listed in my Fitness Guide. 
• Lose 15 pounds
• Lose a cumulative 10 inches 

Negative bit first: The only slight disappointment, for me, is that I didn't lose any weight. None. Nada. I realize this is because I was working out HARD, but it's a disappointment, nonetheless. 

I have had Shakeology for breakfast every morning since late June. I love-love-love it.

I didn't miss a single workout from my Supreme Warrior schedule. Not a SINGLE one. I have worked out 6 days a week since 7/1. I'm taking a couple days off now, but will probably start back up tomorrow with 5 workouts a week.

And, most impressive:

Over the span of 60 days, I lost 11.1 inches. ELEVEN POINT ONE. I've replaced 11.1 inches of fat with muscle by working out, eating pretty clean, and keeping my long term goals in mind.

My waist is thinner, my legs are more toned, my arms are thinner, my shoulders are more defined - I'll take that, with no weight lost, over the quick drop in pounds I experienced in the past because I was eating processed, packaged stuff that was likely devoid of much that could be considered healthy any day. This is loss I can maintain simply by continuing my relatively newly acquired healthy habits.

I'm going to keep up Shakeology - it's the best, healthiest breakfast I've ever had in my life, and the benefits of my regularly ingesting so many Superfoods are all over the place. I'm actually satisfied after I have my shake. Beyond that, I have more energy, my body feels more balanced, and I'll go so far as to credit the vitamins and nutrients in Shakeo for the fact that, last month, I could feel a cold sore coming on and my body was able to fight it off without any medicine. Please and thank you!

As for the workouts - for September, I'm going to continue Combat, but I'm going to follow a schedule of my own making, made up of my favorite workouts - Shock Plyo, Combat 30, and Combat 45, possibly with Power HIIT thrown in. Then, in October, I plan to do T25 (ShaunT is a BEAST!) which will last 15 weeks, so it will get me through the holidays. Then, depending on where I am in the new year, I may consider Insanity, though I am already planning to revisit Combat in the Spring sometime.

For now: I was able to easily put on pants I haven't worn in at least 8 years last night. In my goal size.

Thanks to Beachbody's programs and my love of Shakeology, I'm the healthiest I've ever been, weight be damned. Yes, weight loss is an eventual goal, but for now, making the complete transition to clean eating is where my focus is.

So, in short: this whole experience was pretty awesome.

Til next time,
Ang

BeachBody Challenge Check In: 30 Days, Minus Inches

Hi there,

Well, we're halfway through my BeachBody Challenge, and while I'm not over-the-moon with my results (it's all mental, I assure you. More on that later), I do, in fact, have results, so that is good progress.

First, as a reminder, these were my goals for the initial 60 day period:

5 GOALS
Dates: July 1 - September 1: 
1. Replace breakfast with Shakeo every day for 60 days.
2. Follow the work out schedule (Supreme Warrior) listed in my Fitness Guide.
3. Lose 15 pounds
4. Lose a cumulative 10 inches

I'll give a quick update regarding all 4 goals below.

1. Replace breakfast with Shakeo every day for 60 days. 
This is in progress. I've had Shakeology every morning for breakfast since late June, and I really do love it. 

2. Follow the work out schedule (Supreme Warrior) listed in my Fitness Guide.
This is in progress as well. That said: I haven't missed a single workout, and I don't intend to start now. 6 days on, 1 day off... it's been a challenge, but one I have really been stoked to be part of.

3. Lose 15 pounds. 
Here's where I feel I'm struggling. I haven't lost a single pound. I lost 1, then gained it back. Then, I lost 2.5 and have somehow gained those back, too? Thing is, I'm not eating badly, and I'm not overeating either. Yes, I have some splurges, but not every day. While I understand that the number the scale shows is often unreliable at best, it's still hard to mentally get over the fact that, for the last 30 days, I've been kicking it into high gear, I've lost inches, and I've worked HARD, and the scale hasn't moved. I do understand that the same weight looks very different when it's leaned out, but still. This is the hard bit.

4. Lose a cumulative 10 inches. 
Well, this, at least, I can celebrate. As of today, I've lost the following inches:
Chest: -1.6 inches
Left Arm: -0.25 inches
Right Arm: -0.5 inches
Waist: -2.5 inches
Left Thigh: -0.55 inches
Right Thigh: -1 inch
Hips: Unable to measure (because I measured incorrectly previously)

So, after 30 days, I'm down a cumulative 6.4 inches, which puts me only 3.6 inches from my goal. That, my friends, is progress that I can't argue with.

I've signed up to be a BeachBody Coach, and I'm still motivated to work out hard. I'm going to reevaluate my diet (again) for the month of August, and it's my intention to do Combat at least through the end of September. My hopes for the month of August are simple: continued loss of inches, and hopefully the actually loss of pounds. Also, I want my kicks a bit higher, so we'll see.

Til then,
Ang

A Beachbody Update, Clean Eating, Books, Joss Whedon, and Bella B.

Hey-o.

Well, we're 9 days away from my first official "measure in," and I haven't lost any weight. I won't lie, that's really disappointing, but I did take some preemptive measurements last week in an attempt assuage said disappointment, and inches are gone from my waist, arms, and legs, so obviously, my body is changing. I just wonder what this is going to mean, weight-wise. I'm eating within a calorie allotment and replacing a meal every day with Shakeology, but still not seeing loss. Yes, there have been a few moderate cheats - like last night, I had Torchy's Tacos for dinner (and it was deeee-lish), but I am still more mindful of what I'm eating now than I have probably ever been before.

via

So anyway, it's upsetting (to a degree), but I have tone in my arms and legs where there was none before, and my shoulders and upper body are also changing - so much that a girl in my apartment office said something about me being "pretty cut" through my shoulders, so I'm trying to focus on that. She also said that, in her experience, the first month of her Insanity workout, she only lost 4 pounds, and then she dropped the weight during month two, so I'm hoping I see a similar trend. The goal for me has never been to be skinny, per say, but to the fit and strong. I'm on my way.

via

It's a goal of mine to have my household move to clean eating by year end. It's hard, especially in this
day and age of GMOs. God only knows what other science projects are offered to people in the grocery store, but it's a goal, and I hope we can do it, expensive or not. It's probably going to be a step-by-step process for us - move meats, then veg, etc etc, but I think it's a worthwhile goal for a million reasons. Though it was a bit of an unwieldy and overly verbose read for me, I'm glad to have read THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA, because it really did enhance my perspective on food and where it comes from. For now, we try to avoid processed foods as much as possible. We'll see how this goes.

In other book news, I've been reading THE INTERESTINGS for the last week and I'm having a sort of difficult time with it, not because it isn't...well, interesting, but because the narrative itself seems overly dense in all the wrong places. I'd rather sparse but intentional writing (like what's used throughout THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, which I adored) than needless blathering, and I really feel like this book goes on and on about some of the most inane things. But: I will finish it. I have about 150 pages left, I think. We'll also see how this goes.

Obligatory Interjection: I'm currently enjoying the first cup of coffee I've had in about 3 weeks. It is rather divine.

via

While I've been sipping on this Cup of Deliciousness, I finished watching Serenity this morning, the 2005 Joss Whedon film, and I'm (as usual) kicking myself for not watching it sooner. Buffy was fabulous, and so was Angel, but my real point here is that I love that Whedon isn't afraid to make brave, bold, kick ass female characters, and for this, Serenity did not disappoint. Also, Nathan Fillion, shirtless and sporting bedhead isn't so terrible on the eyes. I also really want to see his version of
Much Ado About Nothing because I am a Shakespeare girl at heart - have been since I was about 17 and begged for a leatherbound, embossed copy of his complete works. I'm sure it will blow my mind.

And speaking of strong female leads, my wee one will be 5 on Thursday, and she's becoming quite the kick butt girl herself. Thursday will be spent doing whatever she wants.

Til next time,
Ang

The Skinny Bitch Chronicles: Mini Check In

So, I'm four days into my Beachbody Challenge, and let me tell you:

THIS SHIZ IS INTENSE.

I flippin' love it, though.

Even when my muscles are screaming at me (which happens every work out, just take my word for it), I feel strong and confident. The workouts themselves are enough of a challenge to sort of spurn me onward but they are also, without question, absolutely attainable.

Better than that, though: I can feel my body changing, already.

I feel lighter on my feet. I can tell that inches have started disappearing, and I think (though I don't have much of a way to confirm this quite yet) that my waist is trimmer. And let's talk about my shoulders and upper body, and how much of a bad ass Boxing Training makes me feel like.

I gotta say: At the end of a workout, after you've done a straight minute of jabs, and you're sweating, and your heart rate is through the freaking roof, and your shoulders are screaming, and your upper biceps are asking for a break, your abs are starting to yell at you, and hell, even your upper thighs are starting to complain... There's nothing quite like that final fist pump of victory, right there at the end.

Trust me, yo.

My official weigh in days are either going to be Sundays (my rest day) or Mondays. I can't wait.

Stay with the fight,
Ang

PS This bad ass right here? This is Rach, one of the primary coaches of Combat. Along with Pink, she's my fitness role model. It also helps that she seems like a cool chick. ;)

via

The Skinny Bitch Chronicles: Initial Goals

(Don't worry - I'm not going to post every week about this, but I do want to keep a record somewhere of what I'm doing/where I'm at on this so, here we are.)

SO, exciting thing: My Les Mills Combat DVDs and first order of Shakeology arrived today. Shakeo is delicioso, and I'm pretty impressed at the sheer volume of recipes that Beachbody provided up front (as well as by the fact that there's a schedule of when to do which workout, because I was legitimately concerned about what that was going to look like). AND I went through the Basics DVD, because although Combat speaks to my inner bad ass, I know next to nothing about mixed martial arts, and I want to at least be comfortable performing the movements.

Man.

Just moving through them, engaging my muscles the way that they instructed to, doing everything from capoeira to karate, and I was already sweating.

That...

Well, it makes me CRAZY excited about the next 2 months. KIA!

So, here are my goals. Keep in mind that these could be crazy-conservative - I've never done anything like Combat before, so I have no idea how my body will actually respond, only that the only changes that can come are good ones.

5 GOALS
Dates: July 1 - September 1:

• Replace breakfast with Shakeo every day for 60 days. 
• Follow the work out schedule (Supreme Warrior) listed in my Fitness Guide. 
• Lose 15 pounds (I'm hoping this is really low-balling it).
• Lose a cumulative 10 inches (I actually have no idea how to approach this bit, so if you have advice, please let me know. Maybe this is way too low). 
• (Keeping this one hidden for now)

 I took measurements tonight, and I'm planning on a detox of sorts for the coming work week. Then, on Monday, July 1, it begins.

LET'S DO THIS.

PS Here's some more pics of Pink and her killer figure (please note that none of these photos are mine, but I completely spaced on keeping the source links):

Trim waist, strong abs.

#killerlegs

Commitments. (Skinny Bitch or Bust, #2)

Well, I've done it.

I've signed up for Beach Body's Combat challenge. It's centered on Les Mills' Combat workout, which is a series of mixed martial arts, somewhat choreographed moves. The focus is toning and strength, and because it's my goal to be svelte (isn't that a good word?) instead of skinny (because really, skinny's never going to be an accurate descriptor when you have shoulders and hips), this feels right up my alley.

Yes, it's expensive up front. Yes, if I keep up the Shakeology stuff, it will be a monthly expense that I'll need to incur. But guess what: I'm here to tell you all that I'm making a commitment, right now, so that I can deflect that cost and hopefully break a few rather bad habits in the process. And here they are:

1) No more Starbucks (admittedly, I don't go all that often anymore, but still).
2) More importantly, no more snacks at Barnes and Nobles on the weekends. (Please note that there's no way in hell I'll ever stop going to B&N itself, but I can save the cash I spend there every weekend, for sure.)
3) No more eating at the cafe at work for more than about once a week.

(It goes without saying that I'll have to cut back on eating out, in general (which, again, doesn't actually happen that often, but the point is, it happens, and if it doesn't, that's money saved.)

That, in and of itself, will save the majority of this initial, up-front cost. It would cover my entire monthly commitment if I keep going with the Shakeology portion of this challenge.

I've taken "before" pictures. I'll be taking measurements on 6/30, and intend to take regular measurements after that. I've gotten my husband to agree that he's also going to try the work out, so we can move forward on this together.

I've existed long enough in that, "eh, I look fine" phase. I want to feel (even more) confident. I want to work toward something. I want to be where I want to be in the next year or so, if possible. I want my husband to see me at my best, and because he loves me, he wants that, too. I want to be fit NOW, while my child is small, so that I'm healthy and have the energy it will take to run right alongside her.

I've found my motivation in Pink. Yes, the singer. Laugh it up, but look at this woman's physique:

 

via

via

No, I don't want to be QUITE that ripped, but you get the point, right? Toned everywhere, and she has a toddler at home. Besides, I generally think she's pretty bad ass.

Anyway. So. Challenge begins 7/1. By the end of June, I plan to get back to drinking water the way I should and want to have largely kicked sweet stuff to the curb (that last one will be difficult, but I can do it). Yes, there will be some cheats - there are a couple VIP birthdays in July, including my daughter's 5th - but that's the point: they'll be cheats, not regular occurences.

There's been a quiet shift. I can feel it. This is going to make a big difference.

And quite frankly, I can't wait.