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

Love and marriage, love and marriage...

So, I'm just going to jump in on this topic... one that I generally shy away from, but for the moment, I'm just going to discuss it briefly because I read this thing that really resonates with me, and it just happens to be in the middle of a blog post that is very, very....

Well, it talks about religion and Christianity and God a whole lot.

So, here's the quick and dirty version of my thoughts on religion: I believe in the Christian incarnation of God. I do not believe I have to go to church to prove that; in fact, I can candidly say that, based on historical facts about my life, church was often a detractor from developing pure, untarnished faith in my aforementioned God. I also believe that many other religions, mostly Eastern in origination, make a lot of really good points, and that the Universe is a big, karmic thing. But I do believe in God.

In the middle of this blog post, which (by the way) I only read because I liked a snippet of this quote a friend-of-a-friend shared on Facebook, I found this quote that so succinctly sums up my thoughts on my marriage that I couldn't not share it with you guys.

PS The title of the article is "My husband is not my soul mate."

I'll let that sink in for a second.



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The author discusses the late '90s/early '00s movement among young Christians, which I was a part of, to varying degrees, so I remember it well: I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Courtship and whatever other generally twisted out of proportion thing was going on then (not to say that there was not merit to each of those movements, but I do believe that there was a bit of an overzealous focus on the HOW and not the WHY of each of them). I also believe that it gave a lot of people - particularly young women who labeled themselves Christian - unrealistic expectations about how a relationship would come together for them... how God would divinely intervene, make the handsome youth leader with an amazing voice and skills on the guitar step right into their path and make them swoon their way into a marriage that would be amazing in every way. Not quite realistic, that.

We could talk for hours about it, but that's not really the point here.

The point here is this quote, right here, is perfect.

My marriage is not based on a set of choices over which I had no control. It is based on a daily choice to love this man, this husband that I chose out of many people that I could have chosen to love (in theory, don’t imagine that many others were lined up and knocking at the door). He is not some illusive soul mate, not some divine fulfillment, not some perfect step on the rigorously laid out but oh so secret “Plan for My Life.”

But he is the person that I giggly chose to go out on a date with in college. He is the person who chose to not dump me when I announced that I was moving to France for a year, then Kentucky for another year. He is the person who asked me to move to DC and I chose to do so. He is the person who decided to ask me to marry him and I agreed. At any step here, we could have made other choices and you know what? We might have married other people, or stayed single, and had happy and full lives.

But now I delight in choosing to love him everyday.

I like it better this way, with the pressure on me and not on fate, cosmos, or divinity. I will not fall out of love, cannot fall out of love, because I willingly dived in and I’m choosing daily to stay in. This is my joyous task, my daily decision. This is my marriage. (via)

Replace some of those locales, and it's my husband and me. Also, I wasn't so giggly... at first.

All variables aside - including our daughter, who has completed our lives in ways we didn't even know we were lacking in - I don't even think I need to say anything else, aside from this:

I love you, Kenya.
Forever and always.
Arguing or laughing or crying or talking each other down.
Day in, day out.

Thank you for giving me that same honor.