Tag: health

The BBG 12 week challenge is starting up tomorrow, and I’m really excited about this.

There isn’t much to this challenge really, it’s very much business as usual like any other time you would be using the app. However, Kayla Itsines, the creator of the program, is doing it alongside the millions of people taking up this challenge. The reason this excites me is very simply the motivation aspect of it.

Motivation is a tricky thing, it ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s there and the next day it’s not. If everyone could just turn on and keep their motivation on, we’d all have accomplished every single goal we’ve ever had in our lives. That’s the challenge; the days where you feel like “If I have to do this, I’m going to lose my damn mind”, how do you get past it? How do you push through and try to just get it done even when it’s the last thing you want to do?

For me, I like to keep a few motivational tactics in my back pocket. Having millions of other people pushing through the same workouts that I am trying to at the same time is HUGE. It’s a gigantic community of people who also have days where they don’t feel like doing the workout, but seeing them do it is so inspirational.

Kayla recommended a reflection prior to the start of the challenge. She said to write down how we feel about ourselves currently and how confident we are right this second. Having been through the full 12 weeks of BBG before, I am a testament to the direct correlation between self confidence and the progression of this program. By the time week 12 rolled around, I couldn’t stop looking at my reflection thinking “Holy shit, look how different I look” and I CANNOT wait for that again. So I started the program last week 🙂

If you are thinking of joining the challenge, I highly recommend you jump on it and let’s get through it together and look back 3 months from now thanking our past selves for making this decision!!

A sentence my friends and I often send each other as we look at our Timehops and see old photos of ourselves from six, seven, eight years ago.

I HATE that my weight has spun out of control on me. I am 5’3 and weigh about 170 pounds. This is the heaviest I have been and I can FEEL it. About two months ago I went on vacation with my family and some friends. I was so self conscious about the way I looked in a bathing suit, I haven’t uploaded any pictures or let them put up any pictures with me in them on the beach.

For the past four or five years I have been trying to really get a hold on my body and health; constantly starting to work out, doing it for two or three weeks then stopping and never really being good at the nutritional part of it. I was extremely mean to myself on a daily basis because I hated my body. About four weeks ago I looked at the scale and saw that seven after the one and I lost it. I was just so tired of being exhausted all day, tired of only wearing t-shirts because I was uncomfortable with the way I look, tired of feeling like I have no control over myself, tired of being hated by my own self for being overweight.

So, I started the BBG work out by Kayla Itsines. I did BBG in March but quit after week three because I didn’t see results. Isn’t that insane?! Three weeks and I wanted to have the perfect body. No, I wanted this time to be different. So I am working through it one week at a time, not using the scale to gauge any progress and really trying to focus on my journey through this.

This feels different to me. I am enjoying my time at the gym, enjoying the non-tangible wins. Like when I don’t feel like I need to sleep every single minute of the day, like feeling motivated to get out of my apartment on weekends instead of laying on my couch accomplishing nothing. I am fueled by the need to prove people wrong. This time, I am out to prove myself wrong! I want to show myself that you can learn to love yourself and be kind to yourself and what a huge difference it makes. The fact that only four weeks into this journey I am able to look at myself in the mirror and feel strong and beautiful is HUGE for me. It’s been almost 8 years since I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone who I thought was beautiful looking back at me. That’s how I know this time is different.

I encourage all of you who are reading this and feeling the way I did a few weeks ago to truly self reflect and set a goal for your fitness journey. Don’t set a goal like “lose weight” set a goal like “I want to get through BBG 1.0” or “I want to feel beautiful”. That will help you power through, and once you hit your stride there is nothing like that feeling! Join me in going through the BBG program, I will be updating weekly on the progress I am making!