BBG Month 3 of 3 Complete: Progress Post

I have officially completed the BBG program! For the last 3 months, I've been on a very strict, regimented workout schedule, in preparation for both summer and my wedding!

Why I did BBG:

I've been following Kayla Itsines', the creator of the program, on Instagram since she first created an account and had no followers. She used to post short little snippets of workout videos prior to creating the program (you can see them if you back-stalk her) and I used to copy whatever she did at the gym. Over the last few years I would do her workouts from the Insta videos here and there but never actually committed to the program. I always wanted to do it but also knew that it was a strict program, and if I was going to do it I wanted to give it 100% and not skip days, and that would mean ditching any other workouts I was doing at the time (yoga). I do believe that everything happens for a reason and when I injured my wrist and had to stop yoga back in February, it was a sign to me to start BBG full force. Another thing that pushed me into the program was having a gym in my new building which made it very convenient. 

How My Body Changed:

Before starting the program I was doing yoga about 5x/week. My body was in yoga shape. I was flexible,  had definition in my arms and was thin toned but didn't have much muscle. I started to see changes by the 2nd - 3rd week of the program. For the most part, I saw changes in my abs, which before the program were flat (not after a meal but after digesting) but had no definition. This was something that immediately got me hooked on the program and motivated me to keep going (beach season!!). The other major change was my butt which developed some lift in the bottom. I didn't see any other major changes in the rest of my body but I noticed two things... 1) I was stronger. You could see this in my arms in addition to my abs but only when they're flexed. A few people that saw my back also said they saw muscle there which doesn't surprise me because you're doing SO many push-ups. 2) I was so much hungrier for the first 2 months of the program and also eating a LOT more but not putting on any weight from it, likely because my new increased muscle was burning fat more quickly. By month 3, my appetite seemed to adjust back to needing a normal amount of food. 

My body type puts on muscle VERY fast. People don't believe me when I say this but if I spin, my butt and thighs get bigger quickly, like after one class - no joke. When I was younger I was a swimmer and had a V-shaped body - my shoulders were huge (I have pictures to prove this). After I stopped swimming I lost the muscle mass. This definitely made me hesitant to try BBG. I wasn't sure if I would bulk or tone. Kayla has a very "skinny-strong" body but everyone reacts to exercise differently. During the beginning of the program I felt like my pants were getting tighter. By month 3, I noticed that my pants felt normal again. This is the reason I decided to commit to all 3 months. If I had given up as soon as my pants got tight, I wouldn't have seen where my body ended up, which I am now very happy with. I'm not sure if the program would cause other people to bulk depending on your body type but I do think it's worth a try to see how you react and if you do try it, wait until the end results because your body will go through so many changes over the 3 months.

Lastly, mentally, I felt great during the program. I was excited to be doing something new, and my serotonin was boosting on my resistance days. I also felt tough, like...yeah I'm jumping up on that bench! 

The Rules I Broke:

• The program includes an optional eating guide. I did not follow that.
• I modified many of the arm exercises that put my wrist into the "L" position that hurt my injury. For the most part this just meant using weights on the floor when doing pushups but you can find more on those modifications in this post. 
• LISS - In the beginning of the program I was pretty religious with the LISS exercises. As the program progressed I felt like I had less time for these especially once the one HITT day was added in for month 3. I always prioritized and completed all 3 resistance days. I probably did 2 LISS days/week for months 1-2 and then maybe one LISS day for month 3. I also walk 15 minutes to and from work so I figured the total 30 minutes could count towards my missed LISS...right?!
• HITT - I forgot to add in the HITT exercise on the first week of month 3 (one day a week of 10-15 minute intervals of a 30 second sprint and 30 second walk). I did add it in for the last 3 weeks and did 10 minutes instead of 15 with a 5+ minute walk after. 

What's Next: 

I'm getting a cortisone shot for my wrist injury this week. I'm not sure where that will leave me. If my wrist is OK, I'm going to slowly add yoga back into my routine (and can't wait to do so!!!). Regardless of what happens with my wrist, I do want to continue the BBG workouts with her second program, but not as religiously as I did with program one. Her second program is similar but has new workouts so I'm excited to try those. Right now my plan is to do the legs and abs resistance days but to skip arms day and replace that with a butt day (I'm going to create this on my own with my workout bestie Ali who joined me for the end of the BBG program). If we are seeing positive results I'll be sure to share our workouts! I might do LISS as a low intensity workout if I'm tired or trying to sync my workouts with my flo (more on that to come in a future post!), but will probably remove it for the most part just because I would prefer to prioritize higher intensity workouts. HITT I will continue to do once a week because I felt like it was toning me, building my endurance, and also made the few distance runs I did much easier. The reasons I'm not going to do program two strictly are because I want some flexibility to be able to workout with my friends without feeling like I can't because of the time consuming BBG schedule, and also because I am usually down the shore on weekends in the summer where I don't belong to a gym so I will either be running outside or at a megaformer class when I'm there. I'll do another 4 month check-in post (2 months pre- wedding!!) once I figure out my post-BBG plan.