It’s only the beginning …
I have finished the 12 week bikini body guide from Kayla Itsines! To any new readers who have only just discovered Honestly Fitness, please click here to read about what the bikini body guide is, and my review of it when I did it my first time round. Yes, this was my second time round, and I feel as if I made much more progress this time round.
Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 12
To give you a quick summary, week 12 was hard. I feel as if I was a little stronger than when I did the workout in week 10 (I used 12 pound weights instead of 10 pounds, woo hoo!). I definitely felt stronger during my arms and ab workouts but I feel as my legs ares is still my weak spot, as I only managed to do one round of each circuit in this week’s leg workout. Anyway, I will be doing my second bikini body guide review sometime in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that.
SoulCycle
The rest of my week was great and it seemed to absolutely fly by. I was invited to attend a SoulCycle class on Saturday morning by my friend Amira, and it was so much fun. SoulCycle is a workout chain that specializes in hardcore spinning (i.e. cycling) workouts. I had heard a lot about them because they have a pretty stellar following of various celebrities and a reputation for providing an intense workout. Needless to say I was pretty intimidated!
The studio itself was beautiful and very clean. You sign up at the front desk and they hand you a pair of special spinning shoes and show you where the lockers are so you can drop off your stuff. I recommend that you tell a member of staff if you are new to SoulCycle so they can help you adjust the bicycle and help you actually put your spinning shoes onto the straps (they lock into the bicycle strap)! The workout was fantastic; they dimmed the lights right down and made you do a combination of high resistance climbs and low resistance sprints coupled with some arm work with light dumbbells towards the end. I highly recommend SoulCycle if you are feeling demotivated as the music and vibe of SoulCycle is awesome.
In Food News
In food news, I made my delicious baked zucchini fritters for breakfast on Friday (or was it Thursday??) with smashed avocado on sourdough toast. So delicious and EASY!
I also had an indulgent Saturday night as my good friend was holding her annual ‘White Elephant’ Christmas party and of course she had made a ton of delicious savory and sweet food. I am definitely paying the price for it today, as my tummy definitely feels unsettled. Fun night regardless though. My white elephant gift was actually really good as it was a small gift set from Bath and Body Works. Someone got lottery tickets which I thought was hilarious!!!
I bought two of James Duigan’s books (the man behind the ‘Clean and Lean‘ diet) so I am testing out a few recipes over the next few days and will be applying that in the New Year. I am excited to share with you all what I think about his philosophy!
Right now I am currently making some toffee as a homemade gift for a friend. Yeah, spoiled the surprise but she already knew so it’s okay!
What have you been up to this weekend? What are your Christmas plans?
Be sure to keep an eye out for my review of Kayla Itsines Round 2 and for a few special posts I have planned for next week 😉
Honestly yours,
Alice
Thank you for always supporting me! For more Honestly Fitness, check out my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest.
P.S. Kayla has given me a special 5% discount code off her eBooks for my readers. Check it out on my sidebar.
10 Comments
You’re honestly really inspiring to me and I look back at your posts on doing BBG for motivation 🙂 I’m currently on week 7 of BBG1 and I’m getting really discouraged because I don’t see anything different. In fact I think my thighs have gotten bigger 🙁 I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong! I don’t eat junk food, soft drinks, I choose salads when I eat out, don’t put any dressings on my salads unless it’s something I’ve made (i.e. lemon juice and seasonings). I do sometimes splurge and have chicken thigh meat with the family but other than that I’ve been doing this consistently… I really don’t want to start calorie counting again or anything like that (it used to make me very obsessive)
Aw Catherine, you are so sweet to say that 🙂
I completely understand how you are feeling. I have been there too (and I am sure a ton of others have too). I remember doing the BBG for my first ever time and feeling really frustrated because I had the same thoughts; I am eating really well, etc. I still had progress but it didn’t seem to match up with how hard I worked in regards to exercise and diet.
My second time round, I realized that serving sizes are a huge factor. Have you re-evaluated your serving sizes? Because even though you may be eating healthily, you may be eating too much in general, and even if you are eating too much healthy food this can stall progress. I hate calorie counting too and find that keeping mindful of portion and serving sizes is a much more balanced approach. Kayla’s HELP guide really helped a lot in this respect.
Some other things I would consider are how much sleep you are getting and your stress levels. Too little sleep results in making your body more stressed and in turn, more stress makes your body hold onto fat.
I hope these help you! I need to be more mindful of my serving sizes at the moment as I have started eating more than I need too haha! OH … and the most important thing to remember: don’t expect to see results in x amount of weeks. Progress is different for everyone. Some girls see progress in as little as 3 weeks and some don’t see progress until week 20. Be consistent, mindful and dedicated and you will see progress 🙂
Alice xx
Thank you so much for the reply.
My portion sizes sre actually okay because I only wat until I’m just satisfied and stop before I’m full. I’m just so worried that all my effort is for nothing but you’re right it’s all about consistency. Maybe it’ll take moee than this program or less I’m not sure. It’s just the body image issues 🙁 also how do you know what’s one serving based on her HELP book? I have it but I’m still confused abiut her portion sizes
One serving of what, lovely? xx
One serving of any of the food groups she says because it varies so much in the book. I’m gonna have a read of it again. Did you experience low calorie burn on her workouts as well? Even on cardio days like today I practically killed myself and was so sore afterwards but only burned 187 calories compared to some who burn between 200-300kcal? Sorry for all the questions and I hope I’m not bothering you :/
Ah I see. Yeah, I would re-read her HELP guide again because it can definitely get confusing haha. P.17 and p.19 break it down well, although please feel free to email me at honestlyfitness@live.com if you have any more questions regarding it.
Weeks 1 and 3 I experience low calorie burn, but I have kind of ‘fixed’ that by making my rests between sets shorter. Otherwise I feel like I have blasted about a million calories during her workouts lol. Are you making sure you are challenging yourself to go through the workouts faster (but still safely)?
Oh my gosh, you aren’t bothering me at all and I appreciate your questions 🙂 🙂 I go through busy and non-busy phases though so sometimes I have real trouble replying in a timely manner.
Can I just say I think this is so great of you to do this and to help women out.. I am on BBG round 2 and I have been reading your stuff since last august. you are such a sweet women and I love your stuff! keep rockin on:)
Kyla, this is so thoughtful of you to let me know 🙂 You honestly have no idea how much I appreciate comments like this; they keep me motivated and excited to keep on posting! Really glad I can be of help to you and others, and best of luck with BBG round 2 xxx
I don’t know if it’s just me, but trying to follow the Help guide I feel like it’s SO MUCH food… it doesn’t seem to matter if you are 180 lbs or 110 you are still supposed to eat the same, and i feel like when I do track my calories following her food plans I end up really high in calories. I know i shouldn’t track but I was curious where I was ending up. She mentions around 1600 being what you need to lose weight if you cut 500 off a 2100 calorie norm, but 1600 is my base! wondering if I should cut down a little, and where to 🙂
any insight would be helpful 🙂
Hi Victoria,
It may definitely seem like a lot of food at first but trust me, you need to eat at least that amount if not more when undergoing an intense workout like the BBG. A lot of girls on IG have mentioned the difficulty of eating these amounts at first, but have now found it is second nature (@0403natalie is an example of someone who used to struggle with this). The key is to have lots of small meals so you do not feel overwhelmed.
And no, I do not think you need to cut down at all especially if you are active.
Hope this helps 🙂
Alice x