Journey to the Stage: April 21/15

There is a special kind of crazy one needs to be to do Barre Legs from 21 Day Fix WITH weights. And I am just that special kind. After taking a few more rest days than my schedule called for (Friday was legit, Sat, Sun, Mon, were noooot) I jumped back in with gusto today.

Tuesday is normally leg day so I covered that with Barre Legs. It is actually one of favourite leg days of all and my fav workout from the 21 Day Fix. Funny since it's not even part of the original package but part of the upgrade. Trust me, it's worth it!!! If you already have 21DF, get Barre Legs. But after killing my quads with Beast Legs I decided to make it a little more Beasty.  Of course that meant adding weights. I used ankle weights for the variety of leg lifts, a 15 lb dumbbell for the sumo squats, and then 10s for the squats and lunges. Autumn really gets you with the pattern of singles, pulses, and holding.

Let's talk about this little workout buddy for a moment. My girl has been working out with me since day one really, started laying on the floor by me to crawling around me, to climbing on me, to doing it with me. Kids really do learn by doing and I like to think she is learning the right things from me. At least in this area, hahaha.











I didn't do just legs though :) I did some of my favourite. Arms. Doing arms make me feel like a warrior. RAWR.

Today's Breakdown

Workout: 21 Day Fix Barre Legs AND Body Beast Bulk Arms

Post Workout Recovery: I didn't have any today. I was eating spaghetti leftovers out of the pot right before pushing play. OOPS :P

Food: Not Bad. Not great but not horrid. But look at my yummy oatmeal. Ain't it a thing of beauty.

Additional Activity: None :/

 And that's it for today. I really need to get myself off to bed. Sleep is also very necessary for your results and progress. My coffee habit and late nights are becoming my advisories. Haha.

Rock. Lift. Love. 

Journey to the Stage: April 16/15

Hey Hey!!! Guess who got their workout done before midnight tonight!! Before 10:30 NO LESS. ME of course, lol.

How did she get it done early you ask?? Because I put the kids to bed AFTER my workout. We slept in hard today so the kids got to go to bed MUCH later than usual. And while I was putting them to bed Rock went to do a grocery run so mamma has good eats tomorrow.

So today was shoulders and I quite like doing shoulders. I find they are a relatively easy muscle for me to build and the work shows well. Not that it's easy easy but every woman has a different body part that seems to POP more than others. For me it seems to be my shoulders.

In honour of actually getting this workout done at a decent time (for me) I uploaded a few moves to youtube so that I can share the Beast goodness with others. Really the whole program is necessary for results but this will give you an idea. And would make a great little stand alone option.

You can easily do these moves at home!!

Do each move in a row with the following "sequence"

15 reps

12 reps

8 rep

Then just repeat that. Go up in the weights as you go down in reps. 

Remember it is shoulders so don't go crazy. It doesn't take a lot of weight to get the burn.

Today's breakdown...

Workout: Body Beast Build Shoulders

Post Workout Fuel: oops. missed that one today but because I was already out of carb macros I couldn't do my usual shakes. But I did have my chocolate vegan ShakeO earlier in the day (usually for lunch).

Food: Decent. I did have one awesome victory though. I struggle with the disordered eating pattern of binge and restricting so counting my macros which allows me to factor in "bad" foods is really helpful. Today we had a family picnic with pizza. Now the old me would have just eaten slice after slice, then felt guilty, then eaten more food, and the cycle repeats pretty much until I go to bed waking up at 3 am with raging heartburn. NOT TODAY!!! I had one slice, logged it, and moved on. Huzzah!!! Because I eat pretty clean for the most part knowing that I can have "bad" foods without consequence to my goals is pretty freaking awesome. Very freeing. And it prevents me from having a binge. 

Additional Activity: Tossed around a nerf football and an angry bird frisbee at the park with the kids. The older, 250 lbs version of me would never have done that. Once of the BEST results I have had is being able to just play and have fun with my kids. 

Now to watch a little Netflix with Rock and off to bed. 

Rock. Lift. Love. 

Journey to the Stage: April 15/15

Somehow my workouts are getting later and later despite me wanting to do them earlier and earlier. Today was no exception. Unless of course I say that today's workout is actually tomorrow's workout and then hop skip and a jump into the Twilight Zone. 







But no. I indeed finished today's workout at 12:15 am (the next day). Now I'll be wired for at least an hour. Good thing I'm a night owl and we homeschool so I can just make everyone sleep in. Tee hee.

Now how about them cardio eh? In Body Beast cardio isn't just cardio. Oh no. That wouldn't be Beasty enough. Cardio includes weights. And crazy things like plyo pushups (which I am nowhere near able to do yet). And jumping lunges. And jumping squats. I am sore all over. It's actually quite mean brilliant putting this the day AFTER leg day.




























Here is the run down of today:

Workout: Body Beast Beast Cardio and Beast Abs (yes indeed, today also included 10 minutes of abs)













Post Workout Fuel: The usual-Results and Recovery with water and banana








Food: Actually not too horrid today. I didn't meet my macros. Which means I'm going to be SUPER HANGRY in the morning. And I am actually closer to my fats than the pic here because I forgot to log my bacon at supper ;) And I'm over in my carbs but that is because of the R&R. Didn't hit my protein though. IOverall I am sure I'm pretty decent hitting my cals BUT it's the macros that are most important. Balance yo.






Additional Activity: Walk in the park. Literally. We had a family walk in the park. I also did some cute overhead presses holding my 6 yo. Those are always good for a laugh. For all of us.

There ya have it. It may be late but I still get it done. I have no reason not to. And if I'd only better manage the rest of my day I wouldn't be getting it done after midnight. I'll add that to my ever growing list of things to work on. Singing off now :)

Rock. Lift. Love 

Journey to the Stage: April 14/15

Today was legs. And I said yesterday I would take legs over chest. But yeah, it's legs. To be honest I don't actually mind squats, even sumo squats, or deadlifts, but make me lunge and I may just wanna cut someone.

Today's workout was a great combination of totally phoning it in and being a badass. Lunges I phoned it in. Squats I used 30s. Bulgarian squats I phoned it in (which is actually a lunge, masquerading as a squat). Stiff leg single leg deadlift I went up to 25s. Plus I used 20s for the calf raises. So all in all I give myself a gold star. BECAUSE IT'S LEGS AND I SHOWED UP!!

There I am ready to tackle it with more bravado than a 16 year old boy.






And then this is how I look halfway into the first set.








And since I have a nice little system going on I'll keep on doing it….

Workout: Body Beast Build Legs

Post Workout Fuel: Results and Recovery, water, banana. I need to stock up on Vanilla ShakeO, frozen berries, and spinach.

Food: Better than yesterday!!! Bonus. I know my macros are still WAY off. But I did have cottage cheese mixed with greek yogurt today and that was all kinds of a yummy protein punch. An observation I have made though is that I REALLY need to scale back the coffee. It's becoming a problem.

Not much else to say about today. When I get a grocery stock up done later this week I'll squeeze in some meal prep posts. What I'm doing. What I suck at. What I fancy myself fabulous at.

Rock. Lift. Love. 

Journey to the Stage: April 13/15

Damn it chest and tris. Why you gotta be so hard? I think I'd even take a leg day over a chest day. 

Seriously, I find chest really hard. I did make one little tweak that seemed to make a big difference so at least I traded hard of one fashion for hard of another. Two NSV birds with one stone. 

Workout: Body Beast Build Chest and Tris

Post Workout Fuel: Beachbody Results and Recovery Formula with water, 1/2 c orange juice, banana. 

Food: We won't go there. I promise. I'm trying. Grrrr…… NO ONE warned me how hard cutting would be after getting to bulk.

But HEY…I'm getting a noticeable tricep. Thank you genetics for giving me arms that do not like to show off the work I put into this muscle group. NOT. 

NON SCALE VICTORIES!!!! 

Every so often there are these awesome things called non scale victories. They are these marvellous feel good deep inside moments because they have flip all to do with the scale. I got to experience THREE of these babies today. 

Two of them are tied together. First off, I do my work on a ball instead of a bench (we don't have a second bench, no room for a second bench, and I look at the plus side of the extra glute and core work).  I had been experience some neck pain and strain from the position required for incline presses and flys. This caused me to be distracted, scrunching up my neck, and overall sucking at those moves as a result. I need some mind picking of my fellow program followers and a few had some suggestions. One was to sit on the floor and lean back onto the ball. IT TOTALLY WORKED. I was really happy about that because I felt I was able to engage the chest muscles SO much better and didn't experience any neck strain (or the headache I was getting as a side effect). TOTAL WIN!!!

But wait…there is more!! Because of that I was able to go up in my weights on the chest presses. 20s!!! I was pressing the 20s. I'm pretty pumped about that because it wasn't all that long ago that I was putting down my 3 lb weights and had to choose between being defeated OR grabbing soup cans instead. Obviously I chose the soup cans or I wouldn't be doing this today. 

Third NSV was that freaking awesome feeling you get when you are lifting the same weight as the muscly bro dude in the video. HECK YA!!! It was the drop set in the tricep kickbacks. We were both using 8s. It may not sound like much but trust me!!! 

Additional Activity:

Family walk and geocaching. Have you ever geocached? SO MUCH FUN!! The kids love the trinkets we can trade. We always leave a guitar pick. It's our thang. 

Till next time.

Rock. Lift. Love. 

Journey to the Stage: April 12/15

It's LATE. But here it is. My accountability for the day. I did combat, which is one of my chosen forms of cardio. I don't really do much cardio. Right now my plan doesn't have much cardio. But something every so often hits me saying, "girl, you should do some cardio". Usually the thing hitting me is that winded feeling, or my pants feeling too snug. So I did some cardio.

Combat is pretty fun. I am picky with my cardio choices so fun has to rank pretty high. I like kicking and punching the air. Visualizing certain people I'd like to cause harm to. There aren't many. Also, a girl can never be too tough, just sayin'.




So here is the breakdown for today:

Workout: Less Mills Combat Power Kata 30

Post Workout Fuel: Vegan Chocolate Shakeology with chocolate almond milk and banana











Food: Not so great. See. This IS going to be the hardest part of all. I did fairly decent all day. Then it was time to go to grammy's birthday party. It was potluck. I took tortilla chips and con queso and it was down hill from there. I am stuffed to the brim that my stomach actually hurts. Like, no joke, it hurts to breathe deep. It's funny though (but not funny haha) I used to eat WAY more than I did tonight on a typical binge. My stomach just isn't used to that kind of torture anymore. I'm going to do the typical woman thing and say, "my diet starts tomorrow" because I hear Rock warming up the leftover con queso.

What I Need To Work On: The Damn Macros. That is all. No wait, that is not all. I just want to say that I had a wonderful friend give me some freaking awesome macros. I should NOT complain at all. I should be nailing them no prob. I'M the prob.






Speaking of my macros, I mentioned yesterday that I would let you in on them. Read them and weep my friends. THIS is why I lift. This is why I sling around weights like a bad mofo. So I can EAT!!! I did the huge deficit thing. I have done the cardio and 1200 cal thing. Ain't nobody got time for that. Lifting and Fueling my friends. That's what life is all about.

Total Cals: 2039 

Protein: 168g

Carbs: 152g

Fat: 84g

Like how freaking amazing is that. I love my higher fats. And my high carbs. And my high protein. I honestly have trouble meeting the protein needs. I'm going to have to figure out some hacks for that (egg whites in your Shakeology anyone?)

And that is pretty much what my cutting numbers are going to look like for the next couple months. They will drop just a smidge in there as my body fat goes down. Then I'll be doing another full round of Body Beast (including a bulk and cut) leaving me with roughly another month after to extra cut and peak week (the week before comp).

Haha, look at me, talking like I know this shiz. But I sort of do. And everyday I am learning more. I get jazzed about it. I'm excited to be the Obese to Beast woman.

Anywho…there ya go. Today's update. This week I'm going to BRING IT and do WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Till next time,

Rock. Lift. Love.

Best Deal on P90X3 EVER

Have you ever wanted to try P90X3? But you are afraid of the program? Or you are afraid of the investment? Don't Worry!!! I got your back!! 

Every month Beachbody puts a couple of their TOP fitness programs on special. This month is brought to us by the letter P. Haha. Both PiYo and P90X3 are on promotion. Now, I'm not much of a PiYo fan (don't get me wrong, it is a great program, you'll get great results, just not my type of workout) BUT P90X3, OH YEAH!!! That one I am SUPER excited about. 

Sometimes I can't believe that I actually finished a Tony Horton program but I did AND YOU CAN TOO!!! It really isn't as hard as you might think (it ain't easy but it's not impossible). There is TONS of variety and my favourite part is that it is only 30 minutes a day!!! EVERYONE has 30 minutes, and if you don't then you have bigger problems than just physical fitness.




And here is the PROOF that I finished!!! When you complete P90X3 (or any Beachbody program that is) you submit your before and afters and they send you a FREE shirt (way cool). 






One of the biggest roadblocks people have though is actually buying the program. For whatever reason we will drop $100 on a purse or shoes or lululemon pants. Well how about investing in something that will actually make you rock those pants??

Now, both my husband and I got GREAT results from P90X3. I put on 7 lbs of lean muscle mass WHILE losing fat. You can check out our results in this post HERE.

And feel free to check out my little video:

But if you are like me I know that you are itching to know what it costs. Well, like I said, it is the April promotion so it has never been so affordable before!!! Let me break it down for you here:

P90X3 Challenge Pack (which includes Shakeology) is: $160 US or $176 Canadian. This actually a savings of $130!!!!!!!! Than if you were to buy it them separately. Crazy savings!!! Which to me as a stay at home mum is super important. 

The *other* option, if you are all digital and tech savvy, is to get BBOD. Which is kind of like the Netflix of of workout programs. P90X3 is included in the lineup along with a whole ton of other programs. Great way to try it out. The BBOD Challenge Pack (includes Shakeology again) is only $140 US or $154 Canadian. 

Either way you are going to get results. WHY? Because when you order through me you get me as your personal coach. Why is that so awesome? Because I am awesome of course, lol. But seriously, I lost 100 lbs, I AM a P90X3 Grad, AND I am currently working towards my very first body building competition. You could say I know my shiz. 

How do you get this awesome deal?? Find me on Facebook of course!! Just click here and send me a friend request.  Then send me a message saying "I want to be a P90X3 Grad". And then we can chit chat about getting you started on this freaking amazing journey. 

Hope to see YOU at the other end of X3

Rock. Lift. Love. 

Journey to the Stage: The Beginning

Every day when you get up you are given an opportunity to make that most of that day. What we choose to all do varies so much. We all have dreams we want to accomplish but very few of us do anything in our regular to actually make those dreams come true.

For the last almost four years I have been working my butt off in the weight loss department and in January I decided that to take it up a notch that I wanted to work towards a figure competition. Talk about a lofty goal eh? From over 250 lbs to strutting in a sparkly bikini and heels? But here I am. Still working out steady with Body Beast and starting to get more and more dedicated in the nutrition area (where so much of our results actually exist).

I was doing some googling the other day and have a few actual competition dates in mind now. Which means that I have real dates looming over me. Dates that are roughly six months away. The local competition is in October as is the WBFF competition in Edmonton. So I suppose that is what I am shooting for.

I AM doing this. I AM preparing for competition. I AM a body builder. That in itself is pretty crazy to say. From Obese to Beast YO!!!

Every rep I take is working towards an overall goal of baring almost all. OH, not to mention that I am also preparing for a dragon boat race in June (but I'll toss that in another blog post).

SOOOOO all of this to say that I am going to be blogging a whole lot more. I need the utmost dedication and for me dedication comes with putting things out there. By sharing my daily exercise and activity, and macros and meal plans (URGH) I will stay that much closer to my path. #accountability

Each post won't be long. Most will just be to document what I did that day, how my nutrition was, any PRs I made. I'll maybe throw in some family stuff along the way. Some days there will be pix, some days no. Maybe I'll even do a vid here and there.

So in honour of this documentation I will begin today. Because there is no better time than the present.

Food: today SUCKED. You can check out how badly it sucked by finding me on MFP . It includes me packing away 1/2 a 1 lb chocolate bunny. See, this is EXACTLY why I need to document for accountability.

Work Out: Here is where I usually nine times out of ten kick ass. Today was Back and Bis. 50 minutes. And kick ass I did. I moved up to 20s on my reverse rows and 20s on the one arm rows. Also went up to the 20s on the seated bicep curls. Great workout overall.

Post Workout Fuel: Today was chocolate vegan Shakeology with chocolate almond milk and a banana.

What I Need To Work On: Not eating chocolate bunnies. Drinking more water. Drinking less coffee.

So there you have it.

I'll let you in on some more of my plans tomorrow, mwahahahaha. I'll tell ya what is the scoop on my Macros and what my Body Beast plan is.

Till next time,

Rock, Lift, and Love

Jessica