28 Day Transformation Challenge
By Aimee on
Well then, where do I start? I guess I start with the friend who said ‘Aimee! If we don’t do something intensive we will keep growing.’ and I knew she meant out-wards not up-wards. We signed up for a 28 day body transformation challenge, paid our money and got weighed in. Man, it was tough to look at those scales, I was 69.2 kg and the heaviest I have ever been. My metabolic age was 50 (only because the computer didn’t have a higher age on there) and I was almost 50% body fat. Now I have been lighter than this, at my lightest I was 56kg and could fit in a size 8 and play soccer and do pole and what have you. I am keen to get back to that but for now my short term goal is to get to 65kg. One step at a time. So these two pictures below are me, me before I put on all that weight again, and me at the start of this challenge. It’s almost like a reverse before and after where I was more fit in the before than the after. I put it down to ankle injury and happy new relationship where I was eating and drinking, going out and enjoying myself and having way too many treats. But hey, it was very happy and full of love, now I want to reverse the 5kg weight gain since my relationship started almost a year ago. The dress in the picture no longer fits you see and I love that dress. I want to wear it again.<
Week 1
Boy did week one hurt. Started with an Abs class on Monday, thought to myself yea this hurts but it’s doable. Then wake up really early on Tuesday to go to a PT session, we trained legs and we trained them hard, plus my abs were hurting from the day before. Tight ass Tuesday he said, and yea my buns were feeling the burn. Wednesday I could roll out of bed and complain the whole day but none the less I made it to boxing that night and punched and punched and burpeed and did push ups and jump squats till I could do no more. Yet again I made it through, just one more day for the week and I somehow woke up the next morning to get to the PT session early. I’m not sure whether I was glad or sad to find out it was HIIT (High intensity interval training) but to be honest it actually made all my sore bits feel better. I was still in pain and knew that I would be in pain for a while as I had used muscles I hadn’t used in a long time but all in all week one went down without a hitch. Then I went to a wedding interstate and enjoyed myself and overindulged just a tad thinking I might have undone all my good work. But life isn’t worth living if it isn’t enjoyed, and it was a beautiful wedding.
Week 2
Now the second week started the same as the first, Abs Monday night, Tuesday morning PT session but by Wednesday I was exhausted so instead of going to boxing I did more abs and yoga at home. Nowhere near as much effort but stretched out the muscles a bit and kept me motivated for the early start Thursday morning. The hardest part isn’t even the workout it is waking up and getting your ass out of bed in the morning to put in the effort. At the end of Thursday’s session as I was putting away the dumbbells I pulled a muscle in my back. Not too badly, but enough to hurt. Friday was a break day but Saturday was lovely boxing session where I could not to as much due to my back. Then Sunday was a climb up Mt Lofty. If you live in Adelaide SA and have never done the Mt lofty walk through waterfall gully, do it for yourself. It is bloody hard and steep but the view is worth it. We were meant to get a weigh in done by the end of our second week but it never happened so instead I decided to just take a couple of pictures of myself. I can’t believe how much two weeks has made a difference in me and this really helped to motivate me with the last two weeks.
Week 3
Like the two weeks before week three started with another abs session Monday night followed by a PT session Tuesday morning. Getting up Tuesday was really hard as I had done my first teaching day the day before and my abs hurt and I really didn’t want to get out of my comfy bed at six in the morning. But I did and I’m glad that I had because we had leg day, and even though some of the exercises I still struggled with because of my back, I put the effort in and could feel that the next day. I also spent some time cleaning the house and mopping really does work your obliques! Wednesday night I went to boxing and Thursday morning we had another PT session and it was a tough one. My cardio is pretty abysmal and my ankle isn’t so great but I still did the required running of that session and my PT ran with me, which was nice. I had planned on doing more boxing on Saturday but honestly didn’t wake up in time. I went out the night before to see a friend who was back for the weekend (lives in Sydney) and it turned into dinner, drinks, and karaoke. So yes, no boxing on Saturday. Managed to somehow do Mt lofty again on the Sunday and didn’t stop as many times which was good. The last kilometre I really do struggle with though. Going down is fine it’s just going up! I’ll only continue to get better with it however.
Week 4
The final week was a tough one, starting with a hard abs session, Tuesday morning moving onto arms which still hurt as I write this. Wednesday was another boxing session and finally Thursday morning I worked my ass off for the final session. We had to repeat a circuit as many times as possible for 20 minutes (sessions were 45 minutes long so this was only part of it). In lots of 10 we did weighted squats, some crazy push up ab crunch thing, kettle-bell swings, upside down row (just felt like more push ups) and then burpees. How I loathe burpees. I ended up being about to go through it four and a half times however and I was really proud of that. All in all I was really pleased with this challenge and how I went. I ate better, I obviously exercised more and I feel better. I’m still very tired but I don’t ache as much (except the body parts that were exercised of course) so what were my results?
Results
So it will be easier to show you the table that they used to measure me. But basically I had my weight (kg) body fat % muscle mass (kg) body water % visceral fat (bad fat around your tummy) metabolic age and BMR (resting calories burnt) all measured as well as my waist, hips, chest, legs, and arms measured (cm).
As you can see they all moved in the right way, except my physical weight stayed exactly the same. But if I gained 6kg worth of muscle that means I’ve had to have lost 6kg worth of fat. And you can see that with the pictures of my before and after. Even after 2 weeks you can see it starting to leave. I love comparisons so I’ve put together a comparison of week 0 and week 4 for you (and mostly me) to see how I’ve gone. The front and the sides aren’t too different, but the back definitely is. I think I am well on my way to a healthier lifestyle and really proud of what I was able to achieve. I hope that this inspires you too.
