Insanity, Kayla Itsine's Bikini Body Guide, and hiring a nutritionist. 3 Weeks to go until my destination wedding in Hawaii

With 3 weeks down to go until my M-day, here is an update to what I've been doing for the last 2 months. You’ll note that I don’t even mention wedding planning because I’m basically having a packaged wedding to avoid any planning stress, yet you will see this word a lot.

Status of the Last 2 Months

I was OBSESSED with losing weight. I mean crazy obsessed with getting shredded and hoping for 6 pack abs. I developed a crazy health tracking spreadsheet that tracked every time I weighed in, my inches, my sleep, my workouts, everything. I was very frustrated all the time because I was working out so much and trying to eat healthy/clean and nothing was happening. Oh and I don’t drink any alcohol, I don’t smoke, I don’t even eat junk food (like potato chips) but I do have a cheat meal every once in a while.

Mistake 1

My biggest mistake: being so stressed out

I put a hell of a lot of pressure on myself to look like the transformed girls I always see on Instagram. I thought I was looking at these photos to be inspired but it’s possible that it caused me to just be stressed out that I wasn’t making my goal. In general, I put a lot of stress on myself to be the best that I can at EVERYTHING. 8 years at the Big 4 Accounting/Consulting firms will do that to you.

Being really stressed causes cortisol to be released and basically prevents weight loss, especially keeping your stomach BIG! Here is an easy-to-read medical article to learn more.

Additionally, lack of sleep was weakening me and adding to my stress... because I became so stressed about not getting enough sleep. I have a terrible commute to work. It takes 1 hr to get to work.... when I leave at 5:50am! and it takes 1.5-2 hrs to come back home so every day, I waste 2.5-3 hrs on the road. It also takes away that much of my sleep so my average sleep was 5 hours a night.

Fortunately, I work for a really good company and have a great boss who has allowed me to work a flexible schedule a couple of days a week which allows me to try to get more than 6 hours a night those couple of days. But the other 3 days a week are absolutely tortuous.

Mistake 2

My second mistake was: doing too much

After 2 weeks of Insanity 6 days a week, I didn't see any results and THAT stressed me out. After 3 weeks, I started to develop serious joint pain from all the high impact jumping but I think I started to notice some result. However, I didn't want to screw up my body permanently for one day/one week of looking good. I decided that I would stop.

My friend showed me Kayla Itsine's Instagram page and long story short, after seeing hundreds of transformations, I decided to go ahead and buy it. Not cheap for an “e-book”.

She's a young early 20's fitness guru who looks amazing. I’m in my mid-30’s and my metabolism sucks!

Her Bikini Body Guide ("BBG") is a 12 week program. As of today, I'm on week 7 of her guide. I'll write a separate piece on my thoughts of her guide but long story short, after week 1 of BBG, I decided to go back to Insanity BUT keep doing BBG so I combined two intense programs. NOT smart. Additionally, I had purchased a groupon for a local TRX/pilates session so I was trying to do that AND go for 10 mile hikes every other weekend. VERY dumb actually.

Doing too much was a mistake for me because it added even more stress to my body. I was already doing a good job of adding mental stress but now I added physical forms of stress to my body. All of this was very counter-productive to my weight loss. Add to that, a lack of sleep and you have a perfect storm for not losing weight.

Nutrition

I always wondered about nutritionists. I even wanted to quit my consulting job and become one. I was excited to be introduced to a friend who was a nutritionist who said I would be an easy case because I was already so dedicated with my food log. She’s eats “plant-based” but is not a vegan, meaning she mostly eats plant based but can have a burger every once in a while.

So I met with her on June 18^th. We did a body scan which included my body fat %. My stress hormones were high (no surprise). She introduced me to a concept called Intermittent Fasting (“IF”).

Long story about IF: you can fast for 16 hours and eat within an 8 hour window. Sounds crazy right? Fast for a 1/3^rd of your day? I LOVE breakfast… I mean, it is my absolute favorite meal of the day so having your last meal at around 8pm, attempting to sleep 8 hrs (but really getting 5-6), and then not eating until basically noon? Sounds impossible.

Well, it seemed like from what she read, it worked for a lot of people.

I stayed dedicated to IF by basically drinking 10 cups of water by noon. Some days, I didn’t feel very hungry. Other days, I watched the clock tick. A couple of days, I broke my fast at 11am because I couldn’t handle it.

After a few weeks on IF and no progress, I freaked out and wanted a hybrid. I didn’t want to quit something else with the clock ticking so she said for me to eat plant based during my 8 hour windows. It sounds easy but it’s not when you don’t normally cook and you’ve eaten meat all your life.

So, with 2 months passing by, here’s a little comparison of my stated goals and what actually happened.

Goal	My goals on June 5, 2014	Current Status
1	Complete the 60 day Insanity work	I did the first 3 weeks of Insanity every day before I started to feel serious joint pain. I switched gears and purchased Kayla Itsine's Bikini Body Guide. I also hired a nutritionist and did Intermittent Fasting.
2	Lose 4-6 Inches (not counting pounds because I expect to gain some muscle and offset the fat lost)	I lost one solid inch :| but about 4-5 lbs.
3	Lose 5% body fat (being realistic)	I didn't lose 5% body fat
4	Eat clean and prepare meals always with occasional cheat meals without the guilt.	I tried to eat clean most of the time. I had my occasional cheat meals. I ended up trying to eat more plant-based. But there was also a loss in our family so there a few set back days :(

At this point, I'm trying to let go and just be happy. It still kind of makes me angry that I was SO dedicated and worked SO hard for the last 2 months with a small amount of weight loss (but that was probably because I was working TOO hard). In other words, that I'm not going to meet my goal. But I need to go back to the thought of letting go and being happy that I am going to be marrying the most amazing guy in this world in 3 weeks. He tells me every day that I look amazing and my body is already perfect.