I tried to be a morning person...

Alternately titled: How I felt about Farrell's.

One of the things that has been on my bucket list for years (stay tuned for the full list) was to complete the Farrell's 10 week extreme bodyshaping class. The class is a three tiered approach to a healthy lifestyle - cardio, strength training, and nutrition. The workouts are 6 days a week, alternating between kickboxing and resistance bands (upper body one day, lower body the next). And the nutrition is fairly simple as well - 6 servings of protein a day, 5 healthy carbs, three veggies, and no "bad foods" (a.k.a. fats, sugars, etc.). You are supposed to eat a small meal 6 times a day to keep yourself from getting too hungry and overeating. You also get one cheat day where you can eat whatever you want - and they encourage you to do so. Easy enough.

I had to take the class at 6:15 a.m. because I am not consistently available after work, especially for 10 weeks in a row! So I sucked it up and started to try being a morning person.

Well I can now cross the program off my bucket list because I recently completed the 10 weeks!

Image via Somerset Kickboxing

Things I learned:

• Eating 6 times a day is hard. It also really does make you less hungry.
• Many things I was eating that I thought were healthy were not so healthy. Matt and I have been arguing the merits vs. evils of fruit for weeks now. I was quick to jump on the anti-fruit bandwagon since I hate fruit. :)
• Working out before work is great, you don't have to worry about it in the evening!
• Kickboxing is the hardest workout I've ever been through. There were days that I thought I might pass out on my drive home.
• Protein bars and shakes can be a sugar trap. Check your labels!
• Alcohol keeps your body from burning fat for 3 hours while your body attacks the toxins.
• Resistance bands are boring, but effective.
• Waking up at 5:45 every day is TERRIBLE. Really, truly, the worst thing ever. There's just no good reason for being up before 6:00 a.m. Unless you are tailgating...and even then it's questionable.
• Being told when to work out and what to do is trying. I am pretty self motivated when it comes to exercise, so I found that the consistency of the program actually frustrated me rather than encouraged me.

My results were average. I lost two inches from my waist, two from my hips, two from my chest, increased flexibility, push ups, and sit ups. My weight, body fat, and mile run showed only very insignificant decreases. This is probably largely due to my inconsistency on the nutrition component for the second half of the 10 weeks.

So while I did enjoy the program, I'm back to working out through my own methods. I actually missed running - who knew??