Chloe Ting 2 Week Shred Post 1

If you read my last post, you’ll know that I was planning on doing the Chloe Ting workout challenge and I was hoping that I could tell you a little about how I was feeling from Day 1 to Day 5. Alongside completing her workout schedule as closely as possible I tried to maintain a calorific deficit while getting as much protein as humanly possible to combat all those aches and pains.

Day 1

So I took a bad starting picture, which honestly I didn’t think I’d be posting, but it is below.

I look very pleased.

I really struggled on the first day and I was glad there were ‘just’ two videos. I made sure to try all of the exercises for as long as Chloe was on the screen completing them. I took a LOT of small breaks after every couple of exercises and not just the recommended 15-60s after each set. This meant that one 13 minute video turned into a full 45 minutes. Of course, there was more than one video so the same went for the second.

Note: I did the low impact version of exercises where applicable.

Day 2

So on the second day I was very sore from the day before. I don’t know whether it was the fact that I’ve never worked out like that before or whether I had poor form. Anyway, from this day I made sure I was careful not to injure myself further. I also ordered protein on this day because my body was in dire need.

This day was slightly easier than the day before so I chose to do the optional 11 Line Abs video. I figured that if I was already putting my body through torture I was going to make sure that I was trying my hardest… which resulted in me giving my all for half of the exercises because I lacked energy and knowledge of how to do them safely.

I did make a note that I swapped up and down plank for normal plank because I didn’t think I had the arm strength… which meant attempting 60s of plank. I also noted that I was somehow slightly injured from changing position a lot.

Day 3

Well, I still struggled with the first video and even more with the second. Still disliked up and down plank and sat out any crunch exercises too.

I really enjoyed the Lower Body workout… felt like I could do most of the exercises without a problem, which was different.

Day 4

Same as above days with less pain.

Still dislike abs.

Newfound dislike for the Tight Core and Arms workout but pleased for new content and to be ending on a plank that doesn’t kill me.

Day 5

Today was supposed to be a rest day but I managed 20k steps and attempted a 60s plank with good form, which was actually successful.

I was very much grateful for a day off.

Exercise analysis

Cross Body Mountain Climber: I loved this exercise and I’m confident in my form so this is a great exercise to start off with.

Burpees: I did the low impact version for burpees as I live in an apartment with someone living below me.

High Knee: I did the low impact version. Loved this exercise.

Squat In and Out: I have just realised that I didn’t actually do what I thought was the low impact exercise and did regular squats…

Push Ups and Mountain Climber: I didn’t do the push ups part of this exercise.

Skater Jump: I did the low impact version of this exercise and somehow struggled with form (the curtsy bit).

Spiderman Plank: I have no complaints about this one.

Cork Screw: I did the low impact version.

Plank Jacks: I did the low impact version.

Reverse Lunge: I LOVE reverse lunge.

Jumping Lunges: I continued with reverse lunge.

Up and Down Plank: As much as I want to do this exercise, I don’t have the arm strength to, so I’ll end up doing 10s and then doing plank for the remaining time.

Triceps Toe Touch: No complaints.

Plank w/ Bunny Hop: I did the low impact version.

Jumping Jacks: I did the low impact version.

Lateral Lunge Curtsy: I liked this but struggled with form for the curtsy part.

Heisman: I did the low impact version.

Bicycle Crunch: I think this may be my favourite exercise of them all.

High Knee: I did the low impact version.

Leg Raise Clap: I think I’ve only just noticed I’m supposed to clap.

Reverse Crunch: For some reason this exercise makes me feel funny. I like it but my body tingles and my head feels sick if that makes any sort of sense?

Russian Twist: It’s all about the angles on this one so it took a couple of days to find out how to do it properly.

In and Out: Another exercise I love (challenging but not impossible).

Plank with Hip Dips: It takes a second to get the form correct and oh boy it BURNS.

100: An easier version of In and Out really.

Crunch: I’ve been skipping this exercise because I’m scared of injuring myself.

Plank: Ugh. It burns.

Heel Tap: Another exercise I’ve been skipping but because I don’t find it to do anything. I’m better off catching my breath.

Reverse Crunch Leg Extension: This is the same as the Reverse Crunch, right?

Straight Leg Crunch: I don’t do these because of my poor form.

Scissor Drop: Not keen but not bad.

Groiner: I started doing these and then I thought the exercise was a bit awkward so stopped.

3 Way V-Up: I gave it a go but I don’t think I’ll continue doing these because of the form problem.

Twisting Piston: Well, I have someone living below me so this is a bit of a no.

Side Plank Twist: Oh, the awkwardness. And the pain.

Curtsy Jump: I did the low impact version.

Squat w/ Front Kick: Love this exercise. No problems with this.

Lateral Lunge w/ Toe Tap: No complaints.

Single Leg Deadlift w/ Toe Tap: I love doing this exercise but I struggle to balance.

Kick Back Lateral Raise: I love doing this exercise too. You can really feel it. Keeping your form perfect takes concentration, though.

Squat Jump: I did the low impact version, which is chill.

Curtsy Lunge with Knee Tuck: My form is a problem with the curtsy part.

Squat with Side Kick: Ooooh, I love a squat. You can feel the burn with this one.

Squat Pulse: Ouch. I still love the burn, though. I think this is the trickiest of all squats.

Rainbow: This is fine but I’ve got to trust that I’m actually drawing a rainbow.

Fire Hydrant: I love this exercise and the aches and pains it brings. You know when you’ve done this correctly, for sure.

Inchworm w/ Push Up: It takes a long time for me to do even one rep.

Reverse Plank w/ Knee Tuck: No complaints.

Circle Plank: Uhhhh. This is just an odd exercise. It’s like the Rainbow exercise… you’ve got to trust that you’re making circles.

Bird Dog: This is fun. The name of the exercise brings enough joy for me to get through the exercise.

Downward Dog Knee Tuck: This exercise brings some aches and pains but it’s easy enough.

Push Up w/ Shoulder Tap: I’m pretty sure I do one rep and then I’m done. This is quite a difficult one.

Arm Circles: I like this exercise. It feels really different to everything else.

Walking Plank: Can you be bothered? Because I certainly can’t.

Reverse Plank: This is genuinely my favourite exercise from the Core and Arms workout.

My progress and a new workout plan

It’s been a while… again. We must acknowledge that my standards for this blog slipped quite a bit and my posts are pretty irregular.

A lot has happened since I last posted. When was it? Mid-March? Yeah, sounds about right.

So, I turned 24, lost some more weight and moved house (or from a flat to a house share, but whatever). Oh, and the Coronavirus brought (most of) the world to a halt. Luckily the UK’s version of lockdown isn’t a lockdown so I’ve been able to go outside almost as and when I feel about it, given exercise can be used as a ‘reasonable excuse’ at any time.

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Oh yeah, my dad gifted me a Fitbit Versa for my birthday, which, honestly, is the most useful present (in the birthday category) I think I’ve received in my 24 years of life… apart from my childhood toy of course, which has a place on my bed. Of course, my phone has a pedometer function so I still would have been able to find this data but I can tell you my resting heart rate at any given moment, which, y’know, is cool at worst.

So, as you have eyes, you will be able to see that my step average has increased. For April I was hitting an average of 9.8K steps and in May this rose to 13.3K. To address the days that display a lack of line my watch was charging (I promise). I’m really glad that this is the case because I moved house in May, which I was anticipating to negatively impact my progress.

Total weight-loss of 9kg (11% of total starting weight)

Now, this is the part of the post where I tell you that my only exercise has been walking and 30-second sprints in a couple of attempts to make it to work on time (‘Sorry, I was sending a Snapchat’). I do want this to change, though, because we all know that walking isn’t going to cut it for defining abs and toning my arms and legs.

I recently found that a certain YouTuber, namely Chloe Ting, was trending as her workouts saw impressive results and reviews, with many others uploading videos detailing their experience of doing said ‘shreds’. Chloe has amassed a total of 9.4m subscribers on YouTube and 1.8m followers on Instagram. With these crazy figures depicting a massive audience, how could these shreds not work?

Chloe Ting’s most popular workout plan

All of her programmes are free to access (thank you) and require no equipment, with her most popular being the Two Week Shred. So I’m going to give this a go with my newly-bought yoga mat and I’ll let you know how it goes in two weeks’ time. I mean, I could check-in sooner but somehow I think that’s a tad unrealistic.

I should add that I’m still in the DietBet Transformer game and am a ‘winner’ of its fifth round (out of six), weighing in at 69.1kg and adding another $30 to my personal pot.

I won!

So, if you read my last post you’ll know that I had entered myself in a little weight-loss bet. A couple of days ago I was involved with a Dietbet Kickstarter (four weeks long) and Transformer (six months long). I weighed out yesterday and I won back the original $35 bet for the Kickstarter plus another $16 in profit! In addition to that, I won round two (second month) of my Transformer game, where my take-home is higher than last month’s $18 winnings. I’m very pleased.

That means I currently weigh 70.5kg/155lbs.

I’m debating doing another Kickstarter game, but I’m not sure how achievable that would be. I would have to lose another 4%, which is 2.8kg or 6.1lbs. I can lose 4% of my body weight, but losing it in four weeks will take some focus.

I’ve just renewed my gym membership because my sister wants someone to go with and that starts today. I want to find a workout guide and see what they recommend for weigh loss/toning your bottom half before I go. I’ve booked a stretch class so I’m hoping to give that a go, although I don’t know whether I should work out before that or if it’s supposed to be a workout in itself.

I’ll let you know what I decide to do.

 

Update – two months in

Yeah, turns out I’m really bad at keeping a blog going.

It’s good news, though. I’ll walk you through what’s happened in the last eight weeks.

With my daily walking, I found that eating well was so much easier because not only was I occupied and doing things, but I could allow myself an extra snack and didn’t need to watch my calories as closely. I also felt happier on these days, which I think is the general consensus with exercising – your body is releasing those feel-good chemicals.

I also set a goal to drink more water, which at first was fine and achievable, but I lost focus rapidly, and I think that was to do with going to work five days a week. As I work in retail, I found that when shopping after work it was difficult to avoid soft drinks and snacks. On a more positive note, though – these snacks were small in quantity.

I would like to note that I weighed myself a week before the final weigh-in and saw that I basically had it in the bag so I didn’t put much effort into the last week but was still watching what I ate.

Good news: I won the Dietbet and lost 5 percent of my original body weight! I weighed in at 73.8kg. Hurrah! 

Food notes for January (most common meals/snacks):

• Weetabix banana (2-3 biscuits) & almond milk sweetened
• Soup & half a small baguette/2 slices of bread
• Big dollop/two tablespoons of plain/greek yoghurt with grapes and blueberries
• Halo Top Cookie Dough

So, after winning my money back on the first bet I made, I placed a second.

This month I’ve got to mention I’ve had to deal with, legitimately, the worst cold. It took more than a week for me to feel better. Apart from my movement being/feeling impaired (no walking all the way to work), I had a horrible sore throat. Honestly, nothing I was taking made it feel better. I was taking liquid Beechams, Ibuprofen (just 200g) and Strepsils, which helped with everything but the throat. I couldn’t sleep properly at night and I absolutely dreaded going to work. I imagine some of this affected my weight loss progress.

The goal weight for this second bet is 70.5kg, and this morning I weighed in at 70.3kg. I just hope the weight of my phone doesn’t affect the scale too greatly! I’ll be weighing in on either Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon (there’s a 48-hour window once the game ends).

Hopes, prayers and Pepsi Max.

 

 

New Year, New Consistency?

So, I got a bit distracted… whoops!

However, I have made it into the New Year and thought ‘what better time to get back on track?’.

I started 2020 weighing 78.3kg. Prior to 2020 (after Christmas) I had heard of ‘DietBet’ through an online influencer. I started seeing ads based on my search history for ‘Healthy Wage’ and clicked on the link. I thought it was a cool idea to keep myself accountable, but didn’t trust this new site. So, I scrolled through some DietBet games to try and find this influencer’s game as I sort of trusted her. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline to join hers so I looked through some other games and found the 2020 Kickstarter game, which cost $35 (£30) to play. The goal is to lose 4% of your starting body weight, so I was looking to lose at least 3.1kg in 28 days.

On New Years Day I learned, incorrectly, that my bus ticket was invalid. The bus driver told me I had to pay to get to work. When I got to work I was told that my contracted shift was actually a holiday. So, with my bank balance looking sad from Christmas and needing to go home, I walked back from work. When I arrived home I was delighted to find out that I’d walked 7800 steps and, from that moment, I knew that I could be onto a new habit.

Without much further hesitation, I decided to go for it. My bank account was (and still is) looking a bit worse for wear and if I was to meet my target I was guaranteed to win back a minimum of my $35 bet.

• 3/01/2020 – 14193 steps – work day
• 4/01/2020 – 11579 steps – off, but walked to town and back
• 5/01/2020 – 12930 steps – work day
• 6/01/2020 – 10504 steps – work day, bus to and from work as was working late
• 7/01/2020 – 18385 steps – work day
• 8/01/2020 – 13594 steps  – work day
• 9/01/2020 – 11910 steps – off, but walked to town and back

I’m tracking my steps using Apple’s built-in health app as Fitbit won’t sync at the moment (and the new design is garbage for those who don’t have their products). In my opinion, the app’s design also offers greater insight.

I’m really pleased that I’m beating the recommended 10k steps a day target.

I’m finding Lifesum to be a really useful app as it takes your health data and estimates how many calories you’ve burned, adding those to your daily calorific intake goal.

So, back to this DietBet thing, it suggests unofficially weighing in weekly so that you’re entered into the weekly prize draw. When I did this (on Monday 6/01) I found that I’d lost 1.6kg, which meant I was halfway to my goal. However, today I decided to join another game to lose 10% of my weight. This means I’ve had to submit an official weigh in (77.1kg) and I’m feeling slightly disheartened to see a weight gain.

Anyway, it’s bed time for me… I have another walk to work tomorrow at 1pm 🙂

My previous weight loss experiences and where I’m at now.

So, I thought in this post I should go into more detail about my previous weight loss experiences. I’ve spent the last half hour on my phone looking through four years of my life in pictures that I have not yet deleted, which had me going through a bunch of emotions from feeling disturbed about the eating habits I’ve slipped into again and again to feeling sad, to feeling proud of a progress picture or two.

My first time trying to lose weight was when I was with my now ex-boyfriend just after Christmas during my second year of university. I blogged during that time mostly because part of my course included generating content on various mediums, and so everyone on my course had to create a blog. This was mine.

My first measurements

Not entirely sure about my pose or very branded outfit, but there’s my ex gym buddy.

Having a gym buddy who knew what he was doing was helpful, but I only trained with him when I wasn’t doing cardio. I made a fair amount of progress here but once it was time to go back to my hometown it was pretty much game over.

My BFF and I riding off into the sunset together for our 10pm start (we worked at the same place, same shifts too!) Credit: My sister.

During that summer of 2016, though, all was not lost as I started a job in retail working nights… in another town. This meant that I was working 3 nights a week on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (hello nights and unsociable hours premium!) and funnily enough I started my first shift being hungover and feeling sick, so that was good. At this moment in time I thought “What better way to start losing weight when I’m feeling sick, burning calories replenishing stock and don’t want to eat?”. I really wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to pass out on that shift, working on the beers, wines and spirits department. The long and short of it is that I cycled to work so burned calories and increased stamina, lifted heavy items and therefore gained muscle and I was so knackered afterwards that eating well or even thinking about what I was going to eat wasn’t a priority. I lost weight at pace, but my eating and sleeping was of poor quality.

Working nights in retail and successfully losing weight inspired my next move, taking place in November 2017 after I’d just moved back to Liverpool and wanted to feel confident again. This time I severely restricted my diet and most meals included eating pizza for dinner, which if I’m honest hasn’t changed an awful lot. But I was lazy back then so I didn’t give nutrition a second thought. This effort took me right down to 65kg, which was the most I’d ever lost. I looked good, but I didn’t feel it.

My second-to-last attempt to lose weight was at the beginning of this year, when, I weighed around 73kg to start with. I was working at a call centre with ridiculous hours (I could be up as early as 4am and arrive home as late as 11pm). I don’t remember what weight I finished at as my bathroom scales’ battery died and I didn’t bother to buy a new one. This experience in all honesty was a blur, and I think this was the time I fell in love with Pepsi Max. The reason for this weight-loss stint ending was because I was dating… eating pancakes and drinking freakshakes was genuinely a fab time, and I got lost in my love of sweet treats.

And this brings us up to now. I’ve taken a good few pictures of myself but I’m genuinely a bit terrified to post any of them. So, anyway, the reasons for this (hopefully final?) round of fat-fighting include a love of ASOS (online retailer known for fast fashion), wanting to look good (I haven’t updated my profile picture since December 2017), a fear of detriment to my health and wanting to feel my best.

Am I back in the weight loss game?

It’s been a while since I published some words… It’s now been two years since I graduated with a degree in journalism, which may mean I need to brush up on my writing skills. This post is bound to be at least a little rough around the edges, so please forgive me if something I’ve written doesn’t quite make sense.

There’s been a good few things that have happened since I last posted, such as moving in with my now ex-boyfriend, getting a job at a call centre and most recently being offered a leadership-type job in retail. Basically, some good life choices and some not-so-good life choices have been made and here I am: overweight once again.

I recently made the choice to get back into shape, or at least to lose a fair portion of my current weight for a multitude of reasons… One of them being my health. When I started my current job my colleagues noticed I was yawning a lot. It was actually something that was fed back to my manager, and boy was that an awkward and embarrassing conversation to have. “Do you get enough sleep?” “Do you have a medical condition?” “Do you feel exhausted quickly?” Honestly, at that point I was panicking and I had to explain to my manager that I hadn’t yet pinpointed the problem but moving out of a house-share and into a flat may be the reason why. And really, I knew that something needed to change.

So fast-forward three months later and we’re here staring at a number on the scale. I knew I’d put on weight, I wasn’t at all surprised that three years later I found myself at the same 78kg I was. I had a full-time job and when I wasn’t working I was snacking like there was no tomorrow. My now-boyfriend must have been horrified watching me pile calories upon calories into my mouth, especially when he can only eat low-FODMAP foods due to his little-known about medical condition. I felt like I had no self-control and being honest I am SO fed up at stopping and starting this healthy eating/dieting business. I need to make what I’m doing a lifestyle and a permanent change.

I decided on Friday 5th July that that day was the day of starting a new journey, weighing in at 78.8kg if my memory serves me right. Since then I joined the local gym, and have visited on a few occasions. I’ve also given up the sweets and chocolate and my daily calorific intake is around 1500kcal. I’m now, according to my weigh-in this morning, 74.8kg. It’s a massive change and it’s one that I’m fairly surprised about, given my lack of exercise the past few days.

Below is a chart of my progress. And I should probably mention that I’m 5′ 8″ so you can make some sense of the numbers.

I should probably mention that yes, that’s myself weighing in almost daily, which I know is frowned upon but apparently that’s what I’m doing at the moment, which is likely to change when I start strength training. Also, that major drop is likely to be an anomaly – I have no explanation for that. My body apparently just made the decision that today will be the day where I will be baffled.

And on that note it’s a goodnight from myself. I have work to look forward to tomorrow as I’ve now had my two consecutive days off (a rare occurrence given the job I have). I do plan on writing more in-depth, sharing a picture or two of myself at my heaviest just for future reference, but today was just an introduction and I’m sure we’ll find a consistent way of writing and posts with more structure.

If you made it this far I’m a tad surprised but perhaps you’ll want to follow this journey. It’d be nice to have some support :-).

Goodbye to the fat

So it’s been a while since I last posted. I reached my goal (I’m not sure whether it was in time or not) but I currently weigh ~67kg and I am over the moon. The only bad thing is that my jeans and work clothes feel a tad baggy and I have to keep pulling them up… it’s probably time to buy a belt.

So I came home for university and tried to only eat when I was hungry. I wasn’t really in the mood for food, though – I was worried and stressed after knowing I wouldn’t see my boyfriend for ages. This meant that I was concentrating on my mental health rather than weight loss.

I did see him less than two weeks later, though! This is when I weighed myself and I weighed about 69kg.

I applied for a job whilst staying with my boyfriend in Cumbria. I applied to work nights at Tesco. I got the job and my life has been bit crazy since…

I worked for about a month before checking to see how much I weigh and the scales read 66.6kg. I did have to take a picture of that number and send it to my friends. It means that I have lost more than 10kg since February! Here’s a few reasons as to why I think I lost weight.

You’re supposed to live like a night person when working nights but since I only work three nights per week I choose to live like a day person when Monday comes. The reasons for this include that it is hard as hell to get a good night’s sleep when the daylight is seeping through your blinds. It’s also very lonely to be awake during the night when the people you usually talk to are fast asleep. For me this means that I burn an extra couple of hundred calories just being awake for a longer period of time.

To get to work I have to ride a bike and part of the journey makes me sweat like never before. In other words I am exercising. My job also involves standing and moving boxes around to fill shelves which also burns the calories.

I’m not consuming enough calories for being a working woman. I normally eat about 1200 and I’m pretty sure I need about 2000/day for when I am working during the week. During my first few days/nights at work I felt sick just thinking about food, which was not good at all.

Lastly, I am hydrated. I drink about 1L of water at work which is often more than I usually drink in a day. This helps to keep the system moving and means I don’t collapse at work.

Luckily the job is temporary, it pays well (an extra £2/hr night premium), and it ends when I go back to university. Perhaps the weight will continue to drop off me. And if it’s not dropping, it means I am gaining muscle (I can flex now and I feel like Superman looking at my arms in the mirror). This gives me a head-start for when I go back to the gym at uni.

Note: since I’ve started working I’ve made the switch to Weetabix Protein so my muscles can repair and I don’t ache as much. It’s hard to get enough protein as it is and this I think has definitely helped.

My first class

I had wanted to go to a class that Puregym advertises in its ~£16/month membership for quite a while, but for so long have not had the courage.

So on Sunday I gave one a whirl. I knew that legs, bums and tums was a popular choice by many as it always seems to have no spaces available even though they have this particular class scheduled every day. I decided that this class was the one for me.

One of my worries was who I was going to be exercising with – would I annoy them with my lack of co-ordination and skill? How much better at this would they be? Would I look silly? Would I somehow kick them in the stomach?

The good thing is that no one paid attention to me apart from the instructor to check everyone was doing the exercises correctly (phew!). I was so embarrassed because of how much I was sweating and of course, my very red face.

LBT was packed full of lunges, squats, bridges and stomach crunches.

The class was very good. I enjoyed it, though I wish I had a friend with me for my first go. Afterwards, I was aching, and the following day was awfully painful – I could not walk and stairs immediately became my enemy.

I’m praying that the level of pain I’ve had to endure for the past two-three days was worth it.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have recovered and will be ready to take on the gym again.

Have you tried any classes? If you haven’t, why not? Let me know by leaving a comment below. 

Success and new kit

I’m very happy at the moment as I know I’ve lost 10 pounds. I wouldn’t be happy if I lost that much money, but I am happy that I currently weigh 71.8kg.

It’s been about three weeks since I hit up the gym prior to today’s workout, and that made me feel sluggish, but now I’m sat in the library in my gym kit and I’m working… I’m comfortable.

The session back at the gym involved 35 minutes on the treadmill, and I burned 250kcal during that time. It’s probably not a shocking amount to those of you regular gym-goers reading this, but it is for me.

See, I bought some new trainers last week because when I’d been working out before that I felt a lot of pain in my legs towards the end of my session which meant that although I could have ran for another minute or so, my legs brought me to a halt. Today, though, the only pain I felt was mild cramp and a bit of a sore neck, because I pushed myself because I wasn’t suffering from leg pain in my calf muscles.

This workout tired me out loads, and unfortunately I did eat an ice cream afterwards, but that was better than eating four whole chocolate eclairs yesterday! …To be fair though it was four eclairs for £1…