I am a groupie

I was telling Gerhard last night that I bought Kayla’s cookbook, and he burst out laughing and accused me of being a full on groupie, I was upset, really, I am almost 40 years old, how can you think that I am a groupie.  But as the evening progressed, I started to agree with him a teeny tiny bit, and I must admit, I have fallen for Kayla and the Bikini Body Guide (BBG) hook line and sinker.

So for those of you living under a rock, let me explain.  Kayla Itsiness is an Australian personal trainer with more than 10 million online followers, or Kayla’s Army as they are affectionately known.  They are loyal and fierce and arrange mass meetups where they exercise Kayla style doing one of her killer BBG workouts, almost always including burpees, mountain climbers, you get the gist of it.  These are known as BBG meetups and take place globally, the ultimate goal is to attract enough attention to maybe entice Kayla herself to attend your city’s meetup.  I know this, because I attended the third Johannesburg BBG meetup last week, a fun filled morning attended by almost 300 BBG girls where we did burpees and lay down push-ups like pro’s on our brand new pink yoga mats. 

Kaya’s followers are all extremely active on social media and attract quite the following, especially on Instagram.  Your ‘instas’ will be a source of inspiration and I have yet to find a more supporting encouraging group of people.  My instas are all amazing and inspiring and just the thought of letting your instas down is enough to make you grab the skipping rope and skip!

Kayla has an app called “Sweat with Kayla” and you plot and plan weekly exercises, for every exercise completed you earn a badge and get to take a sweaty selfie.  I tell you this app is inspiring and when my free trial ends I am definitely signing up for life.  Workouts consist of a balance between cardio, recovery and resistance training and you can mostly get away without equipment.  Resistance training consists of two circuits of seven minutes each and each workout needs to be completed twice, 28 minutes from start to end, who does not have time to commit to this?

I am finishing up on week 8 of the BBG and the 12 week challenge and this is by far the easiest most adaptable forgivable exercise plan I have ever attempted.  Add to this a great deal of accountability and sharing completed workouts on Instagram and encouragement from micro-whatsapp BBG communities and I guarantee you it is almost fool proof.  A huge shout out to my own BBG whatsapp group and the main cheerleader @ser_bbgmom for keeping us honest, motivated and inspired. 

So what have I learnt during my first eight weeks?

  1. You can always make a plan.  You need a skipping rope and a pair of tekkies and you can really exercise anywhere.  So far I have completed a week’s exercises in a hotel room and during that all-encompassing first week of school where you basically cover books and go to meet and greets, I exercised in my kitchen one night using the kitchen ladder, a skipping rope and two bottles of fig preserve instead of hand weights

   

  2.  Your kids will love the BBG.  Liam uses the PDF guides and exercises with his mom, a BBG mom religiously and without fail.  He is young and nimble and flexible, so he just does burpees with his eyes closed

  3.  Do not tell your significant other that he is doing the BBG.  You could tell him it is the BBG, but don’t explain what BBG stands for, Gerhard happily sweated with me, until he heard they were girly exercises.  In his defence , he got over it and is now on his sixth happy week of BBG

 4. LISS is not a waste of time as initially suspected.  LISS, or low intensity steady state cardio now means that I fit in my forty minutes of steady walking at quite a pace with or without dogs in before work.  What a joy.  Alternatively, I spend exactly one episode of “The Good Wife” walking on the treadmill at the gym, bliss for a mom of two who never has time for TV

  5.  A skipping rope can raise your heartbeat to 160 beats per minute.  That is higher than the 80% maximum recommended heartbeat for my age group.  I can also do this in my kitchen, a hotel room, my patio and this is also known as HIIT or high intensity interval training.  On days where time is limited, you can still get in a decent workout

  6.  28 minutes really is a lifetime.  On days when Kayla makes you jump, think burpee, JUMP lunge, JUMP squat, these 28 minutes feel like they will last FOREVER, your legs will buckle and tomorrow the mere thought of climbing some stairs will have you cursing under your breath

  7.  Weekends are for makeup sessions: You can fit two LISS and two resistance sessions into a weekend after hectic weeks at work

  8.  You will often see fellow BBGers at the gym!  You will recognise them by the over-used printed workout sheets that they carry, or by the loads and loads of JUMPING going on, or you will hear the hooter go after seven minutes on their SWEAT with Kayla apps

  9.  There is nothing on earth more satisfying that when you get a badge for completing a week, that means you did three sessions of resistance, four sessions of cardio and a couple of recovery sessions, including a day of rest

 10. BBG girls are the sober version of the overly nice drunk girls you met in bathrooms ages ago before BBG

So to all my fellow BBG girls, BBG moms, under cover BBG husbands, burpees rock, I am feeling stronger than before, here is to my next 8 weeks, see you later instas.