PiYo Result Pictures!

My first Transformation Tuesday! I didn't forget to post the pictures of my transformation from day 1-60 with PiYo the other day with my REVIEW OF PIYO! I had to wait for my hubs and afternoon lighting to take the pix then I got sick and it just got delayed. So here is MY proof that even working out at home, and missing some days, YOU WILL still see some results! Are they completely life changing 100 lbs lost pictures, no, but I am getting there. I am not ripped, or shredded or totally defined or a stick but I am smaller than where I started. This is the real world people we all start somewhere! It takes just a little bit at a time and eventually I will be healthy and fit. You can click on the pictures to view the full size.

As a reminder I lost 8.5 inches across my chest, belly, hips, arms and legs. No lbs lost, gained 2 lbs. So now it is time for the weight to come off while I still trim down!

Am I happy with these results! OF COURSE! I am finally looking in the mirror and thinking, wow I look great today. So, here they are. And if you want results too, fill out the form at the bottom and I will get back to you. (also the piyo results is also my 21 day fix day 1 pictures. Because I went from one program straight to the next! So lots more results to come!)

Want more daily motivation and inspiration? Click here get free advice, support and encouragement + a free copy of my Clean Eating guide to help you get started on your health and fitness journey! Don't forget to follow me on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK!

September Week 3 Recap

It is here! Finally here! Season and series premier season! YEA! I love this time of year when my favorite shows come back on. So that is what I am looking forward to this week! I will tell you my weekly line up next week but I am excited about the return of Once Upon A Time!

Back to last week. The dreaded hospital week I am now calling it. It killed my workouts for the week, but that didn't mean I had to eat poorly! The week started out great. Mason, Matt and Collin were all done with their whatever sickness they had and I felt really strong. I pushed starting my 21 Day Fix back a day so that all the junk food was out of the house on Monday. (Had to go through and purge a couple of things) Tuesday came and I KILLED it in my workout! I had pure muscle fatigue. I was exhausted and it took 4 days for my legs to not be sore anymore! (Don't you love those kinds of days?) Wednesday happened and I did my workout with my hubs which was awesome and a little intimidating but still awesome to see him huff and puff as much as I was! Then Thursday. If you don't know what happened click here and I talk all about it. Friday, and Saturday I had planned on working out but Matt advised against it because I still had a fever and other flu like symptoms come at me. So I took them as rest days, but I was fully planning on working out those days. So they were recovery days for me and Sunday was the first day since Wednesday that I felt normal again. Matt and I decided it would be best to restart my 21 days today. So that is where we are at.

Sunday we went to our old church in Louisa to say hi to our old friends! And spent the afternoon at my friend's house to let the kiddos play and tire them out!

We have some awesome news that I will share soon but don't want jinx it quite yet. Yep it is pretty awesome!

I am just glad that I am feeling better though. Still not sure what was wrong with me. We think it was a super slow moving virus that first gave me the super high fever then went and attacked other areas of my body. But back at it today and I am so not really looking forward to the many surrenders I will be doing today though. Man, they burn out my legs fast! (21 Day Fix day 1 workout: Total Body Cardio Fix)

Workout Recap: 
Sunday: rest
Monday: rest
Tuesday: Total Body Cardio Fix
Wednesday: Upper Body Fix
Thursday: HOSPITAL DAY
Friday: rest and recovery
Saturday: rest and recovery
Sunday: rest

This weeks goals:
~Do all my workouts. That is 7 days because for the next 21 days I am committed!
~Continue to eat clean. Even though I didn't get all my workouts in and had almost a full day where I didn't eat, but got pumped full of fluids, I have still lost weight because I cut the crap and am eating clean. down 3.2 lbs!
~Get 2 more rooms in my house clean. I am working on doing a Fall cleaning in the house right now and we did the guest room and Mason's room this weekend (you do not want to know how many fuzzies from his old sheepskin blanket and goldfish were under his bed!). So this week is the nursery and our bedroom that needs to be spruced up!

QOTD: What did you do this past week that was the most memorable??? Do you do a fall deep cleaning (dusting, scrubbing and cleaning baseboards)?

ALSO: If you would like to join my 21 Days to Great Online Health group, this Friday (9/26) is the last day that I will accept people for this month's group. Fill out the form below and let me know if you want to join! Any workout routine accepted! You know you wanna! THE HOLIDAYS ARE COMING! Get in shape now and eat better now so you don't have to work so hard during the holidays!

Yesterdays Little Adventure

Many of you saw the picture I posted on FB yesterday about me being in the hospital, yep the stinking hospital! Well here is the whole story!

Collin woke me up around 5:30am to feed and I got up to nurse him. As I sat up I had this sharp pain in my back and front, and actually going through me. It felt like I had a rod going through my body from my right sacrum to my lower abdomen. I fed Collin and just dealt with it. I went to the bathroom thinking it might be gas and tried to rub my belly. That didn't help. When I got back in bed I started shaking, violently and the pain became more intense. I called Matt and had him come home from work. I went and got in a scorching hot bath for about an hour, with the jets on to help massage the pain out. It didn't work.

We decided, since my sacrum was involved and doesn't really hold my adjustments very well that we should go to my chiropractor to see if it was just my hip severely out. We showed up without an appointment at 8:30 and they got me in as fast as possible. I was right that my hip was really out of place. The way I was getting up to nurse Collin was just not a good way for my body. So they readjusted me and got me back to normal. But I still had lower abdominal pain.

So we then decided to go to my Ob/GYN to check for an eptoptic pregnancy. In the car between the Chiropractor and my OB I started getting super hot! I had still be shaking and now had dizziness and nausea. I had just started my first cycle this month and the numbers were kind of adding up. Again we went there and they squeezed me in. (All the while Matt had both boys in the car! Such a trooper!) I got in there and they took my temp and I was 102.4. I saw the OB and he check me and no pregnancy but based off the exam and the fever he advised me to go to the ER now for possible appendicitis.

So off to the ER we went. They again checked my temp and it was holding strong at 102.4. I got back to my little suite and and was told I wasn't allowed to drink anymore water then the waiting began. Doc came in and did a small exam. He said I will need a CT scan to check the appendix to see if it is in fact inflamed. He said that in the past when people came in with my symptoms that they just went straight in for surgery but not anymore. They might not know exactly what the appendix is for but they try to keep it in you if they can.

So I got my lovely IV, ( I hate needles and IV. They make me squirm!) Along with anti-neasea and pain relief drugs. And shortly after that they had me drink this lovely HUGE 32 oz orange drink that tasted like tang and had to wait at least an hour before I could have the CT scan. Matt took the boys to the cafeteria and I got some rest while they were gone cause the small dose of morphine knocked me out! After Matt got back we called a friend to help with Mason. She came and picked him up and so we just had Collin with us and he just slept the rest of the time. Not sure if he got some of the morphine or not but he was so good. (He usually is!)

Finally it was time for the scan and then more waiting as we waited for the results. Doc came in and said that I looked normal. All the organs look fine and they couldn't see what was causing the pain. He said, "Well, we know what it isn't." He advised me to go home and rest and if it got any worse to come back in. I was told to take some Ibuprofen. While I was in the hospital my fever went away and by the time we got home though it was back in full force!

I told Matt that if I have to go back for them not to give me any morphine because we don't know if that helped reduce the size of my appendix if that truly was the problem or not. Anyhew we picked up Mason and a friend brought us dinner, so nice of her and I rested the rest of the night. I woke up completely soaked in sweat 3 times during the night. Matt even changed the pillow case because it was so soaked. I think my high fever finally broke around 4am.

Today I still have lower abdominal pain but it isn't as bad as yesterday. I feel week and just out of it. Even if it wasn't appendicitis it was something. I wouldn't have had that high of a fever for nothing. (I don't know the last time I ever had a fever that hight!) Oh, the doc did say that my white blood count was high so my body is fighting something. So I am taking it easy today. Probably won't do the ab workouts for the next few days to let that get better. I have a nice little bruise where the IV was, plus where they did the first stick for the IV that didn't work. I am keeping an eye on it and how I feel. I pray it doesn't get any worse. But I sure would love to know what caused it or what not. I have changed my eating (way more healthy) and am doing a different workout but I seriously doubt that that is what caused me to spike a seriously high fever!

It was not that respiratory thing that is going around. I have no cough, or breathing issues. It was purely lower abdominal pain! So there is the story. My little adventure!

My PiYo Review and Results!

Day 60 has come and gone for me on PiYo already! First off, that was a fast 60 days. Secondly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! PiYo is fairly easy to follow! There are really only a few moves that I really struggled with but with time I was able to figure out what modifications I should make that fit me.

Example: I used Yoga blocks instead of a chair to get a further stretch and to learn how to use more upper body strength for some of the moves like 3 point balance Crouching crow. It is a little scary on the blocks though because they wobble with me and are not stable so make sure you have a good strong foundation of your own balance before you go for a harder modification!

Downward dog split and with open hip is still my least favorite positions. I can't lift my leg very high, um cause I am having to do the splits while my head is hanging down and such, but I noticed that I was able to hold the pose longer each time I did it. (Which is in almost every workout!)

Favorite positions: Child's pose, cause it is a rest position. Pigeon has always been my fav too because it just stretches the IT band like nothing else. I could sit in that position all day long because it is that nice and wonderful. Even when I lean and stretch into it more it is more wonderful. And surprisingly I have really learned to love and see downward dog not as a hard position but truly as a rest position. Which it should be. I have learned to trust my body and put most of the weight on my legs and not on my shoulders and wrists. By shifting my body and making my legs hold more weight (meaning, I just ground my legs more and keep them tight and flexed) I can hold that position much longer and comfortably.

RESULTS:  CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY PICTURES! In the 60 days I did not lose any weight. I actually gained 1.7 lbs...in muscle. How do I know it was muscle, because I lost inches. Which means that I lost fat. I lost 8.5 inches to be exact! YEA! With that said, working out is hard. And even I hit a point where I wanted to do something different (check out the new Beachbody On Demand All Access Pass where you get access to over 40 FULL workout programs and bonus materials plus new workouts when they are released too!), but I had committed to doing this and only this for 60 days. Did I workout every day? No. I did miss some workouts and that obviously hindered my results. But I worked out most of the time and still got great results. And this is why I am moving on to 21 day fix. I have the workout stuff done but the eating is what I am having a hard time with.

How Hard is PiYo: I felt that PiYo was great for me because I was already used to most of the moves used in it. I did prenatal yoga for 30 weeks while pregnant and I often got to work one on one with my yoga instructor so she helped me know and get better with the positions. I have heard from other people that they are having a hard time with PiYo. You will sweat. Your arms will ache. You butt will burn and your core will hurt. Just because you aren't using weights doesn't mean you aren't burning a ton of calories! I promise you that if you listen to Chalene and do as she instructs you, you will get better. I know I am more flexible than I was before. I can't do the splits but I am able to stretch deeper at the end of workouts. It is just easier to fold over! My back no longer hurts and I know when I am using my core because it is stronger and I can feel it. I really do recommend this program to runners because it will help to lengthen and strengthen you hamstrings and core! I felt pretty good after my race, which I did not really run for training. I was doing this and I survived and felt strong finishing!

Oh Chalene, you're so funny!: I really loved all the inspirational things that Chalene says during the videos. Some of them just make me start to laugh and help get me past the discomfort I am feeling. Example: "Feel that! That's like an epidural. Your leg is as numb as an epidural. Ok let's get the feeling back in your leg! SQUAT!" "Best revenge on anyone is looking amazing!" and last "DROP IT LIKE ITS HOT!" (She says that a lot!) Oh and when you get child's pose you are supposed to say "Thank you!" Which you will do after awhile without even thinking of it because it just feels so good to rest!

Final thoughts: PiYo is great. It will help you tone up your arms and legs because you are using them doing mini squats a lot and holding up your own body weight. You will get more flexible too as long as you push yourself. It just takes some time to master the moves and I will honestly be using the workouts again in my rotation of workouts because they really are that great! My favs, Buns and Core!

Want more daily motivation and inspiration? Click here get free advice, support and encouragement + a free copy of my Clean Eating guide to help you get started on your health and fitness journey! Don't forget to follow me on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK!

September Week 2 Recap

Sick, Sick, Sick has been the name of the game here in the Allen household! The week started out great then Wednesday Mason was hit with a bug. He was sporting a fever (not sure what it went to, didn't check but high enough to register that he was pretty warm.) The we all started dropping like flies! Matt stayed home on Wednesday to help out so that I could try to quarantine him from Collin and such but that just made it possible for Matt to be sick by Friday with a fever. Oh and the quarantine didn't quite work. Collin got it too.

So Collin has been an awesome baby! He started sleeping through the night since 3 weeks old. So I have no right to complain. I am so thankful though that he sleeps at night because living like this everyday would be so hard. You mommas that don't get sleep, I remember that, from Mason and it isn't fun. You are so strong and powerful and I fully feel for you. I did get a little taste of lack of sleep though. Thursday night he was up every hour whining, fussing or crying. I totally understand. Being sick sucks, especially since we couldn't give him medicine for him like we can big brother. So Thursday night into Friday morning I only got about an hour combined of sleep that night. I ain't gonna lie, Friday sucked for me! And with Matt being sick and Mason still in recovery I was exhausted. Friday night was better but only got about 3 hours of sleep. By Saturday afternoon, we all crashed, expect for Matt and Mason, Collin and I slept from 3pm-7pm. We were all back in bed by 10pm to sleep for the night. Collin woke up early Sunday morn at 2:30 to feed and then was out agin till the morning.

Noticed how I haven't written about me. Well, I am not quite out of the woods yet. I doubled up on my Shakeology, (2 shakes a day) for 2 days just to give me a boost in my own immunity and to help boost Collin up too. I think it really did work. I only started to feel sick yesterday but it wasn't too bad. I have had a stuffed up nose, but never really had a fever and have felt fairly ok. (except for the sleeping thing.) I have been more physically exhausted more than anything. So no early Saturday run for me. Sleep was more important to me because I wasn't getting it. And workouts suffered this week too, because well, I was exhausted and dealing with my sick kiddos. (Nothing worse then having sick kids and seeing them suffer from it, that is what is really hard about being a parent. Not being able to help them when they need it.)

On the bright side, I might not have worked out, but I have been eating fairly clean. (I did go to a baby shower on Saturday and had some cake and other goodies but I watched what I ate and didn't overdo it) I haven't gained any weight. So I consider that a "good job Becky moment!"

OHHHHH! AND...I was just accepted as an Ambassador with FitFluential! "FitFluential is a nationwide network of highly influential fitness enthusiasts sharing their journey both online and offline through multiple social media platforms. Founded in April of 2011 by Kelly Olexa, FitFluential was designed to connect health and wellness brands with their ideal target market through customized, long-term experiential and contextual marketing campaigns. - See more at: http://fitfluential.com/about/

Workout Recap: 
 Sunday: rest
Monday: core
Tuesday: Drench
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: REST

Goals for next week: 
1) Start my 21 Day Fix program, so I am a week ahead of everyone to actually offer my help an know what I am talking about. I am big on practice what you preach!
2) EAT CLEAN! Cut the crap out and eat what I need to.
3) Saturday morning run of 3.5 miles. Also try to schedule in 2 mid-week runs. Need to figure out that still! So I don't run at 5am. It really would be a great time, but should I wake Collin up and nurse him then go for a run??? I can't run being super full and Collin won't take a bottle for me to pump, and I don't want to pump and dump because he needs the milk from sleeping all night and not feeding during the night. My other option would be to run later at night and now that it is getting cooler that might be an option. But running later in the day is hard! Any ideas from other mother's out there??? Comment below!

Also I am still accepting requests to join my 21 Days To Great Private Facebook Group! If you need help taking that first step into a lifestyle change sign up below. If you don't know where to start with exercising or dieting, sign up below. If you just want to talk and share your ideas on how to lose weight. Let me know! I will send you an email and we can chat!