Chalene is my new secret weapon.

Today was my last official workout of the "Chalene week".  Tomorrow will be a rest day and Saturday I'll start the series again.   I'll repeat this "burn" phase for 30 days and then move to the "push" phase which will incorporate new workouts.

Yesterday, I finished up the weight training portion of the workouts so today left room for - you guess it - cardio.  Intense, insane cardio.  It only lasted 30 mins.  If you're familiar with The Biggest Loser bootcamp workout, which I love and was pretty intense for me when I started, basically Chalene makes it look like a weak game of freeze tag.  This girl is intense!  I worked as hard as I could and know it will pay off in the end, but man oh man.  Not easy.  This workout is followed by a 20 min yoga workout, which is great for stretching and feels wonderful - however next time I will take a little break between the two, so that my heart rate slows down a little before I start turning my head upside down with yoga poses.

I have been feeling really great the past two days.  A little sore, but already I can feel my body changing - things are tightening and toning.  I was curious to jump on the scale...  and though I don't really want to be jumping on the scale all the time during this process, it was the easiest way to detect a change without getting out the measuring tape.

 I wasn't expecting what I saw.

In the past 5 days I've lost just over 6 lbs!  WHAT?!

Chalene is like some crazy secret fitness weapon.  I just stood there thinking - how is this possible?  How did my body do this?

The thing is, if I would have sat down last Saturday and conjured up a plan to lose about a pound a day for the next week it would have looked something like this:

1. Try not to eat much of anything - I mean, give yourself enough to not pass out, but cut anything unnecessary out.
2. Run about 5 miles a day.  Maybe twice a day.
3. Lift a lot of reps of weights, do a lot of pushups and sit ups.
4. Drink an obscene amount of water.

Chalene Extreme has taken my crazy ideals of fitness and revealed to me a method to get results and maintain a life, like a real one.  An enjoyable one.  I've eaten well (though will probably up the carbs now that I see how potent the workouts are).  Most of my workouts have been 30-40 mins, with just two days being an hour or just over an hour.  I've eaten these ridiculously good chocolate shakes, that should be illegal, for breakfast the past two mornings, and I'm having fun doing it.

It doesn't take up my whole life.  In fact, it fits nicely into it.

I'm beginning to have a whole new perspective of what a "fitness lifestyle" could look like.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!  To week #2!  What lessons lay ahead?