A blogger I follow recently posted a photo from her honeymoon in Italy where she is wearing workout gear and mentioned using wine bottles for weights, which you know I loved. Her body was RIDICULOUS, but in a normal girl, “I have a job and a blog and just planned a wedding” way. No crazy cuts, just a very enviable bod.

Could I work out with wine and achieve the same results? I skimmed her hashtags and noticed one “bbg.” You know I googled that right away. “Bikini Body Guide.” Hmmmm…. bikini season was basically over, yet I was still intrigued with a trip to Cabo looming on the horizon. The BBG is a healthy way of eating everything (even carbs!) married with a specific exercise program created by the annoyingly gorgeous Aussie, Kayla Itsines.

Photo: Popsugar.com

Perhaps you’ve heard of it. I had too, to be honest, just wasn’t yet familiar with her hashtags. or that ladies fancied themselves part of “Kayla’s Army.” Holy, hot cult shit.

I read the guide yesterday; it was over 140 pages! There’s meals to plan and a week’s worth of exercises to plan. You have to weigh yourself and take photos in your underoos. YUCK to all of this, so naturally, I’m doing ALL of THIS. I’m 32 sans children, lucky enough to have a fairly busy travel schedule. It is time to get in shape, damnit! So, I rolled out of bed, climbed on the scale (like every morning), then, <gulp> put on some decent underoos and snapped the obligatory mirror shots. It’s hard to say if the dark circles or under my eyes or my heavy bottomed pear shape was more concerncing. Either way, I had work to do. I had just purchased some new Trish McEvoy for the dark circles so it was time to focus on the bum. Bleh.

I’m embarrassed to say, that I never even got in shape this summer and my attempts were rather half assed. The chap and I moved twice and my focus was constantly directed to house stuffs, new job stuffs, and a few travel stuffs. I just didn’t make it a priority this year. Additionally, as half of the fabulous relationship that is two folks who love to cook and LOVE to drink wine while they cook, has made this an awful summer/year for fitness.

But as the great Bone Thugs once said, “Wake up, wake up, wake up, it’s the first of the month.” And today it was. A new month, a new mentality. And the first day of this BBG workout. I admit it was much more difficult than I expected. I started with a 10 minute cardio warm up as Kayla suggests. Ok, fine. I have no problem doing cardio first thing in the morning, you know why? I have self imposed a rule that I cannot look at Instagram unless I’m working out. And I don’t. And because of that, I find myself on the elliptical or treadmill most mornings, zoned out, scrolling through the IG, tagging the bestie in dodgy posts and carving my own corner of the universe with sunset and food photos. So that part was noooo problem!

The hard part was the circuits and the intense interval training to come. The first day of the first round of circuits and it was HARD. Burpees and squat jumps and four cycles of all sorts of awful exercises…for 28 minutes. I made it through everything twice and called time at 14 minutes. I honestly thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest and it was DAY ONE. Ahhhh. But I did it. And I thought about not doing it, but I did it. Or at least half of it….

I’m hoping that one of the main issues is that I have been doing online Barre 3 classes every day. I LOVE them which must mean that they probably aren’t terribly effective. I work my legs and my glutes every day, the areas I love to work. And I must say, my ample behind, that I am always exercising was SORE. Those glutes have been sore the last three days in the best way. However, it sure made burpees, mountain climbers, and step ups particularly awful. I may have to set these aside for now.

So day one. Complete. I’ll have four weeks under my belt before I have to don a bikini again. The BBG guide lasts 12 weeks, but hopefully a third of the way there will be better than nothing. I’m anxious to see!