Recently Alex Lyons from The Lyons Life combined our Be Rapid program with her 8 Week F45 Challenge to optimise her results. She's kindly shared her experience on her own blog and allowed us to also share below:
I really need to prefix this blog post by saying I'm not a gym person. Like I actually hate it, but when the opportunity presented itself to join up to the brand new F45 Studio in Sippy Downs I thought what the heck. What have I got to lose? Except for maybe my dignity on any one of the completely ridiculous stations that makes me groove like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever or look an angry donkey that's trying to buck some obnoxious kid off their back at a kids party.
Somehow, as if the universe knew that I was in desperate need of another ass kicking, I found out about the Be Rapid program by Be Fit Food. I'd been a long time admirer of ready made meal plans, but because I choose to live a Gluten Free lifestyle, many, if not all that I had found during my research had been excluded. That is until Be Fit Food (BFF).
After talking to the very helpful ladies at BFF I decided to embark on the Be Rapid program, a meal plan that provides you with roughly 820-920 calories per day. The Be Rapid program is aimed at those who wish to lose weight quickly and by eating at a calorific deficit most clients will lose 5kg over a 2 week period. Great I thought - I've only got about 5kg that I want to lose so this will be fantastic. Little did I know at the time that there was an F45 Challenge about to get underway.
Never one to let FOMO get the better of me when my trainers asked if I was participating I thought SURE, in for a penny, in for a pound. It's now or never, and every other one of those cliches. However, never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be so close to my ultimate weight goal and be fit AND strong in such a short period of time.
After selecting my first two weeks of meals and having been to one or two F45 classes to get a feel for what I was getting myself into, I sat eagerly stalking (awaiting) the delivery man for my BFF delivery. All the meals I would be eating for the next week arrived in a lovely (and incredibly handy) cheery insulated reusable bag and I set about clearing that old curry (actually it probably wasn't curry, but it had been in there that long) out of the freezer to make room!
The first test was dinner on the evening of my first delivery. My tummy was growling from a rather intense F45 Panthers (weights and resistance) sesh, and I was ready to tuck in. Yum! I'd heard cries and complaints from friends about bland meals, from other ready made meal brands so when I put the first fork full of the Mexican Pulled Beef to my mouth I was pleasantly surprised - huzzah! BFF had gotten the seasoning memo!!! As I plowed my way through my first week my taste buds were very happy and so was I as I eyeballed the number rolling back on the scale. 2.6kg lost in my first week! I couldn't actually comprehend what my eyes were seeing.
In the second week I decided to up the anti and really commit 100% to the F45 Challenge, I mean if I'd been given the opportunity to have someone else take care of all my nutrition, I may as well do the sensible thing and take control of my exercise. As part of the Challenge I was granted an InBody biometric scan so that I had a measure of my starting weight and other metrics like lean muscle mass. This scan, now that I think of it, was probably the catalyst to me falling deep and hard into the Challenge because it was easy to see that I wasn't indeed as fit as I had thought it was.
I'd been into the studio 3 times in my first week and it was time to kick it up a notch and see what this body of mine could do! I got along 4 times in my second week and with a good grip on the Be Rapid program I set about pushing myself that little bit harder in the weeks to come.
During my time on the Be Fit Food’s Be Rapid program I regularly trained at F45 Sippy Downs (my local) - I'm talking at least 4 times per week and sometimes even 5, and with the exception of Sunday morning breakfast with the family 3 times, I've stuck to the meal plans to the letter for a few reasons. The main reason I chose not to have cheat meals or deviate from the plan was to see just how much I could change my body composition through healthy eating AND exercise. Yes, I wanted to lose a few kilos, but what I've really gained through this entire experience is a lot more than just losing some weight. As cheesy as it sounds - I've gained my health, and I have a WAY better understanding on the foods needed to fuel my body to train at the level that I have been! I've said goodbye to 10.65kg of fat, reduced my total body fat by 8.2% taking me from 31.6% body fat to a very healthy 23.4% body fat (normal range is between 18-28%) and maintained my lean muscle mass (no easy feat when you’re eating in a deficit) by exercising regularly AND following the BFF program. I’ve also reduced my visceral fat (the dangerous fat around your organs) rating from 9 to 6 - which is considered low and in the healthy range!
Over the challenge I had countless messages from all of you - and I hope I’ve covered off most of the popular topics for you! If you are considering embarking on your weight loss or fitness journey and need cheerleaders in your corner as well as healthy, balanced and delicious meals there is no other program that I would recommend more than Be Fit Food! Not only is the food nourishing, quick and easy to prepare and yummy to boot, but the team at BFF care about their clients. Their customer service is top notch and they celebrated my wins alongside me every step of the way.
