Beachbody Programs That I have Done

A little over a year ago, I bought my first Beachbody program. I got it during a huge sale they had in June. I was 290 pounds. I got Les Mills Combat because I liked Martial Arts workouts and this one was pretty inexpensive for what came with the program.

Prior to doing Les Mills Combat, I was doing a lot of stuff on YouTube and various DVDs from my library. I had little focus and lacked an overall plan. I was losing weight slowly, but the whole process was a bit stressful for me because I had to constantly come up with a plan. I had a tendency to pick one thing to do for a week. For example, I would do Leslie Sansone workouts for one week and the next I would do JessicaSmithTV.com workouts.

I was skeptical about doing Beachbody programs for a few reasons. I wasn't sure if I could stick with the same program for two months. I thought I would get bored with the workouts. I also thought the program might be too hard for me at 290 pounds. However, doing a 60 day program gave me 60 days worth of blog posts, so I wanted to give it a try.

I'm so happy that I did. I didn't get bored with the workouts and they weren't too hard for me. They were challenging, but there was a modifier that I could choose to follow if I needed to. I have since fallen in love with Beachbody and I'm now an addict. I love that you get a bunch of different workouts with each program. You also get a calendar that tells you what workout to do on what day. That is huge for me. Once I pick which program is next for me, I don't have to think about what to do next. That takes a ton of stress off of me. I used to sit at the computer for hours just trying to come up with a plan for the following week. Sometimes, I would procrastinate so long that I wouldn't have time to actually workout! Silly, but true.

Once you complete a Beachbody program, you earn a free t-shirt. (It's socks for Cize and shorts for Brazil Butt Lift) It's like getting a trophy. I can't bail on a program because I want my trophy! So far, I'm too big to wear any of my trophies in public, but eventually, I'll lose enough weight that I can wear them in public.

Looking back over the past year, I haven't been on point with my nutrition as much as I would have liked. I started out in July of 2014 at 290 pounds. As I sit here typing this is August of 2015, I'm at 266. Wow. That's only 24 pounds lost in a year. However, I'm so much stronger today than I was a year ago. I can do things I couldn't do then. I can climb a flight of stairs without losing my breath. I climbed to the top of Tumalo Mountain! No way I could have done that a year ago. I'm less tired and more happy. I'm back on track with my nutrition now, so the fat is just going to melt away now!

I know here are plenty of other people like me out there who are significantly overweight. You may have watched an infomercial on a Beachbody program and wondered if it was something you could do. I'm here to say that you can do it if you set your mind to it. You don't necessarily have to follow the calendar exactly. If you wake up the next day and your body hurts so bad you can't even sit on the toilet, you probably should take a rest day, but don't give up. It's okay to take it slow if you need to.

I wanted to put a list together of all the Beachbody programs that I've done so it was all in one place to make it easier for people who are trying to decide which program to do. They are listed in the order that I did them.

I will update this list as I complete more programs. I'm currently doing Cize The End of Exercize. It's another dancing workout! It's pretty challenging for me, but I'm loving it!

Les Mills Combat

Les Mills Combat is a mixed martial arts program. It comes with eight workouts. Two of them are strength training workouts that use HIIT, but the rest are all martial arts workouts.

I loved the martial arts workouts, but wasn't a huge fan of the strength training ones when I first did this program. They were hard for me, but I got through them. I wanted to die during them and I was sore later, but they made me stronger. There was a lot of kicking and punching in these. There was some jumping, but they have a modifier who doesn't do any jumping.

I did a mini round of Les Mills Combat a few months back, and the HIIT workouts weren't as bad the second time around. These are great workouts to get you started along on a fitness journey. However, you should act fast since this program is being discontinued. Once they sell what they have, that's it.

Check out my post about my 61 Day Experience with Les Mills Combat to find out more about the individual workouts or you can read through my journal of my mini round and my full round of Les Mills Combat.

This program is doable for a beginner, but you can also go all out in it and make it pretty intense for someone who is more advanced.

PiYo

PiYo is a mix of Pilates and Yoga. It's a Chalene Johnson creation. She also did Turbofire, Turbo Jam and Chalean Extreme. PiYO has 10 workouts. PiYo also comes with a free TurboFire workout.

PiYo is promoted as a no impact workout. However, to make it no impact, you need to follow the modifier in certain sections. There are a ton of squats and lunges in this program. I think it's important to mention that just in case someone reading this has knee problems.

There are two workouts that are supposed to be more cardio based and then the rest of them seem to be about strength training and stretching. The cardio ones are Drench and Sweat. I have to say that I was not a fan of either of these during my first round, but they were much easier to get through during my mini round. She moved pretty fast during these! I really enjoyed the other workouts in the program.

I didn't lose much weight with PiYo, but I got a lot stronger. I didn't have my nutrition under control. The program comes with a nutrition plan that's very similar to the 21 Day Fix, but I just wasn't ready to put much effort into nutrition. I tried to cut out as much junk as I could, but I was way pickier back then in terms of what I would eat and I just couldn't mentally handle going all out on my nutrition while still doing the workouts. It's easy for me to workout. It's not easy for me to come up with a meal plan. If it was just me, it might be easier, but I have a husband as well.

Check out my post about My 56 Day Experience with PiYo to find out more about the individual workouts or you can read through my journal of my mini round and my full found of PiYo.

This program is doable for a beginner, but she shows you things that you can do to make it more challenging for someone who is more advanced. 

21 Day Fix

21 Day Fix is a very popular Beachbody program. It comes with an amazing nutrition program as well as a workout program. If you buy it from a coach, you get eight workouts that are 30 minutes plus a 10 minute ab routine. If you don't buy it from a coach, miss out on one of the 30 minute workouts.

You do one of the 30 minute workouts every day for 21 days. There are no rest days during the 21 days, but one of the days is Yoga, so that's pretty much an active recover day.

The nutrition program that comes with this is based on a color coded container system. There's a list of foods that are acceptable on the program. As long as the food fits in the container, you get to eat it. If you run out of containers, you just wait until the next day to eat it. I think I lost 7 pounds during this program. I could have lost more, but I had some salt issues towards the end. I can't eat salt. It really kills my weight loss.

One of the workouts is just about cardio, one is Pilates, one is Yoga and the rest incorporate weights and cardio mixed together. There is a modifier in all of the workouts. This program is doable for a beginner, but you can also go all out and make it more challenging for someone who is more advanced.

Check out my post about my 21 Day Experience with 21 Day Fix or read my journal for my first round of 21 Day Fix.  

Body Beast

Body Beast is a weight lifting program. It's geared towards men. Plenty of women do this program, but it's marketed towards men. He talks like everyone doing it is a man. Some women are bothered by this, but I didn't really care.

The program comes with 13 workouts if you buy it from a coach. You only get 12 if you don't use a coach. It also comes with a bonus P90X3 workout. There is one cardio workout with this program, and the rest are all about strength training. There are three phases in this one. The first phase has one set of workouts, the second phase has a different set of workouts and the final phase mixes the workouts from the first two phases.

I gained weight during this program. My nutrition was a mess. We had a lot of family stuff going on and I just couldn't get my nutrition under control. I ate ice cream, cake, cookies and a lot of restaurant meals. It was a rough time. I was pretty much hungry all the time doing this! I was also sore all the time. This program made me so much stronger though. I honestly don't think I could have gotten through Coach to 5K if I hadn't done Body Beast.

Check out my post about my Three Month Experience with Body Beast or read my journal for my first round of Body Beast.

Rockin' Body

Rockin' Body is a dancing workout. The format is kind of cheesy, but that's what makes it so awesome. If you think you can't do dancing workouts, it's only because you haven't tried this. Shaun T is an amazing teacher. This is all based on walking, knee lifts, front kicks and side steps. He teaches the steps in an easy to follow manner! I can't dance, but I loved this program!

This one comes with seven workouts. If you buy the upgraded package, you get two more Rockin' Body workouts and two Hip Hop Abs workouts. One of the workouts is a strength training workout, but the rest all about dancing. Shaun T described the strength training workout as deceptively hard. I didn't think there was anything deceptive about it. It was just hard! It was great though.

Check out my post about my Four Week Experience with Rockin' Body or read about my journal for my first round of Rockin' Body.