It’s been just over two years since I first started using Kayla Itsines’ bikini body guide, which is quite a long time! If you want to follow my Kayla journey from the start then I recommend reading these other blog posts, including an earlier BBG review, an interview with Kayla and a look at the second guide. In this BBG review I’m going to talk more about how I feel about it two years on and how it changed me.
Kayla Itsines Interview & Meal Plan
To start with I can definitely say that I’m not one of the girls who have continued doing the guide over and over again religiously. Kudos to them for sticking it out for that long, but personally I’d have gone crazy doing the same fitness guide on repeat, plus my mind AND muscles would have got bored. Our bodies need to be surprised, challenged and listened to, so doing it all over again would not have worked for me.
I did the full 12 weeks of BBG1 and even though I don’t have wonderfully transformational photos to share with you, I can definitely say that I enjoyed having a plan to stick to. I found Kayla’s BBG guide easy to follow and enjoyed trying a few new exercises I’d never done before. As I mentioned in my other posts I never followed Kayla’s eating guide, as I felt I had a good grasp on my diet; it’s balanced, nourishing and yummy. Plus I wasn’t trying to lose lots of weight or gain lots of muscle, so keeping my diet as it was worked for me. You can read about what I ate here.
I did start doing BBG2 as soon as it came out and after completing BBG1, but if I’m honest I just never had the staying power with it. I think life got a little crazy so I was getting my workouts done by going to classes etc, rather than doing the guide at home or in the gym. Plus yoga became and even bigger part of my life, so I was using precious time to explore that.
So how has Kayla Itsines and her bikini body guide changed my fitness life?
Even though I don’t follow the guide now, there are definitely ways in which I still reference Kayla’s guide in my workouts. The format still really works for me, so if I’m in the gym and only have 30 mins to spare, I’ll do 4 rounds of 7-minute workouts, in the same way, but I now just use my own exercises depending on what I want to work that day and how much I want to sweat!
Obviously I still do a few exercises I learned from the BBG guides, toe taps will always be high up there on my list of favourite core burners! It’s actually quite cool to see that I now do toe taps with an 8-10kg weight and when I first started I was doing them with about 3kg. That’s the nice thing about BBG2 actually, the progress workouts, so you can see how much fitter/stronger you’ve got over the weeks. I also love a good X-jump!
I’ve matured a lot with my fitness, so it’s now much less about trying to see a change it my body. I workout because I really enjoy it and I love looking after my body. We’ve only got one, so we might as well be kind to it! Despite all the hate and negativity out there about Kayla Itsines bikini body guides, I do still think it’s a great guide for lots of people. Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all rule in fitness, so it won’t be for everyone, but I liked it. And from another person’s point of view I know my sister really liked it because it meant she could work out at home, build her confidence until she was ready to set foot in the gym. Do you remember the first time you went to the gym alone? Pretty horrible right?! So I think it’s great that there are guides like this that we can do in the comfort of our own living room and garden.
I have also seen people saying in some BBG review that the guides are really expensive, but I think it depends what you want out of it. If you want to feel confident, fit and strong, and part of a community then is £40 or so really that much to pay? I guess that’s very much a personal opinion and no one can tell you that you should or shouldn’t spend the money. We’re all different and certain guides will work for some and not for others, but we won’t know until we try.
Hopefully you’ve found this BBG review helpful. You can check out the guides here. Kayla also now has an app, which I can’t comment on, as I haven’t used it, but I have heard good things. If you have any questions, just comment below.
Love, Cat x