I found out about the 80-Day Obsession on Instagram. When I was half marathon training there was a lady on IG who was running in the same race and I started following her on IG. A couple years later I noticed that she was doing this thing called 80-Day Obsession. She posted her results and other people’s results on her profile and in her InstaStories and it seemed pretty cool.
I’m a runner, but I don’t like to left weights at the gym so I do a lot of cardio, but I don’t really work on strength training or toning my muscles. With my mom’s care needs increasing as her Alzheimer’s becomes more advanced, I don’t really have time to go to the gym (I know, right?!?) so I thought, I could try this 80-Day thing.
I Googled it and found out it was part of the BeachBody program. BeachBody, as it turns out, is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company and the lady I followed on IG was a “fitness coach” who signed up people underneath her in her “downline” as fitness coaches. Then she trains them how she did it, etc. Then when those people she signed up order BeachBody products or sign up people underneath them, in regular MLM fashion, she gets money going upline.
I am not an MLM person and not really a sales person at all, so I didn’t want to necessarily be a fitness coach, I just wanted to try 80-Day Obsession on my own.
Thankfully, BeachBody allows regular folks like me to pay for the service without having a “coach”, so that’s what I did. No MLM and no upline. I installed the app on my Amazon Fire and I started with A Little Obsessed, a pre-workout series to the 80-Day Obsession, because this thing is no joke.
I did A little Obsessed for three weeks in a row and I was sore and excited! Even though it was a more condensed version of some of the 80-Day Obsession moves and workout format, it kicked my butt. I hadn’t lifted weights in years and I’ve really done nothing but run, swim and go to yoga classes. I cannot tell you how much my arm and my legs and my butt hurt. But I could see the change in the first week.
I bought the colored food containers (I call them “food cubes”) and the sliders and loops for the work outs.
The one thing I had trouble with though was understanding the food cubes, so I went online and looked for recipes. I found this website called Lipstick and Lunges and Lauren was so nice. I emailed her and told her I was just trying out 80-Day Obsession and she emailed back and was really nice and helpful even though I wasn’t in her downline. She went through shopping and how she planned meals for the 80-Day Obsession. So after a few emails, I got her info and changed my BeachBody status to be in her downline. I figured, I won’t spend a lot of money on supplements (I can’t do Shakeology because I have Celiac Disease), but at the very least she could benefit from whatever BeachBody money I spent.
So now on to my experience with the 80-Day Obsession.
I started with A Little Obsessed on May 14, 2018 and I did it for three weeks. I didn’t know much about tracking my progress so regretfully, I didn’t take any before pictures. I do know that I weighed 137 pounds when I started.
Then when Autumn Calabrese started her Good Morning America group on June 4, 2018, I started the 80-Day Obsession, too. I had weights by this time, the sliders and the loops and I’d been eating the food cubes for a couple weeks.
Here is my set of before and after pictures. I’m actually really proud of this and of what I accomplished. I’m turning 50 years old in December, my mom is really ill with Alzheimer’s and I spend more and more time with her, and I traveled a bunch this summer while I did this, but I managed to finish it. It took me four months instead of three, because of the travel, but I did it.
You can see in the photos that my butt looks better, I have definition in my arms (which is pretty amazing), I slimmed out in my waist and what really got me was the lines on my back got so much smaller.
But more important than how I looked was how it made me feel. I feel stronger, I knew I could start something like this and finish it, but I didn’t know that I would really love how hard it was or the sense of accomplishment I had every day. There were moves that made me scream and moves that made me cry. With just my dog for company, I pushed myself through this. It was seeing the results in the mirror and the feeling of knowing I was doing something great for myself that kept me going.
I’m under a lot of pressure with my mom and I took time six days a week to do something good for me. I didn’t let anyone take that away from me. If I had an appointment, I worked out early, if my appointment was too early, I worked out in the afternoon. I work from home so I was very lucky that way, I can set my own schedule.
And on the cardio days (Cardio Flow and Cardio Core), I would work out with the 80-Day Obsession AND go out running. It may seem like a lot, but my regular running pace was about 11:30 a mile and within just a few weeks of doing the 80-Day Obsession my pace averaged 10:15 per mile! I had more energy and my legs felt so strong.
I started the 80-Day Obsession at 133 pounds and 171 total inches. Amazingly, I ended at 124 pounds AND I lost 2 1/2 inches around my chest, 3 3/4 inches around my waist and 2 1/2 inches around my hips. I also toned up my arms and legs.
I didn’t eat the food cube plan perfectly. During Phase 2 I traveled and just couldn’t do the workouts when I was gone, so rather than beat myself up for it, I would just start a week over. So for example, I went to visit my dad. I started Phase 2 Week 2 on Monday and did a couple days of workouts, went to see my dad on Wednesday and when I got back that weekend, I started Phase 2 Week 2 again the next Monday. I think I did Phase 2 Weeks 2 and 3 for about four weeks altogether, repeating days as needed so I didn’t miss anything, but I could also travel without stress.
I was also pretty starving sometimes so I ate more than the food cubes called for.
I finished the 80-Day Obsession on Saturday, September 29, 2018.
This program is amazing. Even though she’s on the TV during the workouts, Autumn is so motivational. I was never bored and I was always challenged. I was sore, but never exhausted. I yelled out loud at the TV some days and some days I laughed, and on the last day I sobbed.
It was a hell of an experience and I highly recommend it. And Lauren has been great. I’ve emailed her my progress and she always emails back with motivation.
Here’s one last set of photos of my progress from beginning to end through each phase. I’d love to hear from you and what you think or what your experience was.
