As most of you know, I completed Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide program. I’ve gotten tons of direct messages, as well as questions embedded in comments regarding my sentiments on the guide. Do I recommend it?

In short, the answer is YES. I do. It is a wonderful guide that includes tons of new innovative fitness ideas. I can easily say that my approach towards fitness has been changed forever, because of it.

So, the million dollar question: how did my body change?

Well first,  I did take pictures along my journey, however the reason you haven’t seen these progress photos is because it is against my religion to show my bare stomach/legs. I can tell you that after completing the guide, I had more tone in my arms, abs and back than I have ever had in my entire life. The muscle tone I’m referring to is the lean, petite, defined look, as opposed to the bulky muscular look.

I truly think that when Kayla released her guides, she called them a “GUIDE” for a reason. It is simply a set of her recommendations that could be helpful in attaining a certain body type. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR OWN BODY, because it should be the primary reference and teacher in showing you whether or not something is working. So although, I recommend the guide, I do NOT recommend it as a replacement for trust in your body and your own experience.

This leads me to talk about something so many of you have questioned me about: slimming down muscular legs. A few weeks into her guide, I found that my thighs/quads were gaining more muscle than I preferred. So, I tweaked a few details, to help reshape my legs to the way I desire.

I have to say this one more time! I don’t think that Kayla’s intent for creating the guide was to provide a “foolproof” way to get the body you want; there is no ONE way that can work for every single girl in the world. Her guides are lavished with helpful guidelines and tidbits of knowledge, so please don’t doubt the validity of your own experience with another’s suggestions–not even mine!

In my journey, I discovered that I’m an ecto/mesomorph breed, which means I tend to pack on muscle like no tomorrow. I can see it, and I can feel it. This works in my favor when it comes to abs/arms and back definition. However, my legs tend to become disproportionately bulky. What do I mean by that? Well, my calves/lower half of my legs do not budge in size, whereas the upper half of my legs start bulking, and it looks a little strange to me haha.

A few blog posts ago, I gave you general tips regarding slimming bulky legs. But so many of you have been questioning me about how to incorporate these tips into Kayla’s guide. In short, the question seems to be: what types of changes did I make to ensure my leg size did not increase while I was doing Kayla’s guide? 

Now, as far as the SPECIFIC guide…

On M,W,F

• AM: I’ll do LISS in the morning (power-walking) for 45-60 minutes.
• PM: I’ll do the desginated workout from Kayla’s guide

On T, Th

• AM: I’ll do moderate intensity cardio (jogging/ellipitcal) for 30-45 minutes.
• PM: I will stretch or do vinyasa flow yoga for an hour.

Saturdays: LISS only

Sunday: Rest day

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I had to incorporate more LISS-MISS to for longer bouts of time. Why? Because the only time that there may ever a need for your body to turn to your muscles for fuel is in the late stages of extreme endurance running. When glycogen or carbohydrate stores are depleted, your body will turn to the only fuel source left — amino acid proteins in your skeletal muscles. Only then, will it turn these into glucose for fuel.

So please note that losing muscle is HARD. Our bodies do not, naturally, want to do this. So  be patient with yourself during this process.

An example of my favorite/most effective workouts that I did on Tuesdays and Thursdays is this one:  I would start by jogging at 5 mph on a treadmill. I would then increase the spped in increments of 0.3 mph every minute. So, each proceeding minute, I would jog at 5.3 mph, 5.6 mph, 5.9 mph, etc. I would continue doing this for a total of 5 minutes.

Minute 1: 5.0 mph

Minute 2: 5.3 mph

Minute 3: 5.6 mph

Minute 4: 5.9 mph

Minute 5: 6.2 mph

Once I reached 6.2 mph, I would start coming back down in 1 minute increments. So…

Minute 6: 6.2 mph

Minute 7: 5.9 mph

Minute 8: 5.6 mph

Minute 9: 5.3 mph

Minute 10: 5.0 mph

I would keep repeating this circuit for a total of 30-45 minutes.

This is ONE example of training at a moderate-high intensity. Remember, in order to train at a moderate intensity, you must determine your heart rate training zones. Working at a “low” or “mod” or “high” intensity is not defined by the specific workout you do. It’s defined by how “hard” your heart has to work to maintain the workout. I could simply be doing the elliptical for 30 minutes at a speed of 9.0 mph and this would still constitute as moderate intensity training for me, as my heart rate falls in between the moderate training zones.

I also incorporated yoga into my regimen. I cannot emphasize how much yoga helped with elongating contracted muscles! It’s counterintuitive because it’s generally a low impact/low intensity activity, and consequently, does not burn as many calories. However, it has really worked wonders for helping me stay lean and long.

Now, as far as the specific “LEG day” circuit, I made a few adjustments

1. I only did 1 round of the entire circuit! So I did Circuit 1, and Circuit 2. Each circuit is 7 minutes, so I only did 14 total minutes, and stopped. I did NOT repeat both circuits a second time around. Instead, what I did were these excercises: 
2. I replaced all weighted squats/weighted lunges. Whenever the guide instructed me to do jump squats/weighted squats, i would turn them into plie jump squats. 
3. Whenever the guide instructed me to do weighted lunges/jump lunges, I would replace them with the lunges shown in this video. Please fast forward to 5:26 to watch the move! 
4. NOTE: if you find that your legs are still remaining “bulky” even with the above-mentioned replacements, start replacing those exercises high intensity full-body plyometric movements. This way, you are incorporating more of the entire body and therefore, no longer targeting quads and hams. Some replacements you can try include:  jumping jacks, star jumps, plank jacks, skaters, tuck jumps, hurdles, leap frogs, 180 jumps etc. Here is a video of common plyometric exercises you can browse through and choose: 

In summary, the above-mentioned recommendations are what helped me return less muscular-looking legs. You know the famous saying: “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” Well, remember it and use it to your favor. If you’re not using the muscle, while eating at a deficit, you WILL start losing muscle (the time it takes each person varies, but I promise you, that it will occur). The reason I made these replacements is because I did not want to target the leg muscles. Full-body plyo movements cause power to be generated across a larger surface area, and therefore allow the entire body to become more evenly engaged. Whereas, squatting and doing lunges unevenly distribute power to target the legs. Think about it, if someone is doing lunges and squats in the “proper form”, their upper body is as close to still as possible. As mesomorph ladies trying to lose muscle, we do not want to overwork our leg muscles, causing them to hypertrophy.