I completed my very last Best Body Bootcamp Round 5 workout on Saturday.  I felt…a sense of accomplishment and pride.  I followed the plan and worked my butt off (often outside my comfort zone) for eight whole weeks.  I didn’t quit – through our move, weekend visitors, busy work weeks, etc. – I kept going.  Woo hoo!

The last and final phase of the bootcamp focused on timed workouts (think tabatas).  While I love tabatas, this wasn’t my favorite phase.  And that’s not because the workouts weren’t tough or anything even remotely close to that.  I think my love for true strength training workouts (with weights) has fully blossomed.  And now, nothing else will do!  But the variety, change of pace, and new moves were more than welcome. 

I don’t have any quantitative results to share with y’all.  I didn’t weigh myself during the eight weeks, and I didn’t take any measurements.  Instead, I tuned into my strength and endurance capacity and focused on the way my clothes fit.  With that in mind, I’m happy to report that my weights have increased (I use 12 pound dumbbells for some exercises), I can run farther and faster than ever before, and my clothes are a little bit looser.  Oh and knee pain seems to be a thing of the past (knock on wood!).  Success!

There is one thing I want to talk about that didn’t go so well for me, and it’s not really related to the bootcamp.  Over the past 2-3 weeks, my eating habits have been less than stellar.  It’s not that I ate junk food for every meal, but I did eat more than my fair share of dark chocolate.  And cheese (in some form) found it’s way into most of my lunches and dinners.  Eating out has also been a regular thing for the past 2.5 weeks (last week alone I ate out like 10 times!!), and with that, the wine was also flowing. 

Some of the above is work related, some of it is because I’ve had friends in town, and some of it is because we’re not 100% settled yet and won’t be until Vishnu is done with his boards.  That’s just life.  And don’t get me wrong.  I’m super proud of myself for completing the bootcamp and accomplishing what I did.  However, I feel like over the past 2.5 weeks, I tried to out exercise a bad diet.  FYI…not a good plan.

Now you’re probably wondering how I know this when I didn’t weigh myself or take any measurements.  Well, I don’t.  All I know is how I feel.  And I feel as though I could’ve done a better job with my food choices.  That’s all.  But I’m not going to beat myself up over it.  I truly did enjoy some of the meals I’ve had over the past few weeks.  And at the end of the day, each and every one was enjoyed with people I care about.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s no big deal.  But I do want to clean up some of my poor eating habits moving forward.   

So here’s what I think.  For the next round of bootcamp, I’m going to focus on the “food as fuel” concept along with the 80/20 rule.  Also, I need to go back to my roots and plan ahead, especially when I know eating out is on the agenda.  

Overall, the past eight weeks were incredible…life changing even.  I learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of.  And I can’t wait for the summer round to begin!  Are you going to join?!