#FITGIRLCODE review: Kayla Itsines 12-week Bikini Body Guide

The last couple of months her name and pictures have been buzzing all over the interwebs. Her 12 week transformation pictures are jaw-dropping and with Victoria’s Secret Angel Candice Swanepoel as one of her 1.3 million Instagram followers there is no escaping the hype of this 23 year old personal trainer from Adelaide Australia. With her 12-week Bikini Body Guide she has inspired girls all over the world to get in shape and make the first step to a more healthy body and lifestyle. 

If you're up for a challenge yourself, we have great news for you: if you download a Bikini Body Guide now, you get 10 % off. You just have to enter our special code: BBTGFGC10 

(Valid until 02.28.2015)

The Bikini Body Guide is a 12-week exercise and training plan to deliver girls and women the body they have always desired. After years of experience as a personal trainer in the fitness industry Kayla noticed many girls are aspiring for a specific yet common look. Not the “bulky and muscular” look, but a lean, healthy looking body. Most girls just want to be comfortable with their body’s and look good in bikini. After lots of research she developed her own set of exercises aimed at helping women achieve a bikini body in the most efficient and effective way possible. By sharing client transformations, eating suggestions and training tips on Facebook and Instagram she has now touched the life of thousands of women. All who can follow her fitness and nutrition guidelines online, just like I am currently doing.

The exercises

The exercise part of the Bikini Body Guide consists of three separate styles of training:

• resistance training
• cardio training
• rehabilitation (stretching)

Resistance training is a circuit training session of 28 minutes. If you buy the Bikini Body Guide you will receive a 12 week manual that lists all these circuit trainings. The exercises vary per session and will get harder as the program advances. The circuit trainings will target arms, abs, legs or the full body and are very high in intensity.

Cardio training consists of LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) cardio. LISS is a low intensity exercise at which you stay at the same pace the whole session, the duration is longer than with HIIT. HIIT consists of 2 intervals, one high interval of 30 seconds and one low interval of 30 seconds where you can catch your breath for the next round. The rehabilitation sessions are a very important part of the program. Stretching plays a huge part in recovery, injury prevention and flexibility.

The program
The 12-week program is divided in three blocks of 4 weeks. After each four weeks you will up the amount of training sessions. The sessions will also get a bit more advanced. In week 1-4 you will start with 5-7 sessions a week, this will be increased to 7-9 sessions in the second period of four weeks and the last four weeks you will be training a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 11 sessions a week. Yes, that means 2 training sessions a day! This program is definitely not for pussies. You will need a basic level of cardio fitness before you start.

“Death by Kayla”
Although I was already used to working out 3-5 times a week this program still has proven to be very challenging. I have experienced “death by Kayla” multiple times after my resistance training. The circuits are short, only 4 times 7 minutes with one minute or a minute and half rest in between. In these 7 minutes you are expected to give it your all, and trust me, you will. Especially when you are a very competitive person like me and even when your only real competition is with yourself.

The food
Almost as important as the exercises are the nutritional guidelines of the Bikini Body Guide. The Guide offers some basic guidelines based on the perfect macro and micro nutrient breakdown to keep you fueled for the level of exercise. If you are not yet familiar with your energy demand (how many calories you need to maintain, lose or gain weight) and the perfect macro nutrient breakdown (carbs, protein, fat and fibers) I advise you to also purchase the H.E.L.P nutrition e-book Kayla offers on her website. This also features a full week meal plan to keep you on track.

And no, this meal plan doesn’t only consists of rice, steamed veggies and lean beef and endless amounts of canned tuna ;). You will be focussing on eating wholesome, nutrient dense foods and as little “cheats” as possible. The menu the meal plan suggests didn’t differ too much from what I was eating before I started the Bikini Body Guide. The only difference is the level of carbs which is much higher than I was used to eating and the level of protein lower. I advise everyone to follow the plan and see how your body responds.

I have the advantage that I respond very well to all kinds of food, I have no allergies, no intolerances and I’m not a vegetarian or any type of nutritional extremist. On sunday I buy all my groceries for the week, stock up in the fridge and freezer and prep some parts of my meals so I don’t have to do that in the mornings. I am currently eating more than what the guide suggests, but I am 180 cm and also incorporate some weight training every once in a while because I want to make sure I am maintaining my muscle strength and not losing it due to the high amount of cardio incorporated in the Bikini Body Guide.

Food and exercise diary
I am currently logging all my meals and exercises in the MyFitnessPal app. This gives me a perfect overview in how I am hitting daily calorie intake and macro goals. For those who are not familiar with the app it offers you the possibility to set your own fitness and food goals and will tell you in a handy breakdown how far you are off or in some cases over ;).

My progress
I am currently halfway down the program and been loving almost every second of it. Of course there are times when I hate myself (and Kayla) when my alarm goes off at 6:45 for my morning training sessions. But I have gotten a lot out of this program. Not only do I notice a difference in how my body looks, I also feel very energized and more importantly, gotten back the fun in my training sessions. I was a little bit fed up with weightlifting and am really enjoying the diversity that this program offers.

Kayla advises you to take progression pictures every week to keep motivating yourself. On a daily base you will not always see how much your body is changing, but side-by-side pictures offer a great comparison. Here are my 6 week progress shots.

Like with any lifestyle change you will run into supportive people and haters on your journey. I try my best to ignore the negativity without closing my eyes to healthy criticism and other points of view.
I hope that by sharing my experience I have provided you with some insights in the Bikini Body Guide. If you have any questions you can ask them in the comments, I will try to respond to all of them to the best of my ablity. But although I know a lot about fitness and nutrition I am not a trained professional and don’t feel comfortable to form an opinion on what is the right program for you to follow to reach your goals but I can tell you that the Bikini Body Guide is a great place to start.

In 6 more weeks I'll be sharing my total progress, so keep an eye out for that. Curious for more? Try the Bikini Body Guide!

[source: Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide]