To reach your goal, you have to get out of bed.

Unlucky.

On this quest of mine to actually add some muscle to my behind, get my eating back on track and create new, healthy habits, I am reminded that you have to be specific with your goals to have the best chance of achieving them.

I have been trying to get “bikini ready” for the past six years, and I’ve probably only been successful and happy with my results once. And that was when fitness and health was all new and exciting to me; when I had a plan, and timelines and specifics all laid out.

Looking back at photos of myself now, I’d say I was “bikini ready” for several years, but being my toughest critic, I just never saw it. I’ve also discovered that for me, aiming to be “bikini ready” can be a mentally and physically draining mission to be on. For me, it’s an impossible goal, you’re constantly battling with yourself about food and portion-control, obsessing when you miss a session … and quite honestly, I’m over that shit. I’m finally in a place where I just don’t care anymore about looking like a girl from a magazine or Instagram. You’re never going to be like someone else, because you’re you. I just want to feel wholly good about myself. And I reckon I’m almost there.

In a nutshell, this journey is about me saying no to the office treats, committing to solid training sessions and trying to gain some muscle in my butt, which I’ve never really done before. This is also an experiment to see of I can get some gains whilst also still drinking beer.

Yes you read correctly – I am not cutting out alcohol.

I’ve cycled off alcohol for extensive periods of time before. And it’s a great thing to do. Especially for those of you out there wanting to make big changes to your physical health and appearance. Alcohol can be an enormous deterrent. It affects your fitness, dehydrates you, can mess with your digestion and the sugary stuff is packed with calories. Overindulging can mess up all of your hard work.

However, for me, I am at a point where life is bloody good, and I’m going to enjoy beers and a glass of wine now and then. Everything in moderation team. Say what you will about alcohol being a bad part of your diet, but I’ll also say what I will – and that is that beer is life and I will drink that shit ’til I’m dead in the grave.

My goals

What I am hoping to achieve/see at the end:

• Body fat percentage to drop from 21.5%-19% by 1st October 2017 (nothing too hectic, just a healthy goal).
• To see some growth in my butt. #youknow
• Reduce the appearance of cellulite in my legs (I know no one likes that word, but there it is .. CELLULITE).
• Improve skin appearance (hopefully these changes will stop the constant break-outs from the sugar I’ve been consuming of late).
• Mental wellbeing – I want to feel better both physically and mentally. I actually just want to finish this personal challenge of mine. I want to get to the end – that in itself is going to empower me.

How I’m going to achieve these:

• 4-5 training sessions per week
  Two of those have to be HEAVY booty/leg sessions, the other three I can rotate with strength and cardio, either at F45 or at the gym. And this week alone I’ve already done five – so that’s a bloody good start.
• Stop the unnecessary snacking all day, erryday and stick to my meal prep plans for the week
  I usually eat because I’m super tired at my day job, so to assist in staying awake, I eat. And eating is fun. But I will also stop this – already on track after this week. #winning
• Meal prep – including weekends
  Weekends is when I go crazy and just eat whatever I want, and I can’t be doing that anymore. It completely undoes all my hard work for the week and I end up having to start over the following Monday. So I am now prepping meals on the weekend and for the weekend.
• Take progress photos
  I will be taking photos every two weeks. Taking photos opens your eyes to changes you can’t always see by looking at your reflection in the mirror everyday.

This stuff isn’t ground-breaking. And before anyone passes judgement or starts lecturing me about continuing to drink beer or whatever – this is not a clean-eating, lose-a-heap-of-weight, drastic sort of challenge. It involves little changes, is pretty straightforward and totally achievable. And if you’ve actually read all the way to the end, I am enormously grateful. This post isn’t especially funny or thought-provoking, but if it gets anyone else out there a little bit motivated, I’ll be happy.

Now I’m off to enjoy a couple of Bighead beers while I watch Whittaker become the new champion. #andNEW