Why did you decide to do the F45 challenge?

For as far as I can remember, I've been overweight, unhealthy, and unhappy with many aspects of my life. Over the years, my attitude became worse and I lost the motivation to pursue a lot of things. Everything to me seemed difficult and I found myself severely lacking in discipline and ambition. While the challenge helped me get back into shape and introduced the fundamentals of healthy dieting into my life, I joined the challenge with the goal of pushing my mental boundaries. I wanted to silence the voice in my head that kept reminding me how tough a workout was or how sore I was the next day, and I can say confidently that Challenge 21 helped me to achieve that.

Were you a member of F45 before? What made you decide to join?

I was introduced to F45 by my younger sister who has always pushed me to try and live a healthier lifestyle. I was intrigued by the workout style and amazed at how much fun I was having at each session. Over time I began to appreciate F45 more as a community, the trainers would always welcome us with open arms and the other class participants slowly became part of my F45 family. The unorthodox workouts, the constantly changing schedule, and the overwhelming support of the community were reasons why I joined F45 and why I'm proud to be part of my gym.

What do you love about F45?

I love the community and the workouts at F45, but the most important aspect of it were the trainers. I was extremely appreciative of the fact that the trainers were constantly watching out for me during the challenge, they would recognize days when I would be less energetic and make the efforts to give me the advice I needed. During the workouts, the trainers would be committed to pushing me as long as I was committed to pushing myself. This, in particular, was very important in helping me break through my mental barriers and made me feel more confident moving forward knowing they were in my corner.

What did you learn from the challenge?

Patience. Through understanding the challenge structure, the way my body works, and how unhealthy my lifestyle was in the past, I realized that I had a lot of work to do, but this meant firstly being patient with myself and understanding that I'm doing this for the long-run. The challenge allowed me to see that if I truly commit myself to a goal, then over time through many individual steps, I can ultimately attain that goal. From this challenge, I can definitely say that one of the most rewarding things about my experience was that it was truly a case of mind over matter.

How did you find the meals?

The first two weeks of detox was difficult for good reason. However, I found the meals to be quite delicious and at times filling. Despite the fact that we were eating at a caloric deficit, I found myself extremely energized for the workout and found that my mornings have also been smoother. The meals were conveniently packed and certainly made it a lot easier for me to get through the challenge.

Any learnings you could give to future challengers?

Do it for the right reason: Health. People constantly ask about my body change and the fat loss as a result of this challenge, but the most important thing for me is that I feel great from a health perspective. The fact that you can shed a ridiculous amount of fat and weight in the span of a mere two months is certainly one of the most appealing factors of the F45 Challenge, but I believe that the health aspect is the true challenge. Living a healthy lifestyle is something that everyone should aspire to do, your body getting into shape is merely a byproduct of that healthy lifestyle. In hindsight I can definitely say that if my goal was merely to get a better body, I would not have lasted past week two of the challenge. To me, the most important thing about joining this challenge isn't to get a six-pack in two months, but it's whether you can live healthily and be disciplined for two months.

Why did you decide to do the F45 Challenge?

 I had already lost quite a bit of weight since joining F45 and wanted to push my fitness to the next level. The Challenge for me really wasn't about competing or the numbers on the scales but seeing if I could stick to something fitness related and what results I could get if I actually focussed and stopped making excuses. I turn 30 in July and made a pledge to myself years ago that I would be in shape by then – so the challenge was one way of helping achieve this.  

 Were you a member of F45 before? What made you decide to join?

 Yes, I joined in July last year after an indulgent 12 months of pretty much eating and drinking what I wanted and not going to the gym – turns out it was not the best of ideas! I have never really been a gym going/ sport playing sort of person but on top of that I had lost my confidence, so much so that the thought of going into a gym terrified me and I felt intimidated by the clique-ness of group classes where everyone seemed to know the routine.  A friend suggested that I might enjoy something more community based like F45 which had a variety of workouts and was suitable for all abilities – and she was right. Don't get me wrong I still struggled through my first few weeks and had to lie down on a park bench after my first class, but once I started to see results and realised I didn't hate working out as much as I thought, I knew F45 was something I could properly stick to.  

 What do you love about F45?

 It is not pretentious, there are no mirrors or people taking selfies, there is no intimidating atmosphere! The trainers are genuinely interested in your development and help teach you the correct techniques, know your limits and always encourage you to get the most out of the work outs. It is a place with such a positive environment where everyone can attend regardless of fitness level or experience and feel like they actually fit in. Joining F45, hands down, has been the best decision I have made for myself in years – it has helped change my outlook on staying active and has had such a positive impact on my wellbeing both physically and mentally.

 What did you learn from the Challenge?

 Portion control! I felt that when I tried, I had a relatively healthy diet but it soon became clear that, while healthy, I was definitely eating way more than I thought. The Challenge really helped me get this under control. Being on the Challenge and having the weigh-ins and an ultimate end goal also made me push myself much harder in classes meaning I managed to achieve better results than I thought I was capable of.

 How did you find the meals?

 There is a good variety of meals on the Challenge, and if I had more time I would have definitely cooked at home more – but honestly only eating the Challenge meals for the entire duration can be difficult and make you much more likely to quit.  For me, because there is a distinct macro split between each phase of the Challenge, I found it easy to track my food intake and make substitutes where necessary using apps like MyFitnessPal or when using other food delivery providers in Hong Kong, so I didn't become bored.

Any learning you could give to future challengers?

 1.     Make time in your schedule – I work long hours and am often in the office late, so I know that I am never going to be able to commit to making an evening class regularly. I never thought I would be a morning person, but I have found that once you commit to getting into a morning gym routine getting up becomes easier.

2.     Be realistic - 8 weeks is a long time, so unless you already eat super clean, there is no point in being too strict and cutting out every food and drink you enjoy, or you will just be miserable. I still ate out and drank at least once a week on the Challenge, but just made more sensible choices (i.e picking high protein meals, cutting the cocktails and avoiding having a kebab on the way home) – I personally found this much easier to sustain long term (and ate and drank less in the long run) than cutting completely and having regular massive blow out.  

F45'ers,

Continue sharing my experience in the "8 weeks challenge".

In the first four weeks, I was trying to achieve balance and squeeze fitness into my already hectic schedule. The remaining part, I was trying to manage the impact of hormones in addition to nutrition, exercise routine and mindset.

PMS. Yes, this is an irritable topic. But it is one of the biggest factors that can destroy your diet for women. 

Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), a natural and common psychological condition that has a mental and physical effect on women due to hormone changes in estrogen, serotonin and progesterone.

Symptoms include,

-bloating

-headaches

-moodiness

-fatigue

-weight gain

-acne

-food cravings

-insomnia

Two weeks before the challenge ends, I was going through PMS. I found myself constantly feeling tired, fatigued and craving for sugary and fatty food. My goal from the start was to improve body composition and train my mind to be disciplined again. The last two weeks was more about achieving energy balance to help me to achieve my fitness goal. I was not on a calorie defecit diet, I maintained my daily requirement calorie intake with proper nutrient to relieve the symptoms of the hormone changes and also consumed complex carbohydates to fuel my exercise performance.

Here I am after 8 weeks, I managed to drop 3% fat and gained 2% muscle mass. The advice I give to you, work with your natural energy and feelings. Eat well, rest more. You will live happily and healthily.

F45 Sai Ying Pun is celebraing its 1st year anniversary, and we want to share the event with our loyal members. To show our apprecation, we are having a special eveing for the entire F45 SYP community.

Stay tuned with details in our next email.