My BB Experience

From shakes to gyms to DVDs – picking and choosing workouts that are right for you can be a frustrating and downright daunting task.

And I am here to actually to tell you about my beach body experience, which is completely unbiased. I am not a coach and nor will I ever be one and I think it’s important for people to hear what non-coaches have to say.

First off, I have been quiet about not reporting my workout sessions.  And there is a reason. I actually have been reviewing and sampling different workouts, including beachbody’s ChaLEAN extreme and of course testing out Shakeology.

So I will start with Shakeology first.

Yuck. Sorry. No other way to describe the taste and texture other than yuck.  It’s too thick, and even mixing it in my Vitamix with plain water- it’s still gritty and thick.  If you are not fond of a thick shake – it’s not for you.  I gave it more than a week – tried many different combinations and I still don’t like it. And honestly, I have a strong palate. I do straight shots of wheatgrass juice and barley grass and I love them!  And there is added stuff in the shakeology, even in the Vegan flavors.  Which honestly, added sweeteners is what really kills the taste of the shake.  It’s also disappointing to see that you don’t know how much vitamins you are actually getting, and as a Vegan – I need a rough estimate, especially my B’snd D.  It also made my stomach hurt REALLY bad, which was the other factor. I didn’t do well with it all.  So much for the toting of resetting your digestion system because really, it just totally threw mine into an uproar and I never have any digestion issues at all.

Does it fill you up?  Absolutely. SO much so that I felt like puking from feeling so overly full. Who wants to move when you feel that bloated and full? Not me. Geesh.

I don’t buy into the hype of having a million pounds of protein a day either. I will just pass this along. Careful. Too much of anything – protein included can and will do damage, if not short term – long term.

The workout itself
I don’t know where to begin, really. Let’s see. a $90 overhyped workout in my opinion. You know where you can get the same workouts from for $5.00 a DVD? Bob Harper. You can buy Jilian workouts cheap too, especially new on eBay. You can also go free and make your own circuit workouts up by simply browsing around online. There’s a million other DVD workouts you can buy for under 10.00 a piece, that work just as well.
Am I saying they don’t work? No. But be for real. ANY workout works – if you ACTUALLY workout. You should NEVER have to spend a dime working out. You can run. Walk. Throw punches. Kicks. High Knees. Jog in place. Jump Rope. Jumping Jacks. All forms of awesome heart pounding cardio. I could list even more, but you get the point.  Use your own body weight to workout. Want more weight and resistance? Grab can goods. Gallon jugs and fill them up. Bottles. etc etc. Dance around your house 20-30 minutes a shot – you’d be amazed at how many calories you burn off your body, seriously! Do you have a gaming system like a Wii or PS2? Go to Game Stop and buy used workout games. I was there yesterday and found plenty of workout games – cheap. No equipment required on some of them. Just you.

And coaches. No offense. Don’t be so pushy. And don’t be nice to people to just get their order and that’s it. Because really, you ruin the entire experience when you lead people into thinking you are going to be there every step of the way and you are not – because that is worse than being honest and saying you do it for the money.

All in all – if you are looking for a good workout to build muscle – and fix up your upper body, this is a good workout. But there are other workouts that are just as good that are not getting the attention they deserve.

Be wise when it comes to spending money on workouts and shakes that promise you the world.  Do you get your money back in 30 days? YES. They are good about that and beachbody does have excellent customer service and were quick to ship my replacement disc that came damaged as well.  they are outrageous on shipping though unless you do that monthly thing.  $18.00 to ship my box to the next state over was a bit extreme.

  Am I sending the entire thing back? No but I am returning that god awful shakeology back 🙂

Remember you don’t have to spend a fortune to get good, honest results. You just have to do the work.