Physique 57 Challenge: The Results

I did it! I made it through four full weeks of nothing but Physique 57 workout DVDs. If you missed the original post that described the workout method and the challenge details, you can find it here.

In a nutshell: A month ago, I challenged myself to replace all my usual workout DVDs with only Physique 57 workout DVDs for four full weeks. I performed the P57 routines four times a week and did light cardio and/or yoga on the fifth day, giving myself the weekend to recover. I changed nothing about my diet.

I may live to regret this, but before I lose my nerve…drum roll please: the “before and after” photos.

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And the results: one pound and four inches lost.

That’s really not enough difference to be visible—any difference you see between the photos is visual trickery/smoke-and-mirrors on my part, as far as I’m concerned. The lighting is different from one picture to the other and I’m posed differently in the after photo (differently meaning at a more flattering angle!).

This is not meant to neglect the fact that I kind of feel like a rockstar for getting through this, however. The P57 DVDs are really excellent and probably a few of the most challenging routines on the market right now. I mean, I have to give this challenge a little credit for bestowing these pythons upon me:

…If you’ll forgive the bad pictures, that is—it is really hard to take good-quality self-portraits in the mirror while trying to avoid using flash like the plague.

It’s not like I was horribly out of shape before doing this challenge, but I do notice some difference in my strength after following the P57 method for four weeks. I perform all push-ups with straight legs now; I’m able to eke out all the reps of all the moves required in each routine and occasionally do the advanced version of whatever-it-is; my core feels so rock-solid that I feel like I could probably poop out a kidney if I tried hard enough.

But it never got easy. No ma’am.

All the ab work is especially odious, given that much of it is performed lying down with legs straight up in the air. And this after you’ve more or less lit your quads on fire with all the leg and butt work. You’ll see results from this method whether you want to or not, though. I did a short yoga routine yesterday to stretch out all this work I’ve been doing and was delighted to find that I no longer shook when holding boat pose (see photo below). Rock-solid core, I’m telling you.

(Image source)

In terms of these workouts aiding in weight loss, I already stated that I wasn’t out to lose weight when I started the challenge, and would in fact not change my diet so as to isolate any results as due to the DVDs themselves. In that regard, I guess it’s pretty impressive that I got positive results with no effort outside of the workout routine. In fact, thinking back on the generous quantities of food I ate during these four weeks, both healthy and otherwise, I’m even more impressed!

For what it’s worth, however, if you’d have asked me last week whether or not I’d lost weight, I would have said yes—3 pounds (as opposed to the 1 pound I reported above). I checked in with the scale each Saturday during the challenge. The difference between last week’s weigh-in and this week’s just goes to show that a few pounds of fluctuation is par for the course, whether or not you’re engaged in battle with a new set of workout DVDs!

The battle was nonetheless well worth “fighting,” if you want to call it that. I really fell in love with the Physique 57 DVDs this month and can’t recommend them highly enough. Despite all the repetition, I was never bored and even looked forward to popping in those DVDs each morning. The moves are challenging and the burn is intense, but there’s nothing like the feeling of completing the routines and coming out on top. I’ll be doing these workouts for years to come, knowing they’ve made me stronger in every sense of the word.