Wednesday Workouts: 80 Day Obsession

A couple of weeks ago I wrapped up 80 Day Obsession by Beachbody On Demand, and I thought I'd give it a review.

So if you look back over the years of posts here on this blog, you'll see that I was a die-hard fan of The FIRM Fitness workouts. I loved them. They combined cardio and strength in a way that was perfect for me. I like strength training and I like burning calories! It was a match made in heaven.

Alas, The FIRM is no more. The instructors have moved onto another platform, but for me the workouts weren't quite the same and I lost interest. Fast forward years later and Amazon had a lightning deal on some Beachbody DVD's so I picked up P90 (without the X) and did that for 90 days with great results! Again, it was strength and cardio combined and I got really shredded with that program.

So when it was time to move on from that, I decided to spend the $99 a year to subscribe to Beachbody On Demand. It was a lot cheaper than buying DVD after DVD after DVD as I had done in the past, and it gives you access to their entire library, so I was hoping not to get bored.

On Jan 15 of this year BOD launched 80 Day Obsession with trainer Autumn Calabrese. A friend of mine was doing it too, and through WW Connect I found a bunch of other amazing women doing this program with me and together we formed the #80daytribe.

The program is broken into 3 phases of four weeks each followed by a "peak week" to wrap everything up. The workouts are themed into six categories: leg day, booty day, total body core, AAA (arms, abs and ass), cardio core and cardio flow. Each week of each phase in the strength workouts the moves stay the same, but the repetitions change. So week 1 is 2x15 (do the whole workout once w/ 15 reps, then do it a second time w/ 15 reps), week 2 is 3x10 (whole workout 3xs with 10 reps each), week 3 is also 3x10 but you do a round of 3-4 moves w/ 10 reps 3 times, before moving on to the next round, and week four is back to 2x15 doing rounds of 3-4 moves with 15 reps. In the cardio core workouts you do 3 min HIIT intervals followed by a core exercise, then at the end of a few rounds of that (4 I think) you do a final round of all the core exercises. And cardio flow became affectionately known by the tribe as the "zoo from hell". Cardio flow was the only workout that pretty much stayed the same through the 80 days. All but two of the moves were named after animals - inchworms, spider pushups, diamond jumps, flamingos, ducks, gorilla, bear, step-throughs, crabs, mule, frog... This workout would build so you would do 4 inchworms, then 4 inchworms and 4 spider pushups, then 4 inchworms, 4 spider pushups and 4 diamond jumps, and so on. Then once you got to all 10 moves you would do 4 rounds of all 10. It was intense, but I really enjoyed that one. It was one of my favorites (though most people on social media seemed to hate it).

I did not follow the nutrition plan - I followed Weight Watchers. And even when I say I "followed Weight Watchers" that was loose at best. I was tracking but I was eating my daily, weekly and earned fitpoints and then still going negative every week.

So, did I lose weight? No. Like I said, my eating was terrible. Did my body change? YES! My strength improved to the point where I had to go out and buy new weights to heavy up more. And according to my scale at home I lost about 2.5% of my body fat in 80 days even though the scale didn't really budge.

Did I like this program? Hell yes! Autumn, while I found her annoying in 21 Day Fix, I didn't mind her in these workouts. I liked some of her motivational sayings and some of them have stuck with me. I tell myself daily that I can do hard things. The cast is great too. It was great to see their transformations and to see how much they grew as well. But what I loved most was the "live" format of the workouts. I've done other programs (like The FIRM) where each workout was pre-recorded and then you do workout A on Mondays, workout B on Tuesdays, back to A on Wednesday, C on Thursday, etc. But the workouts were always the same to the extent where I could recite the trainers and call out their cues before they did. This was literally 80 different workouts and they were recorded in real time and, to my amusement at times, roughly edited. So for example Autumn would say "Last week with just the sliders was too easy so this week pick up a weight" or "Get your loops - oh wait! I forgot my loops! Hold on! (runs to the shelf on the side of the set, runs back...)" I really liked that format a LOT. And now when I go back to the old way of working out (I've been doing Core De Force the last two weeks) I find I'm getting more easily bored.

As for the required equipment in 80 Day Obsession you'll need dumbbells, resistance loops, and sliders. You can get the loops and sliders on Amazon for a lot cheaper than on Beachbody's website. And the dumbbells I've been gathering over the years as a FIRM junkie anyway. But when I did need to heavy up I got them at Dick's Sporting Goods (they were cheap and politically I liked their stance on guns. You don't have to agree with me, I'm just telling you why I shop there).

The loops - take a little getting used to. You may want to do the first few workouts without your kids around because you will be shouting profanities at those damn loops the first few times. But eventually you find a sweet spot on your thighs and they start to stay in place better. And then you hear Autumn say that if they're rolling up a lot you need a heavier resistance and you're suddenly surprised at how strong you really are. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

So those are my thoughts on 80 Day Obsession. I'll leave you with one final thought - not only did I like it, I liked it so much I'm starting it over from Day one again on June 25. Come join the tribe!