My name is Jill Balke, and before starting the Warrior Goddess Kettlebell Training group, I would regularly be on again, off again with different Beachbody workouts.  None of them ever really connected with me enough that I wanted to see them through to the end.  I enjoy being active, I want to be able to go out and hike in the mountains of Colorado and not have issues with breathing because of my extra weight and because I’m not strong enough.  That’s main reason I chose to try this program, besides wanting to be a healthy example for my son that I don’t see enough.

After starting the program, there was a bit of skepticism in the house about the recipes, but I wanted to eat them as is, and if no one else would eat them with me, that was just fine.  After 2 weeks, my boyfriend decided he was going to start eating on plan with me (for the most part, he’s not a fan of the smoothies).  I’m glad he did, because that makes it a lot easier in terms of food preparation.

By the end of the 5 actual weeks of program, I lost 10.8 lbs of weight, and a total of 37.7cm around my body overall.  My energy is up significantly – which I’m sure my kitten is grateful for, since I don’t grumble at her waking me up at 5:30am for breakfast now.  Except on fasting days, I don’t feel the need for naps like I used to – I can go the whole day with doing all the cooking, working, exercise, and whatever I need to for the rest of normal life, without that mid-afternoon slump feeling like I need to sleep.

I enjoyed trying recipes that I wouldn’t have considered trying in the past, as well as learning how to properly exercise with kettlebells so that I don’t hurt myself.  I’m looking forward to continuing to learn more and different moves with the kettlebells and to see how committing myself to a year of this program will change my body over that length of time after the changes I’ve been able to effect in just 5 weeks.