Winter Shape Up Recap + finale giveaway
Hi friends! It’s about that time: we have 2 full days left of Winter Shape Up! Make sure to end it with a BANG, mmm k?
Before I share some of my thoughts on this year’s WSU, I want to announce the winner of the BodyMedia fit giveaway! I got over 200 entries -and am in the process of writing back to all of them- and in addition to being fun reads, they were so heartfelt and motivational. I especially loved your personal fitness stories and funny pictures- some had me cracking up, and others made me look for the ninja cutting onions in here.
I loved putting the program together, and you’re the ones who rocked it out 🙂
Congratulations to China, who will be getting a Bodymedia Fit to track her progress and goals from now on.
Here’s what she sent in:
I’ve been reading your blog for a few years now (discovered it in 2010, and quickly went through and read all the archives), but this is the first year I’ve participated in a shape-up (or any of your workouts, really). I have some autoimmune health issues and exercise-induced asthma, which can make it pretty challenging for me to exercise at times. I got used to feeling slow, heavy and sick, and over time, I convinced myself that I didn’t have the strength and stamina for “hard” workouts. Even though I’m a health enthusiast, I thought that I had extreme limitations. I thought my future was to be sick, overweight and strolling on the treadmill for the rest of my life.
However, I’m really trying to bring about positive change in 2013, so this year I decided to go for it. When you announced the WSU, I told myself to just try it and see what happened. To my surprise, I’ve been able to keep up (even though I had to take an extra day off in week 3 to recover from illness) and I’m showing definite signs of improvement. My weight hasn’t really changed, but I’ve gone down to the last notch on my belt, my abs look flatter, and lunges don’t hurt quite as much as they used to. Overall, I’m feeling a lot better. There’s even been a totally unexpected benefit: my skin looks clearer and more glowy than ever. I think it’s because of all the hardcore sweating!
So, thank you, Gina. Not only for creating this amazing plan, but for giving me the confidence to try it and prove to myself that I’m far more capable than I ever thought. I can’t wait to see what week 4 brings! 🙂
She also sent in a pic from each week of the challenge:
Congrats, China! Send me an email and we’ll get your prize on the way <3
HUGE thanks again to all of the companies who participated in the giveaways:
and thank you so very much to mah girl and trainer inspiration Lacey Stone for hooking us up with a killer week 3 workout. Be sure to check out her app on iTunes if you’d like to see more from her- she’ll make your muscles cry tears of happiness and sadness.
Some WSU thoughts:
-Your comments/tweets and Instragram pics were by far my favorite part of the challenge. I always love to see what you’re up to- please keep checking in even after the Shape Up is over! It will be a good habit when Summer Shape Up comes around and I’m just not ready for #eatlikeaPRO to die, mmm k? 😉
-I LOVED the giveaways. It was so much fun to post them for extra boosts of motivation and is definitely something I’ll plan for next time. Summer Shape Up will coincide with my 5 year blogiversay, so the giveaways will be pretty legendary. Buckle up!
-It’s always tricky for me to find the best method to post the workouts. Video, printable image, text image, form cues…it’s a lot of info to deliver in a concise and organized manner. I just wish we could all rent out a gym in cyberspace and work out each morning. They would have childcare and time would freeze for an hour while we got in our sweat session. Sound good? If you have any preferences or ideas for next time, I’d love to hear them!
[Yay or nay?]
-All in all, I think this WSU was a huge success because you all worked so hard, cheered each other along the way, and made WSU so amazing <3 It was an honor to watch and shake my pom-pons (and my bom-bom) from the sidelines. Keep up everything you’ve done and remember than a ball in motion stays in motion. You’ve already completed the most challenging part by getting started, so just keep going. I’ll keep the workouts, meal ideas and recipes going, too.
For our last giveaway, Champion generously offered 25 of their Show Off Bras:
Beautiful spring colors, with a comfy and supportive design.
25 lucky readers will each get a Show Off Bra in a size of their choice. I think we all know that an awesome sports bra can make or break a workout. I still cringe thinking about that one time (only time) I tried to run in underwire.
Here’s how to enter:
-Leave a comment with some Winter Shape Up feedback so I can make it even better next time around! What did you like/dislike? Any ideas or changes you’d like to see? If you didn’t follow along, what was your reason?
-Follow me on Pinterest for an extra entry – leave an extra comment to let me know
-Have a friend enter for you. If that entry is one of the random winners, you’ll both be included in the 25 prizes
I’m closing the computer for study time, so if your comment doesn’t show up right away, I’ll approve any first-time comments in the morning!
I hope you loved WSU as much as I did <3
xoxo
Gina
534 Comments
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I loved the pictures + descriptions of the moves. I’m a newbie to anything besides cardio, so it was super helpful!
I thought the videos of the moves were very helpful – it’s like having a personal trainer to show you the right way to do everything. Thanks for all the effort you put in!
I recently came across your blog site in January of this year. What an amazing site! I never did do the WSU just yet but I plan on trying within the next week. I was going to start this week but now being a mother of two has many new balancing acts. And strange how I am still the last priority, especially when it comes to working out. I have a 2 1/2 year old girl and a 6 month old boy who is finally sleeping and eating better (I too share in the breastfeeding frustrations) therefore I now have more energy to take my workouts to the next level. I am so happy I came across this site, your workout plans are exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you and I look forward to getting started!
Thanks so much for the generous giveaway! What I’d like to see more of is videos of you doing the workouts. It really helps me to follow someone doing a routine and it motivates me TONS. If you can do it, that means I can do it. 😀 thanks for being such an inspiration!
I think your videos are the most helpful, but the photo-graphics might be the most useful because most people can’t play a video while at the gym!
I love that you care so much about your participants and post their sweaty faces/meals/responses on the blog! Your nutrition advice is really realistic and you have great meal plans too 🙂 It made me really want to participate next time, or to do the WSU workouts on my own. I didn’t follow along because I don’t have access to free weights- I use my small grad school gym, which doesn’t have weights for some crazy reason! But your posts did help motivate me to get to more Bootcamp and Zumba classes in the last month! 🙂
Hi Gina!
I started following late because I was finishing up another program (Jamie Eason’s 12 week program). I just want to say that I think you are AMAZING for all the work you put into these! I found the videos and pictures helpful and the workouts to being really challenging. I like the circuit- style so much better than weight lifting (the Jamie Eason program was pretty much all weights for strength training) and feel it gives better results and is a more efficient use of time. I love that you strive to individualize things for people who may need modifications and that you encourage questions and feedback. I did try to print a weekly workout unsuccessfully, so it might be nice to have that option.
Thank you so much for all you do! 🙂
I also started following you on Pinterest! That site is the bane of my college career! So addictive…
I loved WSU! I don’t have any criticism, but just to say that I really appreciated when there was just the text of the work out. It’s easier to look at that, rather than pictures, when you’re in the middle of the work out. Thanks!
i follow you on pinterest!
I love WSU and SSU. The workouts are wonderful! My only feedback would be to sometime list the workouts separately in a jpeg, so I can drag the workouts onto my desktop and print them to bring to the gym. 🙂
For me it was kind of confusing knowing where the workouts were located. Maybe adding the workouts to the bottom of your daily blog post (or the night before).
I also follow you on pinterest!
I love all of your shape up challenges because you give such great form cues and examples of moves that I may not have been familiar with before. The videos help me the most!
And I also follow you on Pinterest
I really like how the workout plan forces me to vary my routine. I tend to pick cardio which I feel is easiest for me, which doesn’t always translate into the most effective workout. The pictures and the video demonstration definitely helped. I am a visual learner and need to see what things look like. Reading the descriptions always make it seem more complicated. As the saying goes a picture is worth a 1000 words.
Thanks
This was a lot of fun, thank you! I actually liked the way you provided meals in a weekly format with shopping list in the last summer shape up better. But the workout stuff for this one was perfect.
I really liked this shape up and I thought it was so cool you had prizes and showed off some readers (like today). Both very inspiring! I tried all the workouts except WO #3, but I’ll get to it sooner or later -bookmarked for sure. I would love if for the weekly plans you gave a suggestions for those of us who just can’t workout 5 days a week. Like, if you can only do three days, do the workout with HIIT two days and a long and steady a third day or something. Also, I think it would be nice to have the current format for the workouts (with the jpegs) but also be able to click over to just a list of the exercises, since that’s all I’d really need to bring to the gym. I may be in the minority, but I never watch the workout videos. I’m sure they are great, but since I do most of my workouts at the gym, it just doesn’t work easily for me. So, that’s the feedback, but really, I love that you do this, so please keep it up however you decide to do it!
I also follow you on pinterest 🙂
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now..love the workout ideas. I like the idea of a text version as a printable option, but the picture one for the actual blog post that day. I personally liked it when you added the plank challenge ab burner video, as I could do this one along with you from home as extra boost of motivation!! I would love to see more randomly added videos similar to that one 🙂 The meal ideas were easy to get to those previous posts and made it easy to find. sometimes it was difficult to find the workout page when I would go back to it if I was making up a workout. You did a great shape up challenge– really enjoyed it!
I’m following on Pinterest! Those bra’s look awesome, I love the pink!
I follow you on pinterest!
I love the pictures/ explanation format from your workouts. It makes it easy to follow. I also liked the videos for moves I wasn’t familiar with.
I already follow you on Pinterest!
I am currently marathon training so I missed out! I can’t wait to try some of your strength moves though 🙂
I simply love and appreciate what you do, people spend hundreds of dollars and it is amazing to have someone who loves what she does and wants to share it with the world!
One suggestion it might be a website suggestion but cld you put the previous posts on the bottom of the page so I cld access the info quickly especially when i have been a couple days behind.
thanks again
Amy
Thank you for this (free!!) plan – the hard work you put in to the planning really is so great for all of us! Loved this series, one of the best yet!
I genuinely loved everything about this WSU! I cant compare it to any of your past Shape Ups because this is the first one that I participated in but I can say that I cannot wait for the Summer Shape Up!! Your workout schedule was so well balanced and challenging yet doable! I thought that each week’s workout was very well explained and easy to follow! I definitely loved the video demos and printables! It was nice to watch the video before I went to the gym and then have the printables to bring with. All in all I thought that this was fabulous and I just might repeat it since I totally slacked off on week 3!
I like the way you post workouts. Videos are good too but sometimes the internet is slow in my room so it’s frustrating when youtube takes a while to load. Thanks for doing WSU Gina!
Sorry if you’ve already been asking this 100 times, but where did you get that black swimsuit? Love it!
Follow on pinterest 🙂
I love that you do this for free, so thank you! Having a new weights workout each week was something to look forward to, since I all too often get bored.
I just found your blog a few months ago and I didn’t participate because I’m already following a schedule and trying to finish that program before I graduate, but I was so tempted to and hope to join in this summer! The workouts looked great and I thought the combination of videos, text, and printables was ideal so I could see the correct technique through the videos and still bring reminders.
I loved seeing new moves that I haven’t used before or ones that I forgot about. Plus the eats, ahhhmazballs! Thanks for being awesome!!
I just found out about this blog! I will definitely be following on from now on! I’m trying to lose weight and get healthy!
I really liked the way the work out plans were laid out with the images. I thought it was easy to follow along. I would love to see more short videos like the warm up and ab burners. I loved being able to go through a workout and then follow along with a video after to get a great work out. Thanks for doing the shape ups!
also following on pinterest – stefaniegladden
One thing that could make it better is to add some music recs for us to download and listen to while working out!
I follow you on Pinterest:)
I love all the visuals for each exercise. Your pics and videos rock. Thanks for helping me work towards my fitness goals!
Love the workouts! I am good with just listing the tasks. Thank you for doing this workout! I will be repeating this week starting with week 1.
I already follow you on Pinterest 🙂
I really love that the workouts are relatively quick and very to the point! You know how to get those muscles burning fast! 🙂
I did not do the WSU because I attend a studio with intense classes. However, whenever I can’t make a class at my studio due to timing or a sick kiddo, I use many of your workouts to workout at home. I think you do an amazing job and it is clear how much time and work you put into your posts. So, thank you!!
i loved the videos and pictures! im totally a visual learner, so seeing someone do the workout (rather than just reading it written out) was very helpful!
I started following late and have been having some lower back issues but I saved all of your workouts and plan to do when I am feeling better! I like the format where you have several pix of you in one picture (if that makes sense.) I think that seems easy to follow from my iphone.
I also follow you on Pinterest!
I would love to see printable versions of the workouts and recipies. It’s so hard to look aty phone while working out. It would be great to have a piece of paper to look at.
I also followed you on pinterest!
I LOVE these workouts because there is so much variety and you do a great job at explaining each one! It is so inspirational.
Love your efforts!