What a great way to finish 2016! I hit my Extreme Transformation weight goal earlier this month and lost 20 pounds. Along with those 20 pounds, I also lost 23 inches. In total, it took me a little longer than four months to reach my goal, which came out to be seven 21-day phases. If you read my first Extreme Transformation: Phase I blog post, then you know that those 20 pounds didn’t happen overnight. They slowly crept up over two and a half years during two separate house renovations, multiple vacations, two career changes, some more vacations… wait, did I say vacations? Regardless of how it happened, I know now that those were just excuses. During these past five months I’ve had (surprise, surprise) a couple vacations, work trips, and the second part of our house renovation. And yet, I was still able to lose the weight, so really why did I gain it in the first place? Before I answer that I will share photos from each month of my journey. Please excuse the mess in the photos – most of these photos were taken during the second part of our home renovation and I was traveling a lot for work. It’s so funny because you can actually see how our house changed in the second half of the photos!

– First Month: August 2016 – Lost 9 pounds and 11.25 inches –

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”151″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]Transformation pictures are awkward, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. You stand there in front of the camera, as long as you’re lucky enough to have someone take the photo for you, or even worse you stand there in front of a mirror and take the photo yourself. I actually never thought that I would ever share my transformation photos. Their only purpose was for me to see my progress. I had a pretty good system. I would send them to a photo stream that only I have access to and it allowed me to look back at photos from the previous weeks to see if I really was making a difference. I’m so glad that I took these photos because you often times forget. I would see the scale dropping or read my measurements that I recorded, but I really didn’t feel that different when looking in the mirror. I will say that it makes such a difference if you have someone take the photos for you. I’m realizing now that my earlier photos that I took of myself in a mirror have a weird angle. Plus I never knew where to look!

– Second Month: September 2016 – Lost 2 pounds and 2.77 inches –

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”152″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]It is true what they say about how your clothes feel. I started to notice after the first phase that my clothes were fitting more like they used to. Now I’m noticing that some of the clothes that I purchased within the past year or so are actually too big. It’s a double edge sword because you get the thrill of buying something new and maybe it’s something that you never thought that you’d ever be able to wear, but the items that you love just don’t fit you right anymore. Either way, I love how healthy my body feels. My stomach doesn’t hurt like it used to after eating huge lunches and I have so much more energy to do the things that I love! Before I had zero energy and could barely keep my eyes open to watch TV, but yet I wouldn’t be tired enough to actually fall asleep. Now I’m on a much more regular sleeping schedule and I can actually wake up anytime between 4:30am – 6am for morning workouts and maybe throw in an evening cycle or yoga class too!

– Third Month: October 2016 – Lost 4.8 pounds and 5.5 inches –

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”153″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]Looking back, I noticed that I wasn’t super consistent in losing weight. The first month I lost almost half of my goal! It was so inspiring and really motivated to keep going. I think this is because I was so bloated and so far from my normal weight that it was melting right off in the beginning. In the second month, I barely lost any weight or inches. I definitely hit a plateau. The weird thing is that I had one work trip this month. In October, I traveled to a bachelorette party and had two weeks of traveling for work, and I still lost over double the amount of pounds and inches than I did the previous month. Something that I read in the book Extreme Transformation by Chris Powell and Heidi Powell is that sometimes you need a little break to reset. That is why they believe in having clean cheat days. For me, I think the bachelorette party weekend was my reset. For the two weeks of work travel, I made sure to plan ahead for my meals, which always help me immensely to stay on track. Also, I noticed that I had more weight check-ins during the month of October than September. Knowing that I would have to weigh-in and take measurements probably pushed me each week to work harder. 

– Fourth Month: November 2016 – Lost 3.2 pounds and 3.5 inches –

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”154″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]Something that I strongly believe in is creating your health and fitness change(s) to fit within your lifestyle. I mentioned that I traveled during these past five months. Well, one of my trips fell during the end of my lo-carb cycle, which was a day before my weigh-in. I had worked so hard that week and knew that my weigh-in results would help me to stay motivated the following week, so I decided to bring my scale with me! Aaron laughed at me for doing that, but it was what I needed to stay on track with my goals. You’ll notice that some of the photos are in a cabin, which is where we were that weekend with our family. 🙂 

– Fifth Month: December 2016 – Lost 1.1 pounds and .25 inches –

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”155″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”600″ gallery_height=”400″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”1″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show thumbnails]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]Going back to my original question of why did I gain the weight in the first place if nothing in my life was really that different than it was these past five months? I believe that the change happened within me and my mindset. You’ll always have things going on in your personal life, whether it’s something happy and exciting like vacations, weddings, a new family member, or something not as fun and maybe more emotional, like living in your home as you’re renovating it, going through a break-up, or God forbid health issues with you or a loved one. I hope no one has to experience the later. Often times, you might have stress from work or lack of work, which is usually centered around finances. Finding a healthy hobby can help to build excitement during those happy times in your life, and it can bring hope during those not so happy times in your life. Also, there are ways to do it on the cheap. Actually, you’ll probably save money from not eating out so much and you can exercise using your body weight and using the outdoors as your gym.

Another reason that goes along with mindset as to why I gained the weight in the first place is due to the fact that I told myself or believed that starting healthy habits is so hard. It was challenging that first month of never cooking ever, to cooking and preparing five meals a day! But, once I got into a routine and learned what recipes I liked, didn’t like and what I needed to prepare a week of meals, it became much easier! The workouts didn’t scare me. I was working out regularly prior to this transformation, but since I wasn’t eating properly for my body the workouts weren’t doing much of anything for me. I did introduce a few new workouts into my routine, which are BODI, Barre3 (both found on ClassPass), and CorePower Yoga (check out my referral codes below!) These helped me to stay interested in workout and looking forward to what was to come!

Thank you so much for reading about my health journey. I really appreciate all of the love and support that I’ve received these past five months and most importantly I’ve loved hearing from friends who are looking to start their own journey. I hope that some of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned along the way will make it that much easier for you to start too. 


Quick Details 

BODI – Click here, select $35 Trial Week, and use the code ‘THEFOXYKAT’ at checkout to get it for free!

ClassPass – Sign up for your first month and get $30 off with my referral code here!

CorePower Yoga – Sign up for Founding Black Tag Membership here


Quick Stats – Phase VII

I reached my goal during the first week of phase 7 on 12/10/16!

2.2 pounds lost (20.1 total pounds lost since day 1)

.5 inches lost (23 total inches lost since day 1)

NEW GOAL – To lose 4% in body fat and to have flat, defined abs by 4/28/16 (in less than 4 months!)


Be you, bravely.

The Foxy Kat

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2 Comments

  1. Nancy Taylor Reply

    Way to go, Katrina! Your determination and discipline will motivate others. Jeff & I began a 30 day Paleo diet on January 2nd. I found that the only way I can make any type of transformation is to include him since we eat together so frequently, and I am doing most of the cooking. I must have been very convincing that it was a good change for the new year.

    • Kat Reply

      Thank you, Aunt Nancy! Aaron doesn’t like the food I cook anyways, so it was easy to make the meals for myself. But now he’s doing the diet with me so I have to alter my menu to accommodate him lol. I can’t wait to hear how you like Paleo. I’ve tried it before! I felt amazing on it!

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