I’m so excited to introduce you to the gals at #WorkItOut100 today! I actually met Amanda at the gym a few months ago and was so inspired by her story! I’ll let them take it away from here! I hope you’ll take them up on their invitation at the end!
Fitness has always been a huge part of our lives. We have always known the importance of working out and like a lot of people, we feel best when we are in shape. We would both go through spurts of working out religiously, and then we would hit a wall and would take a few days, weeks or even months off until we found the motivation we needed to get started again. Every time we had to start over, we would always find ourselves saying, “We wish we never stopped.” It has been a vicious circle for us and we realized many people can relate. When you’re not working out, your overall self-confidence, motivation, and daily energy level tend to drop. Both of us reached a point in our lives where we were ready to make fitness as a top priority. Little did we know we needed each other for the motivation to get started and to stick to it.
#workitout100 started because both of us wanted to challenge ourselves to 100-days of working out, just to see what our bodies could do in that amount of time. We planned to do this challenge with just the two of us and hoped maybe a few friends would jump on board. We created the hash tag #workitout100 in hopes that our close friends and family would follow along our journeys on social media. Come to find out, the idea of #workitout100 intrigued more people than just us. Thanks to the power of social media (Instagram at first, then the other platforms grew with time), our 100-day commitment turned into a fitness challenge that spread internationally in one weekend.
We were both so excited and ready to dominate our workouts all 100 days, and that we did! We both worked our butts off (literally) every single day. We would wake up at 4:27 am to head to the gym for our morning workouts and oftentimes head back to the gym for a little more cardio or for some abs and stretching after our work day. Our eating was on-point and Amanda cut out alcohol for the full 100-days. We went at it strong, and as the saying goes, “You get back exactly what you put in.” We worked hard and it paid off. Both of us were amazed by our results and couldn’t wait to continue setting goals and reaching them.
However, we both knew from the beginning that it wasn’t realistic to keep up the high intensity workouts and the perfect eating habits every day for the rest of our lives. That is when we came up with our “Get Up & Move” motto. Everyone is at different levels when they start and not everyone wants the same results, which is why we at workitout100 love the motto, get up and move. A workout can be ANYTHING! You can run, walk, swim laps, take a yoga class or hit the weights. When people hear that they have to work out for 100 days in a row, they tend to shy away because that’s a lot of working out. However, we always stress to everyone the importance of active rest days. The point of the #workitout100 challenge is to create a lifestyle and get yourself into a routine that is realistic for you to maintain. So whether you have 15 minutes or two hours a day for a workout, it doesn’t matter, it’s up to you. Find what works for you and stick with it.
Once our 100 days was nearing an end, we both discussed the fact that we were a little sad to see it end. We both knew that we had created a lifestyle and that keeping up with getting up and moving every day was something we wanted to do. We came up with the idea to continue on with #workitout100 but change it to reflect our new everyday working out lifestyle. That’s when we created #workitout365.
#workitout100 turned into more than just a fitness challenge. It turned into a large, supportive community of men and women all around the world. Everyone that committed to the challenge was trying to better themselves starting with their health and fitness. Whenever a challenger uses the tag #workitout100 on their post on any social media platform, we comment on their picture and cheer them on with encouraging and positive messages. This challenge is great for many reasons, but the accountability factor is huge. Most people make it public that they’re accepting the #workitout100 challenge and the same went for us when we committed publicly to our friends, family and followers; you don’t want to give up!
We now have over 6,000 people on board this fitness challenge and it continues to grow every day. Will you join us with your own 100-day challenge? Sign up- it’s free! We would love to cheer you to 100.
XOXO,
Amanda & Laura
You can find #workitout100 on Instagram (@workitout100) and on Facebook: #WorkItOut100
