Women Who Lift More Than Just their Children...
- Alyson Jenkins
- Nov 28, 2018
- 4 min read
I recently started following women on Instagram that I found motivational for my weight lifting passion. The top three women that I crush on are Jessie Hilgenberg Body Builder and women weightlifting coach, Jessie Graff the most famous Ninja Warrior/stunt women and Erin Stern 2x Ms. Figure Olympia. These women keep me motivated to continue working hard at the gym, eat to fuel my body to build muscle and remembering that strong women not only look awesome, but are still feminine.
Let's start with Jessie Hilgenberg. She is a fitness model, professional weight lifter and a mother of two. I found out about Jessie from a lady at the gym who suggested I follow her on instragram to get ideas for new workouts. I like Jessie because she is real, a working mom and ripped! I have so much respect for her and she is facing the same challenges we all have everyday with prioritizing kids and working out. I have tried women programs in the past and they typically use their own body weight and really they are pretty lame. Jessie's workouts were unique to me, heavy and hard. I started incorporating them in my workouts and saw results and it encouraged me to keep lifting heavy and gave me new exercises to try out. Jessie started a workout app in September and I jump on board and sign-up and actually paid for an app (the first time in my life that I actually paid for an app) and have been using it now for the last two months Jessie's Girls Workout. The first workout I did I almost died! It was so long and hard. It took me 1.5 hours of intense lifting to get through the first session. The next day I could hardly move and was in agony. I now realize that I am lifting heavier weights and have cut down the sets from 3 to 4 and I can now get through a workout with some cardio in an hour. As a working mom with two kids, an hour a day to workout is a challenge and commitment. The downside with the app is that you have to have it on the entire workout and go through each rep to get to the next if you want to track your workouts and it doesn't allow you to track what weights you use. The workouts are fantastic and they are for real women weightlifters. No Jane Fonda's allowed!
Then there is Jessie Graff. Amazing and awesome. Enough said LOL. She is so friggen amazing I can only inspire to be a fraction as strong and agile as her. She is a 5-time national finalist for Ninja Warrior (yes against all the men) and has been a stunt women for Wonder Women! My dream is to be one of the Amazon women on the Wonder Women movie, they are beautiful and strong and can kick some serious ass. I realize that Jessie is a professional and I just can't compare myself to her, but I did do some of her workouts and they absolutely killed me, but were so much fun and different than what I usually do. I put together some of my Jessie Graff workouts on Instagram Jessie Pull Workout. Jessie has inspired me to do a Spartan race this spring that I am currently starting to train specifically for. It will push me outside of my comfort zone but I love new challenges and things that make me feel uncomfortable to push me to the next level.
I have just started following Erin Stern from a cookbook she wrote that I purchased in Chapters. I did some investigative work on her before I bought the book. She is a two-time winner of Ms Figure Olympia IFBB body builder in 2010 and 2012. Erin failed to qualify in the 2008 Ms Olympia and came back in 2010 to win the whole damn thing. Erin just missed qualifying for the high jump in the Olympics and after that continued her career in body building. She is 38 now and she focuses more on coaching and being a fitness influencer. I went out and shuffled out the $25 investment in her cookbook Body Builder's Kitchen and tried out her 7-day Cutting Meal Plan. I wanted to really follow the 7-day plan exactly as she lays it out to see what the results would be. I am happy to say that I did lose 2 pounds this week after a gradual 6 weeks of gaining weight every week, I was pleased with the results! I know that I was eating too much so this plan restricted portion control and calories, but I was surprised that I had lots of energy in my workouts and didn't feel hungry other than when I woke up in the mornings. The meals were relatively easy and healthy. There is a lot of variety and she uses simple flavours such as cinnamon, all-spice and vanilla. I love her healthy and delicious smoothies that my family now enjoy for dessert after dinner. The downside of the book is the meal plan and shopping list. The meal plan has way too much variety that makes it tedious and expensive to follow. I was up making lunches and prepping food for the next day until 9:30pm every night. I can do this for a week but not long-term. Also when I bought all the food on the shopping list for the week it was inaccurate and I had a bunch of groceries that weren't even on the meal plan and then I was missing items that were in the weekly recipes. This was very frustrating and a waste of time and effort. This week I went through all the recipes and came up with my own meal plan and then made my own shopping list for all the groceries. This took me two hours, which I was hoping to avoid with buying this book. Another improvement that could be made is to provide the macro percentages for each recipe instead of these in grams so I have to do the math on each recipe. I will share my meal plan and grocery list from Erin's recipes next week.
I encourage you to start following these three hard core ladies and get some inspiration and tips for your fitness journey.
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