Among all the benefits that come with a fitness journey (weight loss, better overall health, self confidence, etc.) one of the most recognizable is a little booty pop. Working your glutes means you’ll see a transformation in your backside you didn’t know was possible.
Not only does a stronger booty look good on Insta, it also means that new lean muscle you’ve built can help to accomplish your weight loss goals. More muscle means you can burn more calories — during workouts and at rest! And who are we kidding — we’ll take any help we can get in the squat department.
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Since we’re such big fans of a booty lift, we’re sharing the exact ways five women transformed their bods.
MORE: If You’re Relying on Cardio for Weight Loss, You Better Re-Think Your Workout
Abby Polluck
Polluck was under a lot of pressure with school, relationship drama and family health issues, so she turned to her diet as the only thing she felt she could control. She became unhealthily obsessed with counting her calories, never going over 1,000 per day.
After battling both anorexia and bulimia, she eventually found help and started looking at food and exercise from a healthier perspective. While she used to do two hours of cardio every day, now she’s cut back on the cardio and added four sessions of heavy weight training to her routine. She’ll hit the gym four days a week, working on her back and biceps one day, shoulders and triceps one day, and lower body two days. She also transformed her diet, making sure she eats all her macros instead of cutting out food groups.
To see what a typical meal and workout looks like for Polluck, read her full story here.
Tracy Thong
After high school, Tracy Thong continuously gained weight until one day she saw a photo of herself at 190 pounds and decided something had to change. Instead of setting a goal weight for herself, she made a different kind of goal: run a full or half marathon.
She joined a gym and worked out for two hours every day, six days a week — 30 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes on the treadmill, 30 minutes on ab exercises and 30 minutes on strength training. She also did circuit workouts with a personal trainer 30 minutes a day one day a week. After eight months she had lost 30 pounds!
She completed her first half marathon and now focuses on strength training and circuit training, becoming a personal trainer in the meantime. To read more about her inspiring journey, click here!
Corinna Mantegazza
When Corinna Mantegazza dicovered Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide, she fell in love with fitness. Six months into her new routine, she noticed that during the challenge, her butt started to change and “deflate.” That’s when she introduced strength training into her routine.
“[Strength training] completely changed my body,” she told Cosmopolitan.
Mantegazza’s typical butt and leg workouts include up to five sets of 10 or 20 reps of 11 different exercises such as, weighted squats, sumo squats, single-leg deadlifts, cable kickbacks, split squats, curtsy lunges and hip thrusters.
“I believe lifting weights is something every girl should do because it shapes your body and supports your metabolism, but mostly because it makes you feel strong,” she said. “I feel so confident and strong — like never before.”
Check out her whole story here!
Katrina Buening
Katrina Buening struggled with weight gain her entire life, going on her first diet at just 13 years old. Once she discovered that her weight gain was coming from food allergies, it was easier for her to lose weight.
“I have a lot of health issues that are directly related to food allergies,” she told Daily Mail. “I was eating things that I didn’t realise were hurting my body and this kept me in a constant state of inflammation and when we are inflamed it causes us to gain weight. I did that for a few years and that lead to a 100-pound weight gain.”
She consulted with doctors to figure out which foods were making her gain weight, and from there ate clean and worked out (including strength training, which accounts for that bodacious booty) for 25 minutes a day.
“The key [to weight loss] is nutrition, but you need to drop the diet mindset, that will just set you up for failure, eat clean and balanced and pay attention to what you are eating. If a food makes you feel lousy, stay away from it and find foods that give you energy,” she said.
Kelsey Wells
Fitness blogger Kelsey Wells of My Sweat Life realized that fitness isn’t always about weight loss after her pregnancy. Her progress photos represent a body transformation that you might think would result in weight loss, but she actually weighs around the same as she did right after her pregnancy, even after consistently eating healthy and doing strength training and cardio every week.
“The photo on the left was a few months after I had Anderson. The photo on the right was just about a month ago. I AM THE SAME PANT SIZE IN BOTH PHOTOS, and am almost the same weight, yet my body composition has completely changed,” Wells wrote.
She went on to say that the scale shouldn’t dictate how we feel about our bodies, especially for postpartum women.
“EVEN IF IT HADN’T, one of my biggest regrets is beating up my postpartum body and not seeing the beauty in myself at that stage.”
“Your body is beautiful exactly how it is. Live a healthy life because you deserve it, not just because you may want to change. Measure your progress by health, and HAPPINESS, and love your self NOW, and every step of the way.”
Related:
7 Stunning Before and After Photos of Extreme Weight Loss Transformations
Jen Selter (the World’s Most Famous Butt) Shares Go-To Moves for a Hot Booty
Wait, We Should Be Strength Training HOW Often?
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