Fitness: I Tried Chloe Ting’s 2 Week Ab Challenge

Edit: Click here to read my second Chloe Ting challenge experience – 2020 Summer Shred
Click here to read my third Chloe Ting challenge experience – 2019 Flat Belly
Click here to read my fourth Chloe Ting challenge experience – Get Peachy

This post was completed on 6/8/2020.
Jump to starting numbers.
Jump to mid challenge check-in.
Jump to end results and final thoughts.

Okay, Chloe. I see you. I see all your recommended videos popping up all over my YouTube. And I’ve just seen so. many. success. story. videos (<—!!) and okay I’m convinced. (If you’re only going to look at one, just watch the last one because, honestly, there are just too many.)

It looks like she has a lot of free workout programs but I think the one I’ve been seeing the success stories for, and the one I think I can actually commit to, is her 2 Weeks Shred Challenge (click here for the program).

I really love that she’s put all the videos together in such a convenient format on the page so all you need to do is literally just bookmark the page and click on the videos each day. Plus you know what you’ve signed up for in total workout time and total workout videos so you can plan your day accordingly.

In addition, she has a bunch of tips in the FAQ’s, meal plans and videos of the before/afters on the page to keep you motivated. This girl has thought of everything! I don’t know why I’ve been avoiding her until now. Thanks, YouTube algorithm, for recommending her to me.

I’ve been eating way too much sugar lately so let’s do this… starting tomorrow. Haha. I’ve already worked out for 25min today and I think that’s about as much as I can handle for now.

Here’s the thing: I was actually working out often and even going to the gym for the first time in a decade back in January/February, in preparation for my wedding. I’m really thankful we were able to have our wedding with our friends and family as it took place just a mere couple of weeks before quarantine began.

Unfortunately shortly after all the gyms shut down for quarantine, I also developed some other health problems so I stopped working out entirely, which in turn has probably made my health worse. It’s been a bit of a downward spiral. So my goal for this is simply to get back into shape. As in, get fit again, and I’m hoping this 2-week journey will be the start of regular workouts again.

I won’t be changing my diet and I don’t think I’ll lose any weight, but I do hope to tone back up and lose a few cm’s if possible. As such, I’ll post up my before and after numbers to see if there’s a difference. Not that there’s anything wrong with how I look now (I literally just posted an Instagram Story about how I liked how I looked haha) but it’d still be nice to know in case it helps to encourage you on your fitness journey.

Please check back on my progress and leave me a message to keep me motivated. That’s another reason I’m posting this online — because it’s very likely I’ll get lazy and give up otherwise. Let’s begin!

Start date: 5/23
Starting numbers:

• Weight: 122.4lbs
• Waist: 71cm
• Hips: 96cm

Starting pics:

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For my wedding I was like 65-67cm at the waist wahhh. I took these photos and measurements after my morning coffee, but before I ate a meal. My weight was taken from before my coffee though. I tried to have good posture and my tummy is in a relaxed state.

I found out today that my sister is already on day 20 of Chloe’s workouts! Apparently a bunch of her friends are doing it too. Chloe is crossing international borders and hitting all age groups haha. My sister’s not taking pics of her before/during but has definitely noticed herself getting stronger, not feeling as out of breath etc.

Jacky will also be joining me on this journey but does not want his before/after posted online, which we will be respecting. You may hear a few of his thoughts along the way though!

Jump to mid challenge check-in.
Jump to end results and final thoughts.

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Day 1: Completed at 20:07.
She kicked our butts. The workout was supposed to take 23mins but my Apple Watch is telling me 39min 25secs. Honestly when I was going through all the videos of people’s comments I saw people complaining about up-and-down-planks and I was thinking, “That doesn’t sound so hard.”

I was wrong.

I could really feel my abs burning and my butt burning and my legs burning and my arms hurting and I was just dripping sweat. I had to do the low intensity version for most of the moves. I took many water breaks. I took many break-breaks. Oh man. I was in pain.

I think the biggest difference is that I watched her video about 5 Mistakes To Avoid when doing ab workouts, as well as taking all the success stories’ advice about taking it slow and not rushing through each move but ensure you do each move properly, and that really helped. As in… helped to hurt me. It’s only been 20mins since I completed the work out and, erm, I’m already feeling achey.

Anyways, yay. I’m glad we did it. One small step but you have to start somewhere. I’ll leave you with my end-of-workout forlorn dead face:

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Day 2: Completed at 17:38.
Really struggled today. We got through the first 2 workouts and did better than yesterday (only took us 30min! Meaning fewer breaks needed in between) but Jacky decided not to do the 3rd video with me (he went to call his parents but he did the vid on his own later), and I had to give up at 51% through the vid.

My Apple Watch tells me I worked out for 38mins in total but it actually took me an hour to get through the 38mins. Most of that was from the last video — I just couldn’t. I was already sore from yesterday, but oh my gosh after the second video I could hardly lift a pen and my legs wobbled when I got up to walk. Planking motions were just not going to happen anymore.

I’m still proud that I got through 2.5 videos though. The 3rd one was optional. I tried it… I’m not strong enough at this point, and I don’t want to hurt myself by pushing myself too hard. Tomorrow’s a new day!

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Day 3: Completed at 18:34.
I woke up this morning so sore. It hurt to sit down and I honestly did not think I’d be able to work out today. Annie’s starting to do it with me too, woohoo! She told me 3rd day is always the worst for pain because of the second day burn. I thought Chloe was crazy for putting 4 compulsory videos for today. I thought I was gonna die before I even began!

I really considered just moving day 5’s rest day to today. Thanks to Jacky’s encouragement, we got started around 5pm. And… shockingly, I guess Chloe knows what she’s doing. About part way through the first video my body just gave up complaining and just complied. I was actually able to finish the entire set and I felt energised afterwards!

I still had to pause multiple times but who cares! All 4 videos for today… completed! I also did her 10min Full Body Cool Down Stretches to help with the soreness but I feel like she doesn’t give enough time to ease into each stretch before moving on (the timer seems to start before she’s finished explaining what the next stretch is) so I’ll probably just do my own stretches or do hers but with pauses in between.

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Day 4: Completed at 18:52.
Today I could feel that I was stronger. I wasn’t dying when doing the first 2 videos like I had been before, and I didn’t need to do as many of the low-intensity variations as I did before. In addition, my soreness level has decreased to a mild, numb soreness haha.

On the flip side, I have been baking a lot recently (I just baked my best banana bread yet today!) and… well… I can’t not taste test, right? ;_; I wonder if that’s been causing my recent weight gain, but I also don’t want my weight to define me.

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Day 5: It is an active rest day! I actively rested :P

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Day 6: Completed at 21:05 (but started at 17:59).
I didn’t really want to work out today. I think the rest day made me lazy, and I already had so much stuff to do. But then I looked in the mirror and realised I was seeing results, and that made me want to keep working out. Plus, I feel like I owe it to myself, to Jacky and to my blog to keep going. Having a workout buddy and writing this thing is a very good motivator and keeps me accountable. Would highly recommend the same if you also are prone to losing momentum half way through.

Initially I was thinking today was harder because my body had weakened over the ‘rest’ day; basically I’d recovered from the pain and all of a sudden my body felt like weaksauce again. What really ended up happening, however, was that I had barely eaten all day and was trying to do Chloe’s intense workouts on a practically empty stomach. Big mistake #1.

We realised this half way through our work out and thankfully we’d already put in a DoorDash order. Our food arrived at around 18:40 and we took time off to eat, then rest our stomachs for 1.5hrs before doing the rest of the workout at 20:35. (I know it was 20:35 because our neighbours dropped off some freshly baked World Peace cookies for us at 20:30 and Jacky and I couldn’t help but eat one as soon as we got them. We only had half a cookie each, but they were sooooo good.)

I thought I felt better because I had eaten. I powered through the work out. Big mistake #2. Then I realised I really wasn’t feeling better. I felt bloated and weak and dizzy and nauseous. I ate some watermelon, thinking the cool, sweet and watery watermelon would help settle my stomach.

It did not.

I ended up lying on the floor in the foetal position for 20min (Jacky had gone to take a shower already). I really wanted to post an update tonight though so I mustered my energy and took a few photos after I had recovered enough to move. Not that I could keep my eyes open for them either… this was one of the better ones:

Less than 5mins later, I was throwing up in the bathroom.

It helped a lot, honestly. Jacky finished his shower and immediately helped get me some warm water to drink. It’s 21:55 and I feel well enough to write this post now, and no longer as bloated, but I know that this is not the way to treat my body.

Moving forward, I definitely need to make sure we have been well fed throughout the day before even beginning to attempt exercise, and if at any time I’m not feeling well, it’s time to stop. Chloe has stressed the importance of listening to your body and stopping if you’re not feeling well, but I actually just thought my body needed an extra push and that I was being a wuss.

Lesson learned. Tomorrow is a new day!

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Day 7: Incomplete.
I think we’re going to have to do today’s tomorrow and skip day 9’s rest day. We were sooo tired today. I’ve had a lot of things to take care of lately, much of it relating to our finances (which is why you’ve been seeing finance posts lately).

Jacky hasn’t been sleeping well lately because it’s been so hot, so he ended up taking a long nap in the afternoon and didn’t wake up until 7:15pm, by which time I was hungry. Given that I’d just thrown up the day before, we agreed it’d be best to not push myself so hard today.

However, I did want to give a numbers update (taken this morning).

• Weight: 122.3lbs
• Waist: 69.5cm
• Hips: 96cm <— I’m actually not sure because unfortunately I don’t recall whereabouts I measured anymore.

I’m super happy that I’ve lost 1.5cm from my waist already. It’s not where I’d like to be yet, but you can already see a difference from the before’s on the left:

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If it’s not obvious from the above photos, my abs definitely did not look like this 7 days ago:

Jump to end results and final thoughts.

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Day 8: Ended 20:45 (but started at 15:13).
So today we only did the first two videos. Reason being, we helped our friends move apts today. They were moving to a larger apartment in our complex, so we paused our workout after the first video to go and help them move, then afterward we finished helping them we came back and did the second video.

Our friends were moving from a second floor apartment to another second floor apartment, so Jacky and I unanimously decided we did not need another lower body workout for today, and since the Ariana Grande ABS video was optional and we were already exhausted from moving, we figured we’d leave it there.

I think resting yesterday helped a lot because my body felt re-energised and I had a great workout. I think I was finally strong enough to engage my core properly again while doing the ab exercises, and I could continue the up and down planks for much longer without collapsing.

All in all, a really great workout day!

We are planning to do the day 7 videos tomorrow instead, since technically tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day.

Also if you’ve been following my cutting out sugar 5/30 update you’ll know that (firstly I’m not doing very well on that but let’s not talk about that) I had been weighing myself wrong the entire time, gah! Click here to read the note about it, but if you aren’t interested in the details just know that the numbers for my weight should be more accurate moving forward.

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Day 9: Completed… the rest day.
I’m surprised by how little my body aches given how many heavy items I’d lifted yesterday when we helped our friends move. I’m going to credit that to the stretching I did before bed last night. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt or that I’m not completely exhausted though. I didn’t sleep well or enough last night and woke up very sleepily for church this morning. Jacky and I decided to take Chloe up on that rest day today after all.

Zzzzzz

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Day 10: Completed 20:04.
We are back in business! I completed all the videos with very few breaks in between :D That said, I suspect my form was not perfect and that I wasn’t engaging my core as hard as I should have been. Hmmm… I’m not sure. On the other hand, I do feel like I’m yet stronger than I was before. My right wrist has been hurting so I was trying to be more careful too.

I guess time will tell. I ate Habit Burger today so I am feeling a bit bloated though. I think ultimately Jacky and I are just glad that we’re getting back into exercise. It’s okay if my results are not as extreme as some other women’s after two weeks. After all, I took it slow and easy and rested when I needed to.

I would love to have those || ab lines eventually but as long as we’re both strong and healthy, that’s the most important thing!

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Day 11: Completed 18:35.
Today I realised that I have been working the right side of my body more – as in, relying on my dominant side to pick up the slack for my weaker side. As such, I tried harder to engage the muscles on my left. I also tried harder to engage my core and gahhh it hurt.

We didn’t take too many more breaks than what Chloe had intended though (but every time she said “if you need to take a longer break you can” we definitely did).

We worked out hard! Then had McDonald’s. Lol.

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(yes I wore the same workout bra for 2 days because I am running out of them)

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Day 12: Completed 19:17.
I realised just now that I actually did day 13’s workouts today. But that was intentional – as in, I intentionally omitted the Lower Body Burn workout today because I didn’t sleep well last night (click here if you’re interested in the story), the fatigue was starting to set in and I really wanted to work on abs so prioritised that.

I also loosely followed Chloe’s new cool down video after the workout. On the whole I think this cool down exercise is better than her other one as it gave more time between stretches (she also suggests watching on lower speed to give yourself even more time, but I don’t like how that would distort her instructions too so didn’t bother).

It had more of a yoga vibe to it, which I enjoyed, but mostly I just enjoyed the countdown timer, the calming music and her soothing voice while I stretched even if I didn’t do the same moves as her haha. Thanks, Chloe!

Jacky was surprised we’re on day 12 already and only have 2 days left of the challenge. I’ve seen results on him for sure! And for myself too. It’s not as extreme as some of the other ladies, but I’m loving the start of this new fitness journey and am already trying to decide which challenge to follow next (after a few day’s rest, of course!)

I’m also kinda getting a bit bored of the music hahaha. I realised she tends to use the same tunes for each of her videos in a program, so the video from her Summer Shred 2019 program provided a welcome change (though I’m not a fan of the profanity).

2 more days to go!

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Day 13: Incomplete.
I really didn’t sleep well or enough tonight either, and I went to get my blood taken in the morning then we got groceries. I was feeling exhausted and faint, so we took another rest day.

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Day 14: Incomplete.
So. Weird. We were both really tired today as well. We decided not to push ourselves, but rather took another rest day.

However, despite our resting recently we’ve both definitely seen a difference in our bodies. I was looking in the mirror last night and was super happy with what I saw! There were faint || ab lines and my waist looked sharper in general. My arms and legs were visibly slimmer and my hips have definitely slimmed down too.

I was video calling my friend this morning and told her about these workouts after showing her my waist and she was like “right, that’s it, I’m going to do it too!” She also said that my arms looked slimmer as well, without any prompting from me haha. She was most thrilled when I told her I hadn’t changed anything with regards to my diet and was still able to get results.

Jacky and I will aim to make up the last 2 day’s workouts this weekend and I’ll post my updates on Monday!

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Day 15: Completed 20:12.
Today we were planning to do day 12’s workouts since we accidentally did day 13’s on day 12 then didn’t end up exercising the past couple of days. However, by the time we finished the second video we were both completely pooped. It’s important that we don’t over-exert ourselves so we stopped there.

I had a headache today and didn’t sleep enough last night (seems to be a pattern as of late) and honestly considered not working out today as well. But! All it took was a quick YouTube browse of workout results from doing Chloe’s programs and I was feeling motivated enough, so thank you guys, and thank you, Chloe!

While I’m a little disappointed we couldn’t do all 4 videos, I’m proud of us for still working out today and doing the 2 videos well. I concentrated hard on engaging my core today and I could feel my abs burning throughout.

We’re taking this as a marathon and not a sprint because we plan to do more of her programs afterwards, so it’s not as vital that we see extreme results in just 2 weeks and are taking this at a pace that we can handle. That said, we both look visibly slimmer – Jacky even more so actually haha.

Before doing Chloe’s workouts, I was actually doing Alexis Ren’s ab workout routine quite often, so I had at least some degree of ab muscle. Jacky hated ab workouts and had always found them difficult, but he’s pushed through excellently, which is probably why his results are even more visible. As mentioned at the top, he doesn’t want his results posted online so you’ll have to take my word for it, but we’re both thrilled. Thank you, Chloe!

(You can’t tell, but I am actually super happy. I am also running out of workout clothes so am wearing a nightie.)

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Day 16: Completed 17:27.
Yaaaay!! We did it! Today we also just did the two main videos. And I’m so pleased to say today was the first time we went straight through both without any additional stops. I still did the majority of the lower impact moves though but I made them count. My joints were hurting again (especially my right wrist and left leg) so we called it a day.

We’re planning to take a couple of rest days and start another program of hers on Wednesday.

I’ll update this post tomorrow morning with final numbers and pictures, and we’ll officially call it complete :)

I’m wearing the same clothes as day 2, so here’s a side-by-side comparison of the same pose. Even if the scales or measuring tape don’t say anything different tomorrow, I am loving the difference I see with my eyes:

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Completion date: 6/7
Completion numbers:

• Weight: 122.6lbs (+0.2lbs)
• Waist: 69cm (-2cm)
• Hips: 94cm (-2cm)

Completion pics:

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Good morning! Today is 6/8. I wanted to take the updated photos and measurements under approx the same circumstances as I had before this began, which meant before a meal but after my morning coffee.

My goals for this were just to get back into working out and improve my fitness levels, which I believe have definitely been achieved! I did also want to see if there were any changes in my measurements so I have listed them above too.

However, take those numbers with a bucket of salt because 1) I don’t remember how much I was ‘resting’ or sucking in my stomach when I previously measured myself, 2) I also don’t quite recall where on my hips I was measuring before either, 3) I believe my scales were reporting incorrectly until like half way through the challenge.

Side-by-side from before pics:

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Side-by-side from day 7:

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Honestly I am just thrilled with these results. They aren’t as extreme as some of the others I’ve seen, but given that I literally did not diet whatsoever (and ate banana bread and cookies and burgers and McDonalds and whatnot almost every day), did the low-intensity moves most of the time and realised later on that I wasn’t even engaging my core properly and I didn’t even do all the videos according to the program, I am super impressed. (After all, the goal was to get back into exercise, not lose 10lbs though that would have been great haha.)

The lighting is poor so you can’t really tell in the photos (and I kinda regret wearing that t-shirt in the starting pics), but I have also developed faint || line abs. My fat is typically stored on my back, underarms, lower belly and hips and I’m so happy to have seen all of those have shrunk or toned up.

The Hardest Parts of this Challenge

Without a doubt the most difficult thing is to stay consistent but be kind to yourself. There were days I felt super motivated and ended up pushing myself too hard. Then there were days I did not want to work out at all, and after a couple of rest days I felt even lazier than before (all noted above).

But I am so thankful for the community that has been posting videos and updates with their progress and results – that’s been motivating even on days when I was feeling so tired that Jacky’s persuasion couldn’t even motivate me.

I’m also very thankful for Jacky, who took this challenge with me and encouraged (and sometimes had to drag) me to exercise. Having a workout buddy in your home makes a huge difference.

My final motivator was this blog: knowing that I had friends checking my updates kept me accountable, and I didn’t want to post “I took another rest day today” too many times. If I know that there are people online keeping tabs on my journey, that really makes me want to keep going.

The second hardest part were the jumping moves. We live on the 3rd floor and after we started doing the workouts in our living room, we started getting our downstairs neighbours banging on their ceiling to express their displeasure at our jumping. Frustratingly, the jumping moves are barely 5mins in total but I can see how they’d get mad if we are heavy-footed.

Finally, I’m not sure about Jacky but the last thing that bothered me was dealing with the music hahaha. A few people have mentioned it in their videos and I didn’t think it was a problem at the start, but towards the end of the second week I was pretty over the songs that she’d chosen.

Both Jacky and I had the starting tune stuck in our heads and began associating it with the beginning of hell LOL but I think what gets to me are the songs with profanity. It just makes me want to either not do the video or mute the track. I feel like those songs are totally unnecessary.

The song switches mid-way through a set are also rather jarring.

Would I Recommend This Challenge?

100%. Go do it! Go find a buddy and work out. It’s only 2 weeks. Even the most commitment-phobic of us all can handle 2 weeks. 14 days, of which 2 are rest days. So basically only 12 days of exercise. It’s totally doable and totally worth it. Go go go!

We’re going to start a new one on Wednesday :)

Final Thoughts

I don’t think I’ve ever completed a workout challenge before so YAY! I’m glad this is now forever documented so I can always look back on it and know that I have it in me, so no more excuses. “I can’t” is no longer good enough, because I can and I have done before.

If I can do it, you can too.

Muchos love,

Bobbie