I'm working my way through her journal now as part of my BBL research. It's good.

Thanks for all these helpful responses. Keep them coming. I think the key for me will be to stick to the rotation I choose, aside from subbing in my preferred cardio (just realized I can also do the first 30 min of the new Dream Body Cardio DVDs). I'm not too worried about BBL being less intense than Tonique. I think the change will be good for me, a way to shock my system by doing something a little different.

I did the classic rotation in November. I pretty much did all the workouts as scheduled and sometimes added Classical Stretch at night. I was soooo happy with the results. My legs and abs shrunk and my butt became tighter. I didn't gain inches, but I think it was because the cardio was burning fat off around my hips. I even lost a few pounds that hadn't budged in YEARS!!! I knew I wasn't crazy because people were commenting on my appearance. Here were some examples:

1. My sister, who never says ANYTHING about my appearance, wanted to know what I was doing because of how good my lower body looked. I have been working out for 15 years and this was the first time she was truly curious about my workouts.

2. My husband also had a lot of good things to say...nough said on that.

3. I had to go to my doctor for an exam and the first thing she said was that I had lost weight. She had to feel my stomach and commented on how strong my ab muscles were. BBL was amazing for my abs. I had a baby in August of 2012 and I swear my abs look better now after that rotation.

In December, I decided to focus on Ballet Beautiful and Essentrics DVDs and continued to shrink. It was shocking to have so many comments about how small I had gotten. :eek: This was all while I was eating shortbread cookies and chocolate daily (tis the season, right?). I wasn't even doing cardio at this time but I lost a few more pounds and am now at my lowest adult weight since high school.

This month I decided to add more cardio so I bought the Ruthless set to see if it would be a good fit for me. I am also continuing with Ballet Beautiful and some Barre3 workouts. I just don't have a lot of time to workout so I am thrilled I can tighten up without killing myself. I think I may add Bum Bum back in too since it really is a great workout. Hope this helps!

I have both the original BBL set and the Master series, and I LOVE the original one! Each time I do it, I shrink down. The Master series, on the other hand, caused me to go up in inches, which I wasn't happy about. :mad:

I wrote long reviews on Amazon about each set (under my Amazon username "Leanne") that give details about my experiences. :)

I've been thinking that my lower half needs some help . . . so perhaps it's time to get out BBL again! I've just done it so many times that I'm a bit burnt out on it!

I'll take a look at your reviews, too....

So I read your review of the second BBL. Do you have an idea of why you gained inches doing the Master series? That's what makes me nervous. People had great results from the first series, but that doesn't mean that I will have the same experience. Do you think it was the specific exercises that caused you to go up in inches?

Even though you don't like dance, I recommend trying Cardio Axe once. I don't like dance at all either, but for some reason I could tolerate this. I think because it is so hips/thighs/glutes oriented.

Also, I recommend choosing the music down option when offered, like for High and Tight. You don't need the music on those workouts, and it drowns Leandro's instruction out on them because of the way the audio was mixed. I find the music on High and Tight to be very annoying, personally!

You know you were my inspiration for doing a BBL rotation :heart: I was curious about your experience with Ballet Beautiful and I am delighted that it worked so well for you. Might give that one a try too (especially if I get daily cookies and chocolate ;))!

Fuzzie -- sidetrack question here, but what about Barre3 do you think gave you that gain in your waist?

I've been thinking a lot about this ever since I did the workout, and I'm honestly not sure. The Master Series has more traditional moves like squats and lunges, whereas the original BBL has a lot of lying leg lifts, etc., and I think that that just works better for my hourglass shape. Ballet Beautiful also has that same effect on me -- it really slims things down!

I honestly don't think you can go wrong with the original set. I haven't heard of anyone who has gained inches on it. You could also sell it on eBay or Amazon if you don't like it or trade it her. (I sold my FT25 on eBay and my Insanity set on Craig's List once I was done with them.) Hope that helps! :)

I'm not sure, to be honest. Maybe it was just transitioning away from TA that did it or maybe the change in intensity (I think TA is way more challenging than Barre3). Quite frankly I just freaked out, went back to TA for a month, and everything went back to normal. Since then I moved on to BLL and now I am doing workouts on FitnessGlo without any weight/inch gains at all.

What is BLL?

Another plug for the original Brazil Butt Lift. I had really good results with it too. I just wish Leandro wasn't so annoying! I only used Bum Bum and H&T. It slimmed my thighs, but what I wasn't expecting was the sneaky core work from the balancing in Bum Bum, so my midsection looked pretty darn good after a month too. I wish I could mute Leandro and that annoying music too, but I still need to hear the cues because they transition pretty quickly sometimes.