Just this weekend, I completed my 21st day of the 21 Day Fix, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy. It was probably the hardest thing I've completed to date, and I've done Insanity. But, this was hard for another reason: I absolutely had to follow the nutrition plan sent. Why? Well, unlike Insanity and TurboFire, if you don't follow the nutrition plan, you will get results.....just not as good as what you'd expect, but you will get them. However, 21 Day Fix is different. The entire plan is built around eating. You eat the right foods, in the right portions, at the right times, and well, you are going to have amazing results. Let me tell you about my adventure with the 21 Day Fix.
Week 1: My first thought was, "Wow, I can only eat that?" The first 5 days were definitely the hardest for me. It wasn't that there wasn't enough food, it was because I was burning TOO many calories, if that's even possible. Some would say: how so?
Well, let me tell you. First, I'm in the Army, so we exercise first thing in the morning. Second, it was during this time that I had taken some Soldiers to the range. Well, when you are standing around in full gear in 100 degree heat, it will take a toll on you. Third, I will still coming home and doing Autumn's workouts. I felt like I was starving. So, essentially, I was starving. Not intentionally, but I was new with the program, and there is just so much to learn.
You have to create new habits, like: measuring your food. Planning your meals for the next day, and pre-cooking your food. Planning is the key to success in this program. It's actually the success to any program, but this one takes extra thought. Since I am on the 1200-1499 calories a day, I'm only allotted two carbs a day. Well, if I had milk with my Shakeology, or sushi, then that was a serving of carbs, so many times I would opt for a salad instead of rice or pasta as a side. That first week, I had sweet potatoes that I put off for 5 days because of this.
Week 2: Still struggled to find what works best to tote around during my busy schedule. I opted for boiled eggs and a piece of fruit for breakfast instead of Shakeology, and moved Shakeology to a mid afternoon snack (with water instead of milk). This allowed me to have my sweet potatoes as a side, instead of a salad, and to enjoy pasta one day for dinner (cause I LOVE carbs!). I stepped on the scale mid way through (just to check progress), and found that I was down about 4 lbs! WooHoo!
Week 3: Life got in the way this week. Yep. Had a very long Cub Scout meeting, so Pizza was ordered one day. Got lazy and decided to not cook (hey, that DOES happen....sometimes) so we visited a Mexican restaurant. And, I took the boys BTS shopping and had mall food, and breakfast out the next day. What I noticed: even though I had those "life gets in the way moments," I wasn't eating as much. Food was left on my plate, and I didn't even feel bad. I also noticed that most foods, if seasoned properly, tastes very good sans salt. That being said, when we visited the local burger joint because it was late one day, and I didn't want to cook, those burgers, even though very yummy, were very salty. And, I didn't work out with Autumn most of the week just because of life. At the end of this week: down another 1.5 pounds. Not as good as the first half, but still progress.
So, now that I'm in my maintenance week (added a few more calories according to the plan), I'm taking the time to reflect on what went wrong, and what went right in this adventure.
1) I should have planned for extra calories burned on the days that I went to the range. I had no idea, so I didn't plan.
2) Cheating is OK, but in small quantities. As you can see, I just let it all go, almost, on the third week. The 21 Day Fix does allow cheating, but you have to learn how to do it right. With that being said, there are recipes in the book that allows this. You'll learn the right way to "cheat" and still get results.
3) There are tons of clean eating recipes out there. You just have to know what you like, what you might like to try, and just go for it!
4) Some items, like coconut oil, natural peanut butter, raw honey, pure maple syrup & quinoa are very expensive. Buy what you can afford and use sparingly. Olive oil can be expensive, but you don't have to use large amounts. When all else fails, cooking spray is an awesome alternative.
5) Homemade balsamic vinaigrette is quite yummy. A little goes a long way, and I've never used an entire serving on my salad.
For the remainder of my maintenance week, I will continue to eat within my limits, and learn new healthy recipes. I will look up healthy recipes and plan my meals. I will come up with a better plan for my next round and follow it more closely.
