21 Day Fix Extreme, One week down!

I finished one FULL week of my 21 Day Fix Extreme challenge! I want to give you a little recap of how it went. Day one was great. Day two I got hungry. Day three I got REALLY hungry. Day four I felt like I was going to pass out. So I decided to reevaluate what I was doing. I ended up using MyFitnessPal to calculate the actual calories I was consuming and even though I was eating EVERY container allotted to me, I was barely breaking 1000 calories in a day. NOT cool. So, I decided to move up to the next level which allows me to have one more purple (fruit), one more yellow (grains), one more green (veggies), and two extra teaspoons of oils or nut butters. BEST DECISION!!!! I have so much more energy. I'm so glad I listened to my body instead of trying to stay strict to the program.

Other than that slight hiccup, here's what I can tell you about the program so far. All of the workouts have been HARD. I typically do cardio and HIIT workouts, and occasionally throw in some weights. These workouts use weights pretty much the whole time so you get a mix of strength and cardio. I don't burn as many calories as I'm used to, but I'm going to trust that she knows what she's doing and I'll see results anyway. Every day I've been sore in new places and I can tell I'm targeting areas that I'm not used to working out, so that's good. The great thing is that they are only 30 minutes long, so even though I have to push really hard, it's over quickly.

All of the recipes I've made from the book they provide you with have been awesome. Everything tastes great. The beef/butternut squash stew is my favorite so far (I ate it so fast I didn't get to snap a picture of it). My husband agreed that it was better than my old stew recipe! I've been eating small portions throughout the day. I am a big snacker, so having smaller meals and lots of snacks is helpful. For some reason yesterday, I was REALLY hungry again, so I added in some extra protein and veggies so that I wouldn't be tempted to binge on something unhealthy. Overall I got about 1600 calories yesterday, which is almost 200 more than I'm supposed to have, but I figure that one day won't undo the rest of the week.

Here are some of the recipes I've tried:

Turkey lettuce wraps, one green and one red container.

This is a "mini egg cup" from her recipe book, I just like to cut mine up and put it on a piece of sprouted grain toast. The great part is I can eat TWO of these as breakfast. Two mini muffins equal one green and one red and the two pieces of toast count as two yellow. Filling and delicious. And did I mention COFFEE is allowed!?

I've been doing salads for lunch with baked chicken breast and I've made two of the dressing recipes from the recipe book. Both were very tasty. I've also found I can use half an orange container of dressing and use the other half for pumpkin seeds! This is one green, one red, one blue, and one orange.

This was my own recipe of spaghetti squash with meat sauce, one red container, one green container, and one purple container.

 

And this is the turkey meatloaf from the recipe book. This was really good and filling and the potion size is great. I had mine with sweet potato and broccoli. This meatloaf is one red, 1/2 yellow, 1/2 purple. Then my sides were one yellow and one green.

I also have to admit that I'm cheating in one small way. I'm adding about 1.5 teaspoons of honey to my plain Greek yogurt and I don't even care because no matter how much fruit you add to it, PLAIN yogurt tastes horrible. It's about 8 grams of sugar, but I'm willing to do that instead of gag through a snack.

So, week one is in the books. I have been tempted to have beer, wine, and candy and I've resisted! I don't feel bloated at all and I've lost 1.6 lbs. Which is a great healthy loss in my opinion.

21 Day Fix Extreme

I've been working out almost daily for about a year and a half. I do a little bit of everything-- running, kettlebells, HIIT, zumba, weight lifting, yoga, spin, barre, and whatever else comes along that looks like a good workout. In that time, I've built up a lot of endurance, changed my attitude toward fitness, built a bit of muscle, and managed to lose some weight.

Here's the thing, this whole time, I've been eating WHATEVER I WANT. All the donuts, all the chocolate, whole bags of twizzlers, ALL THE BEERS, all the boxes of wine. I mean it. I would start the day fine, but once my kids would lay down for their nap and I started to feel sluggish at 2pm, I'd grab the BAG of twizzlers from the cabinet and go through the entire thing. I used to justify this kind of eating because I worked out REALLY hard, but the truth is, I have gained back a solid 8 pounds and despite how much time I spend working out, the scale won't budge.

Finally, I realized that I need to change the way I'm eating. I know that my affinity for sugar is terrible for my body and I can see that my sugar addiction is being passed on to my kids. As it turns out, I am not good at doing things in moderation. Some people can have a bite of chocolate and feel satisfied. I'll  eat all of the chocolate in my house and then go out and buy more for the next day. SERIOUSLY. So I decided to try a program that does not allow any 'cheats or treats' because like a true addict, even a tiny bit of a treat could send me off the deep end. That's how I ended up choosing 21 Day Fix Extreme. It's a BeachBody program by Autumn Calabrese and since I've had success with a lot of their workout programs, I decided to go for it. She has the original 21 Day Fix, but I chose the Extreme version because the workouts are harder and it's better for someone like me who is already into fitness and exercise but needs to push past a plateau.

 

The idea is that you calculate your calorie bracket (they walk you through this, easy peasy) and then you are allotted a certain amount of proteins, veggies, fruits, grains, healthy fats, nuts/dressings, and oils/nut butters. You're given little color coded containers to help you portion out your food and as long as it fits in the container, you can eat it. Obviously, you can't fill one with twizzlers and call it a day, but they give you recipe ideas and lists of healthy foods to plan your meals.  You also get 2 discs with daily workouts on them which include combinations of cardio, weights, yoga, and pilates.

Sunday I spent a LOT of time planning out my meals for the week. It was kind of tricky to get each day balanced out to include all of the food that I was supposed to eat. Then I went to the grocery store, bought all my supplies and started prepping. I made a few items on Sunday night to keep in my fridge for easy meals, but I mostly will just make things as I go. I am also trying Shakeology for the first time, which I will write about at another time.

Yesterday was my first official day on the program. It went surprisingly well. In fact, the only downfall I had was that I was so full by the end of the day that I didn't get in my last container of veggies. I think today might be better because I know what to expect for the day. The only time I was actually hungry where I could have found myself in a mindset to reach for treat was right before dinner time when I was cooking, but I knew dinner would be ready soon and I was able to push past that.

Even ONE day without processed sugar is a HUGE accomplishment for me. I know that some days are going to be REALLY hard. Especially because Easter falls within the next 21 days and I know I will be strongly tempted by all of the treats around me. However, I'm trying to set myself up for success by focusing on each day at a time. I'm also going to try to document this whole process on here so that I might feel more accountable and hopefully help anyone else who is trying the program. I can't promise to post daily, but I'll at least try to check in regularly.