Sunday, January 28, 2018

My Honest Experience with the 21 Day Fix

A few weeks ago, I embarked on the 21 Day Fix which I mentioned a little more about in this post. I'm sharing my results with full transparency how well I followed the plan and without any pictures LOL. I'm just not ready for pictures of my body on the internet... maybe one day.

So first up, why did I decide to do this? 

Last year, I got really into consistent workouts and tried loosely following the Tone It Up meal plan. But, I found the meal plan hard to follow many times because it used a lot of obscure ingredients that I either don't like or don't want to pay for. I stuck to the general guidelines though of no fruit or carbs after lunch. But, once my trip to Chicago happened in November and work got really insane, I fell off the wagon with both eating and working out. I think I went to the grocery store twice in December and once was literally to get baking supplies for Christmas treats... 
I was due for a reset to get back on the track I was on. I truly believe that it HAS to be a lifestyle change and can't be overly restrictive (see ya never, Whole 30). A friend of mine is a Beachbody coach and has seen some great results post baby in the last few months and she had me a little intrigued - especially about the shakes she was drinking. So, on New Years Day, we ordered the containers and Shakeology! 

And how restrictive is the plan? 

It's really not! Truly. I mentally can't do a diet that restricts me because I will spend every day thinking about brownies and Arby's and Cracker Barrel chicken and dumplings and chili cheese dogs and... well, you get it. I needed something that had me feel like I had variety and control over my life. 

Based on your weight, you need to eat a certain amount of calories and you get assigned your portions. For me, I need 4 red, 3 green, 2 purple, 2 yellow, 1 blue, 1 orange and 2 teaspoons. 

It just sounded like another language, right? Red = protein, green = veggies, yellow = carbs, blue = healthy fats, orange = nuts and dressings, teaspoons = nut butters and oils. After the first week, I was speaking container language and fully weirding people out at work. The hardest part for me was only ONE blue container a day (it's a small container!) because I LOVE cheese and avocado which both fall under this category. 

One other way this feels less restrictive is that 3 times per week you can swap out a yellow container for a treat! Whether that be wine, a cookie or a bowl of ice cream - you can have it! There are definitely "healthier" ways to do that but the one night I did it, I had a regular ole brownie. 

Okay, so how well did I actually do? 

In my meal planning post last week, I talked about how I handled day 2... I'll give you a hint: NOT WELL. After that, I was much more diligent on my meal prep and having everything ready to go which truly made all the difference in staying on track. Without the prep, I would have never been able to get through all 21 days. 

That being said, we definitely had a few cheats. On the snow day, we had Chick fil A because.. well, literally just because it was a snow day and we felt like it. And later that week, our friends had us over for Chinese to break in their new kitchen (which is a tradition since we moved into our house) and we were not turning that down - I love Chinese! 
I mean, look how happy we are post waffle fries!
Another night I was stuck at work and just didn't want to cook and Christian hadn't done the dishes I needed to cook with (yes, I don't do dishes - it's awesome) and we both wanted Moe's. We definitely could've cheated harder so it was a half lose. We went out for Mexican one Friday night and then this past Saturday we went out for Queens Feast and didn't hold back. 

All in all, we definitely could've done better since it was only 21 days but we also had a really rough few weeks with work and being super busy so I think we did relatively well. We've decided to keep it up at least through our Disney trip in a couple of weeks! 

But, what it's not just eating! 

The Fix comes with certain workouts from Beachbody but I didn't purchase the workouts - only the Shakeology and containers. I started Kayla Itsine's Bikini Body workouts the same day. This is a 12 week challenge so I still have a ways to go before I share my results with BBG! 

Alright, and did I lose any weight? 

I did! I lost about 5/6 pounds. I add the almost 6 pounds because Queens Feast was the night before the last weigh in LOL. And prior to that, I was down 6 pounds. But I mean... worth it: 
Even more exciting, though, is the inches I lost! I didn't get to measure until I was almost 10 days into the Fix because my measuring tape was missing. But I found it and measured on 1/18 and did my results measures yesterday and lost..................................... 4.25 inches!! 

In the last week, I noticed that I was less bloated in my belly area and things were fitting a lot better so it was great to see that I really was losing inches. That's honestly more important than the scale anyways since muscles weighs more than fat! 

I'm honestly so glad we did the Fix because it changed the way I look at portions and how much my body needs. I also had one cup of coffee the entire time and limited my Coke drastically and survived. So, clearly, I can live without those things and should treat them like a treat instead of "needing" the caffeine to survive - I can make it just fine. 

If there's any interest, I'll probably share some of my favorite Fix approved recipes this week that Christian even asked me to make again!

Linking up with Biana today! 

1 comment:

BLovedBoston said...

I think it's great you've had such wonderful results with it!! xo, Biana -BlovedBoston