The 21 Day Fix

The 21 Day Fix

Yesterday marked Day #1 of my 21 Day Fix. I have to admit that I wasn't very well prepared. I didn't even really read the meal plan until yesterday morning. Nevertheless, I was able to follow it from what we had already at home. 

Food

Here's what a day of eating looked like:

Meal 1: steel cut oats with strawberries

Snack: banana

Meal #2: chocolate Shakeology w/ coffee

Snack: cashews

Meal 3: Chicken Breast topped with red roasted peppers, spinach, and mozzarella cheese with a side of green beans

*Note: I did not eat all the food that I was allowed. I could have eaten one more purple container, one more green container, two more red containers, two more yellow containers, and 2 more teaspoons.

Allow me to briefly explain how this works. Each container corresponds to a food group.

Purple - Fruits

Green - Vegetables

Red - Proteins

Yellow - Starches
Blue - Cheese/Nuts/Avocado
Orange - Seeds/Dressings
Teaspoons - healthy oils (olive oil, for example), nut butters (almond butter, for example), and seed butters (pumpkin butter, for example)

There's a simple formula, based on your weight, that tells you how many of each container you can eat daily. I love this!! I am retraining my brain to know what a portion looks like! I have also realized that I don't eat nearly enough protein during the day.

For my weight loss goals (and adding in 400 extra calories for breastfeeding), I am allowed 3 purples, 5 greens, 5 reds, 4 yellows, 1 blue, 1 orange, and 5 teaspoons.

Exercise 

The 21 Day Fix also comes with exercise DVDs. Each DVD is only 30 minutes. Yesterday, I did the "Total Body Cardio Fix." 

This, paired with the fact that I sucked it up at volleyball on Saturday, helped me come to an important realization. I am in bad shape. The worst. Worse than probably ever before in my life. As I did the 30 minute workout, I was struggling. Struggling hard. I even did the low modification and still was dying. There were a few times that I couldn't even keep up with the low mod girl! Gone are the days of Melissa and I doing the highest possible intensity modifications at Zumba, jumping and hopping around to make it more difficult than even the instructor would do sometimes. *sigh*

Then I hear Autumn Calabrese say to keep moving, no matter what intensity level you are working at. It makes me think of something I've read before...

I am not exaggerating when I tell you this. I finished my low mod, fat girl version of the first 21DF workout. I walked out of my bedroom and when I stepped down on the first stair heading toward the living room, I thought my legs were going to collapse. They felt like jelly and were barely holding me up. I had to hold on to the railing. It was sad. It was pitiful. This workout would have been a breeze for me a year ago. Not anymore. I am determined to get back to that place where I would have done the highest intensity version of the workout. I want to be able to do that again. I will be able to do that again. It will just take time. In the meantime, as my whole body aches and struggles to move around today, I'll remember...