After hours of staring longingly into my fridge and even more hours of debating when we were really actually going to start the eating plan, I am excited to announce that my husband and I have completed the first week of the 21 Day Fix!
*cue round of applause*
Let me tell you something, people–it was no walk in the park.
The (almost) first day we very diligently portioned everything out in our little colorful containers and went without sugar for an entire day. That evening, my husband had to go back into work and we didn’t have time to do the workout together, and as I sat at home alone, I texted my husband about my ice cream craving. He very wisely pointed out that since we hadn’t been able to do the workout, we should start the 21 Day Fix the next day. In my defense, I protested. Then I realized that if we didn’t start until the next day, I could eat ice cream!
And I am ashamed to admit that I agreed. I then proceeded to clean out a tub of ice cream (it was almost empty already) in my last hurrah to freedom.
Thankfully, the next day went better.
As soon as Hubby came home from work, we did our workout and ate our healthy dinner. Then we hopped in the car to head to Target, which was our next mistake. Target is exploding out the wazoo with all sorts of candy, and with Halloween coming up everything is on super sale forever. I swear I could audibly hear the York mints calling my name. York mints are my kryptonite, and I bought some–this was not my mistake, however, as the York mints are sitting unopened in my pantry where they will stay until we are done. The mistake was lingering in one of the six candy aisles, which prompted literally an hour-long debate about why we actually needed to start the 21 Day Fix tomorrow because we hadn’t had a junk food binge night in forever and it was necessary for the success of our marriage.
I won. We left Target candy-less and sad. But really, we were victorious! Day 1 of the 21 Day Fix down, only 20 more to go.
Day 2 felt easier, day 3 easier still, and by day 8 we have settled into a routine. I prepare Hubby’s breakfast and lunch for the next day in the afternoon. Hubby comes home and we work out. We make our healthy dinner together. We eat our healthy dinner together. We sit and pretend there aren’t four unfinished tubs of ice cream in our freezer while we eat our pineapple and drink our tea. Then we wake up the next morning trying to ignore the ways our extremities feel like dead weight and we do it all over again.
But I don’t crave sugar anymore. Do I still want sugar? Of course, and I am quite certain that will never change. I don’t crave it anymore though–if I want something sweet I eat a date rolled in coconut and I’m happy. One bite of a coconut oil chocolate satisfies me. This quelling of cravings is perhaps the most successful part of the 21 Day Fix thus far. I feel healthier, stronger, and leaner, which are all great, but my biggest problem has always been my craving for sugar. There have been many times when I’ve kicked it, but I’ve always fallen back into it. I believe even sugar in moderation is fine, but sugar becomes a big problem fast, not to mention buying processed, sugary foods is expensive. This eating plan is helping our family immensely.
Now let’s talk about the workouts.
I am a big time fitness junkie. Once upon a time, I worked as a Muay Thai and fitness instructor and training seven hours a day. Even though I haven’t maintained that level of fitness, I am pretty proud of the way I’ve managed to stay in shape, even after a miserable pregnancy and then delivering my son. I started lifting weights again three months postpartum and was able to get back into it quickly and relatively painlessly.
Let me tell you, I find these workouts hard.
They are timed exercises, so you can do as much or as a little as you need to, making it flexible to accommodate everyone’s fitness needs. My husband is a big time weight lifter and he is also into body building. He is ridiculously strong and I am not joking, his biceps are the same size as my head, which is both terrifying and freakishly impressive.
Hubby also finds these workouts hard, which is a total understatement–he finds these workouts exhausting. Granted, he can bench like 300lbs and squat almost 400lbs which is ridiculous, so he is not in any way out of shape, but he doesn’t do low weight/high rep workouts, and this is a totally different type of fitness for him. I think the workouts are great because fitness is more than just how much a person can lift, and these are really rounding him out.
Yesterday, we had a chance to preview the new Beachbody program, Core de Force. It is 30 days of no equipment, MMA-based workouts and as a former Muay Thai fighter I was stoked out of my brains!
Personally, I didn’t find it that challenging. Like the 21 Day Fix, it’s a time based workout and I took the wrong approach–I went into it training to fight rather than just trying to get fit. That means instead of focusing on speed, I focused on form, and the workout just wasn’t created to train people to fight. While focusing on my form I sacrificed speed, and with the combos they gave us, I couldn’t focus on form and speed long enough to get an intense workout in. Muay Thai is incredibly exhausting and a workout that trains you to fight will focus on form and speed in different ways–this just wasn’t that workout.
I do have to say though that half an hour preview was so much fun. I still got in a good workout and it was still hard, it just wasn’t as hard as the fighter training I’m used to and that shouldn’t have come as a surprise seeing the majority of people doing the Core de Force workouts will not be trained fighters. I really enjoyed doing MMA based moves and when Core de Force comes out I will certainly go for it!
Stay tuned, y’all. We still have two weeks to go!