Today is day 22 and both my husband and I have yet to break the eating program. He had Shakeology for breakfast and I had cottage cheese and a cup of tea–we don’t have tons of junk in the house but we have some hidden high in a cupboard and even though I know it would taste good I don’t really want it. It has been three weeks since I’ve tasted this stuff and I’m amazingly not really interested anymore. Seriously, this is amazing. I love sugar. Baked goods are my kryptonite. I can eat them again…and yet I am not. Here you have a look back on our week, our progress, and our success!

Day 15: For some reason this afternoon as I was trying to do my workout, my son decided that he was far more important and screamed bloody murder until I picked him up from his swing of torture and doom. It was a rough day for that kid. Perhaps he was struggling with issues of insecurity because every time I put him down it sounded like he was dying. I ate dark chocolate as one of my cheat containers because after a day like this one chocolate was essential to both my happiness and my sanity. Also: chicken and kale stuffed acorn squash–a-ma-zing. I could survive solely off squash and live perfectly happily.

Day 16: It’s cold. I’m sore. My hands are so numb I can hardly type this blog post. Also, I’m sleepy–you see, I’m trying this thing where I wake up before 10am because apparently it’s not only normal but it greatly increases productivity and time available to work on my businesses. To that I say this: I am a mom. Moms do not sleep. My baby sleeps in until 10am. Why on earth would I not sleep in? The more I type, the more I question the logic of setting an alarm if I don’t have to. All that is to say that I am not feeling a workout today, let alone two workouts because it’s the last week and I have that option to see greater results. Choices, choices. Update: Workout #1 and #2 finished. I don’t know what was up today but my body felt so tired. At the end, Autumn reminded us how important it is to fuel our bodies after our workouts. Drink Shakeology, she said. (Yes, yes, yes!!) I’m going to have the strawberry flavor, she said. Maybe throw a little banana in there for some fun. Fun?! Brownies are fun. Lemon lavender cookies are fun. Mac and cheese is fun. Healthy cherry peach tarts are fun. Bananas are sad people fun…      …But really, y’all–drink your Shakeology.

Day 17: Someone (me) decided to stay up until after 3:00am last night watching the election and then someone else (the baby) decided to wake up at 6:30 to eat. That led to a long nap and basically my whole schedule for the day was off, but at least working out gave it some normality. It was lower body day which always excites me because as much as I love cardio after it’s over, I am not a big fan of it during the fact. We went on another date for dinner–this time to Chilis–and we were both responsible and sad. Just kidding! Our meals were delicious–but maybe not quite as delicious as the honey chipotle chicken crispers we were eying.

Day 18: It’s amazing to look at the progress we’ve made through two rounds of 21 Day Fix. The first time we ever did the Pilates workout, my glutes wanted to give up and die. Seriously, y’all–it was painful! This time around, we smiled. We laughed. My husband still did a lot of grimacing and made faces like–okay, we won’t even go there–but really the workout was enjoyable. It definitely was not easy; the strength we’ve gaining though is astounding. For lunch we hit up a Mongolian grill in Wilmington and because we were able to choose all our own ingredients and sauces we had control over the entire process and that made sticking to our eating plan a breeze. After lunch, we decided that because of the long weekend it would be a perfect opportunity to go visit our best friends in Georgia–work and other plans mean that if we don’t go this weekend it will be weeks before we can go again and they are our best friends who we haven’t seen since August. However, we also know that traveling will make the 21 Day Fix extremely difficult. Not being in our house, we can do the best we can but we really have no control over what we eat and sticking to the eating plan is such a crucial step to seeing results. We debated for long time but our best friends take priority over sticking to a program. We only have three days left and we are going to do our very best.

Day 19: Mornings are too cold to be awake. My hands were so cold this morning I couldn’t even type, and that was literally the only motivation I had to work out–I wanted to feel warm. Also, I wanted to get my body moving before a five hour car trip to Georgia to visit our friends. Today was Veteran’s Day, and as we drove past Krispy Kreme we were dying to stop for that free donut. My husband knew I would fight him for half a second and then sadly admit defeat, so being the man that he is, he drove right past without looking back. We ended up stopping at Buffalo Wild Wings and saying no to the fries and ordering salads instead. For dinner, we made good choices at Applebee’s and frankly, after eating out for most of the day, it was impressive we had stuck to our program. The issue with restaurants, however, is that even if you order vegetables and lean protein and ask for the dressing on the side you still can’t control what goes into the food. We did our best, anyway.

Day 20: I was so extremely proud of my husband today for walking into a Philly cheese steak sandwich shop for breakfast with his best friend and walking out with nothing. I don’t even know if I could have done that–that man has willpower! We ate a breakfast we had packed instead and it wasn’t a cheese steak sandwich but it was pretty darn good. We continued to eat out for the rest of the day and did our best again at McAlister’s Deli and a BBQ place my friend owns in Columbia. Yes, it is possible to eat healthy at a BBQ–ask them to leave off the bread, order vegetable sides, and say no to anything fried.

Day 21: I construed this great plan where we were going to spend all evening baking all the delicious desserts we’ve been dreaming about the last 21 days and then when the clock struck midnight we were going to eat them all, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized we didn’t even want all that sugar. One or two pieces of fudge or a brownie would have tasted amazing but then we would be left with all that junk in the house and we would either eat it or waste it. Instead, my husband made the delicious Greek-yogurt pumpkin pancakes you see at the top and we had healthy loaded-with-veges whole wheat flat bread pizza for dinner and for the rest of the night we felt great.

Portion control and whole foods and exercise and no sugar have become a lifestyle for us. One thing that I love so much about Beachbody is that we aren’t simply sharing a product, we are sharing a lifestyle, and not just any lifestyle–a lifestyle of health and wellness. How amazing is that??? One of my mentors who I love and respect immensely is encouraging me to choose just one business and focus on that but I am so passionate about a holistic lifestyle of wellness and that is eating right and exercising and all natural living through essential oils. Both have changed my life and I love the ladies I work with and God has given me both these businesses so even if it’s harder to focus on two, I’m going to do what I love. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing our results from this program and I am beyond excited! Stay tuned!