21 Day Fix - Round 2 - Week 1 Recap

I didn't want to keep documenting my daily 21 Day Fix routine, considering I documented the entire first round, but I did want to recap the week for you.

First of all, everything is easier! Yay! The workouts are getting easier, even Cardio Fix, but I still hate that one!  In fact, I am actually going out shopping this week to bump up my weights. I use 5lbs and 8lbs. I now need 12lbs for some of the workouts, so basically, I'll be switching between 5lb, 8lb, and 12lbs! I cannot believe how fast I needed to bump up my weights. I've definitely been getting stronger and my ability to hold plank is getting better too. I'm able to hold much longer than I could at the beginning of all of this.

Here's my plank:

As for meal planning, it's really starting to become second nature. I'm not struggling to think of what to eat and I'm finding it more natural to eat within the portions given to me. I switched up a lot of my meals this week, which is really daring for me. I usually eat the same boring stuff, but it was fun to try new things!

As for body changes, I'm not losing anymore pounds yet, but I am down another 2 inches! Yipee!! I'm really looking forward to my summer clothes fitting this year!

21 Day Fix Before and After

I have completely finished the 21 Day Fix! I'm pretty impressed with this program. It's kind of amazing the results you can get in 3 weeks. That's hardly any time at all and only 30 minutes a day, plus eating right.

Impressions of the workouts:

1. I love the way Autumn encourages you the entire workout. She pushes just enough, but encourages right along with you.

2. I also love how the countdown ticker is right there at the bottom of the screen. This keeps me motivated!

3. I love, love, love the modifier. Autumn doesn't make you feel guilty for having to modify. This is great because I've done plenty of workouts before where the instructor makes you feel bad for having to modify. I used the modifier a lot the first week, but by week two I was already moving away from some modified moves. You know what though? I still used the modifier during week three and I will probably need to modify this next cycle as well.

4. Bonus rounds! I have never liked bonus rounds on any workout, but Autumn makes them quick and easy and I love that about her instruction.

5. One thing that Autumn says a lot is "you can do anything for one minute." This keeps me going! I keep reminding myself that and it motivates me. This is a good life motivator too!

Impressions of eating:

1. Switching my eating habits was not too bad. I mostly ate well to begin with, but the 21 Day Fix helped me to see that I was way out of control with portions. I loved the containers and found them to be so easy to use and understand. Plus, who doesn't love a whole bunch of fun colors around their kitchen?

2. I thought meal prep was easy and by the time I got to week three, I felt like a pro!

3. Shakeology: I was really hesitant to use Shakeology, mostly because of the price, but I wanted to go all in. I wanted to make sure I got the best possible results, so I went ahead and bought it. I figured if I didn't think it was worth it, then I wouldn't keep buying it for future cycles. Well, I love it. It's like dessert in a cup. I enjoy it the most right after working out and I really feel like it makes a difference. I've gone ahead and ordered another bag for this next cycle.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm sold on this program. It's really great how quick the results are and how there's nothing gimmicky about it. It's just hard work and eating well. I still need to do another cycle or two to get to my goal weight, but for now, I'm really happy with the first 21 Day Fix results.

I lost a total of 4.5lbs and 6.4 inches all over.

So, without further ado, my before and after photos:

21 Day Fix- Day 20 & 21 Weekend Recap

Day 20:

Today was a busy day for me. I was in First-Aid and CPR training from 9:00am-3:00pm. We had to eat lunch out, which was actually pretty easy to fit into my meal plan. I was exhausted at the end of the day and still had to work out when I got home, yuk! I managed to get Dirty 30 in with no problem and then did a modified yoga routine before bed.

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of the Fix!! Woohoo!


Day 21:

Today is the last day of the 21 Day Fix. I MADE IT!!! I did my yoga today and threw in some 10-minute abs for an extra push right here at the end. It was awesome. Today was so beautiful outside that I opened the doors and did my routine with the fresh breeze blowing in. Eating today was pretty normal, although I did have a small sliver of dessert this evening. I already took my measurements and can't wait to post about my before and after.

Stay Tuned!!!

Sorry, no pictures today, how boring! I was so busy this weekend, I didn't snap pictures other than my before and afters, which you'll see soon. :)

21 Day Fix - Day 19 Recap

Today was cardio fix day. I'm not even going to elaborate anymore on cardio fix day, other than to say it's complete.

I ate lunch out today, but did pretty well. I did sneak in one small piece of chocolate after lunch. It was a chocolate egg, about the size of hershey kiss. It was pretty good, but surprisingly sweet. This is pretty normal. When we give up sweets, then have them, they are overwhelmingly sweet sometimes.

I worked out before lunch, but wish I had worked out first thing in the morning. I've got to get back on track with that. For dinner tonight, we had fish, green beans, and salad. It was great! :)

I don't have too much else to say, but am definitely looking forward to the weekend recap. Can you believe I only have 2 days left?? CRAZY!

21 Day Fix - Day 18 Recap

Today was a very busy day for me. I think I'm having a really hard time adjusting to the time change. I have had the worst time getting out of bed! I slept in again this morning, which made me rush all morning long in order to get out the door in time for my daughter's gymnastics class. I squeezed in my workout just before lunch, then I rushed to get dressed, eat lunch, and head out. While we were out, we had to stop at the bank and the grocery store. We ran out of lettuce!! I can't handle not having a salad with my dinner, so I had to get some more ASAP!

After we got home, I had to start on dinner, run a meeting for work, get my daughter to bed, then do homework for my class. I was exhausted. Today was supposed to be a two-a-day, but I didn't make it to the second workout. I was really worn out, so I did a few yoga poses and called it a night. I don't feel bad about that because I did my Pilates workout earlier and I think it's really important to listen to our bodies. I really believe my body needed a break from the two-a-days, plus tomorrow is
CARDIO! I'm screaming with excitement, can't you tell?

I decided today that I would focus on drinking my water. I noticed the past few days I hadn't really been drinking as much water as I should, so today I made that my focus and goal. I'm happy to report I drank all of my water and then some!

Ultimately, today was a good day. It was busy, but I still got in at least one of my workouts, I ate well, and I drank all of my water. I'd say success. It's crazy to think I only have 3 days left on this program. I can't wait to compare my before an after!

Sorry I didn't have any pictures from today, but at least you get to see my cute water bottle, monogram and all!

21 Day Fix - Day 17 Recap

It happened. I hit a slump today. I felt so unmotivated to workout. I kept putting it off and putting it off, until it was close to 4pm and I knew I had to get my workout in ASAP because we had to go to church at 7pm. I watched the clock and 4pm rolled around and rolled away. I finally worked out at 4:30pm and I was dreading it the entire time. In fact, I kept checking my phone and work to see if something had come in that needed my attention right away, but of course, nothing did, so at 4:34pm I turned on the DVD.

Today was leg day. You'd think I'd be happy about that, but these two-a-days are getting the best of me. I still felt worn from the cardio fix last night. I finally just decided to suck it up and do it. I slugged through the workout. I mean, honestly, my muscles felt so heavy. I wasn't even sure I was going to finish. It felt so hard working out at 4:30pm. I kept pushing though and it hurt more than usual. There is definitely a brain/body connection because I felt unmotivated and my muscles didn't want to work as hard as a result. The good news is though, that I got through the workout and not only did I get through it, I didn't use the modifier at all, even though I felt like being lazy.

These kind of days happen and I wanted to be real about it because it happens to all of us. We will all hit that wall of feeling unmotivated, but we have to push through it and we will see the results of our labor when we do. After I was done working out, I actually started to feel a lot better. My mood literally changed within 30 minutes of working out. I felt happier, more focused, and noticed a slight pep in my step. I felt so good that when we got home from church, I did my second workout for the day. It helped that it was only 10 minutes (10-Minute abs), but still, I did it and I felt motivated while doing it.

It's OK to feel unmotivated. It's OK when we have slump days. It's OK when we mess up a little on eating, but what's not OK is quitting. When slump days happen, we have to push through them, because the next day we probably won't feel that way. I don't want to be an "I wish" girl anymore, I want to be an "I will" girl and I want to stay that way.

21 Day Fix - Day 16 Recap

Well, well, well, would you look at that, day 16! I have never, in the history of my life, worked out for 16 days in a row. Happy Sweet 16 to me!! Woohoo! This is pretty amazing!

Today I stuck to my meal plan exactly! I did not nibble like I did the other day and I spaced out all of my meals evenly. It's easy to feel overconfident when we're on eating plans, but that overconfidence is what leads to poor choices, like "little bites" here and there. Those little bites add up and I paid the consequence for that on the scale. Today I'm back in the saddle!

I also had two-a-days again today. This morning was upper fix. Easy, peasy! I love upper fix. It's challenging and fun and my arms are the area I really want to change, so I feel super motivated on arms day. I got through the workout fine, but I was dreading tonight.

Tonight was...wait for it... CARDIO FIX! Yes, I'm yelling, because that's how I feel when I do cardio fix. I feel like yelling and I do most of the way through. You know I'm crazy when I choose to do cardio fix as a second workout in the middle of the week. What is wrong with me? Needless to say, I made it through. Not only did I make it through, I actually didn't use the modifier for some of the sequences. I give myself a big thumbs up for that! I still look like a fool doing cardio, but that's just the nature of the beast I guess and at least I'm doing it!

For your viewing pleasure and my embarrassment, I've posted a video for you to see me attempt to do burpees. I'm struggling, as you can see, but I'm not giving up and one day I will be able to do this perfectly well! :)

21 Day Fix - Day 15 Recap

Two-a-days! I used to coach cheerleading. I loved it, coaching was awesome, but I worked my girls hard. Truth be told, I worked them a lot harder physically than I worked myself. In hindsight, it probably would have been beneficial if I had worked myself just as hard physically to set the example, but oh well. This really has nothing to do with what I was going to say. One of the things the girls hated when I coached was when I called for two-a-days. The girls were required to attend two practices in the same day. These mostly occurred during summer training and were intense cardio/strength training workouts. Now, I'm facing my own two-a-days and I was kind of dreading it myself! Much to my surprise, I did two workouts and they weren't that bad.

I woke up this morning, had breakfast, then headed upstairs to do my workout. Today was Cardio Fix Total Body. I noticed I was able to last a little longer on the skiing move, which was definite progress and I was able to get through majority of the workout without having to stop for extra breaths. Yay, progress! Mondays are insanely busy, so today was crazy trying to get everything done and figure out when I could squeeze in my extra workout. I finally squeezed in my extra workout at 12:30am. Yes, you read that correctly, I worked out at 12:30am. I do not suggest doing this! For my second workout, I did the Pilates Fix. The crazy thing is that even though I worked out at 12:30am, I felt a lot stronger. I was tearing through those Pilates moves and it felt good. I didn't even have to modify the plank moves, like I usually do. I can actually tell my muscles are getting stronger!

Eating was not very good today. First, I didn't plan for today like I usually do. This ultimately led to a pretty rough day of just picking up little things and putting them in my mouth without much thought. Bad habits are so hard to break!! I'm not going to beat myself up about it, I'm going to move forward. The past is the past! No regrets, no living in the past.

Tomorrow is upper fix day and then I plan to do cardio fix in the evening. Ugh, cardio fix! Maybe I'll like it better in the evening? Right? That's possible?

So, here's to my first two-a-day workout! Looking forward to next Sunday as I wrap up my first cycle of the 21 Day Fix!

21 Day Fix - Day 13 and Day 14 - (Weekend Recap)

Day 13:  I went out of town this weekend. I was really worried about this because I wasn't sure how it would affect my workouts and eating. Today, Saturday, everything went well. I woke up and got in my Dirty 30 workout quickly. We went out to lunch and I thought I had ordered something healthy, but instead they brought me chicken salad. Grr... I decided to eat half of it and move on. I thought it was a grilled chicken sandwich, but it was a chicken salad sandwich instead. Apparently chicken topped with chutney means chicken salad, not grilled chicken. It was however, delicious, but not what I thought I ordered. I managed to stay on track for eating the rest of the day. I wasn't really hungry much at all today, so that helped balance out the chicken salad. For dinner tonight I had salad and greens and baked chicken. Tonight is Day Light Savings, so we'll see how I feel tomorrow in terms of waking up early.

Here's a funny for the day, I totally picked up the serving fork and didn't notice until I sat down to eat my dinner. Tell me you've never done that before! It was pretty funny.

Day 14: Umm... I might have woken up at 11:45am today. What??!?! An advantage to visiting your parents is that when your kid wakes up, you still get to sleep. :) YIPPEEE! Sleeping was fun, but then the rest of the day I felt unmotivated. I finally dragged myself to the DVD player and popped in Yoga Fix. You know I'm being lazy if I don't even feel like doing Yoga Fix. After I worked out, I felt so much better. Eating was great today, no temptations and full control over all the foods that were around versus yesterday's issue with the chicken salad.

Overall, it was a pretty successful weekend out of town. Tomorrow is double up workout time. I'm not so crazy about that, but it's only for 1 week, so I'm hoping I can knock it out! :)

21 Day Fix - Day 12 Recap

Today was Cardio Fix day. Do I need to say more? Here's what it looked like:

I was exhausted! I noticed that I was able to last a bit longer for each round before switching to the modifier, so that was good. I also realized how glad I am that this workout is on Friday, because once it's over, I have the weekend!! 

Nothing crazy for eating today. Normal stuff, wasn't that hungry, super satisfied with moving Shakeology to afternoon snack. I'm actually leaving to go out of town this weekend, so I'm a bit nervous about how that will impact me, but I'm prepared. I have tried to plan out my meals for most of the weekend, so hopefully I can stay on track. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll update you as to how it is doing the 21 Day Fix while being out of town! 

21 Day Fix - Day 11 Recap

Today was Pilates day. Pilates is really tough. I'm not sure I like it that much, but I could see a major difference in my strength between last week and this week. I was able to hold the plank position for the entire time this time. I was shaking, but I did it! Out of all the workouts, I feel like Pilates goes by the slowest. It does work my lower body really well though and I feel great afterward, but I have a difficult time getting through the workouts sometimes. At least there is no cardio in Pilates, so that helps!

Today I had eggs and waffle for breakfast, fruit for a snack, ground turkey and veggies for lunch, Shakeology for snack, meatloaf and veggies for dinner and a handful of popcorn for an evening snack. I was pretty full all day. I really think moving my Shakeology to a snack as opposed to breakfast made all the difference in my hunger and cravings. Love my Shakeology!

I'm officially down 5lbs today and I can tell I'm down some inches too. I haven't measured yet, though. I'm going to wait and measure at the end of the 21 days. I can't believe I'm halfway there. It's amazing, I can already see major body changes. I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow because I don't like cardio, but I'm betting that I will be able to get through it better tomorrow than I did last week, which means I'm progressing and that's all that matters!

Here's a picture of me doing the lower fix yesterday!

21 Day Fix - Day 10 Recap

Because yesterday was so emotionally draining, I thought I'd sleep in this morning. At the time, this felt like a good idea and really it was, but then it messed up my entire day in terms of exercising and eating. I like to do my workouts first thing in the morning, so that it's done and over with, but today I couldn't because I needed to get my daughter's breakfast, get dinner in the crockpot, log into work, wash the dishes, etc. One thing led to another and I didn't workout until 4:00pm! My meals were all at different times of the day, which was fine, but remember I'm a creature of habit, so this really threw me off! 

Today was lower fix again. I really like the lower fix, but I pushed myself more this time than I did

This is what the grocery store looked like on Monday.
Doesn't it look amazing? 

last time and now I'm pretty sore! I'm really starting to see a difference in my abilities and an increase in my strength.  

I never posted last week about my meals. I forgot, my apologies. I basically had Shakeology for breakfast, fruit for snack, lunch was turkey burgers and broccoli, greek yogurt for snack, chicken and veggies for dinner/ pork and veggies for dinner. I had some trouble with getting overly hungry, so this week I decided to move my Shakeology from breakfast to a snack and that seemed to solve the problem. I have not been struggling with hunger this week. We grocery shop on Mondays, so I usually just find stuff around the house on the weekend to fit my containers. I would not suggest this approach if food is an area you struggle with, but we were already eating healthy before this program, so I feel comfortable with finding things around the house to work in my meal plans for the weekends. 

I'm really loving this program and today I was just thinking about how it is the perfect, "intro back into working out" program. I love how easy it was to start working out again and how easy it was to get my nutrition back on track! I really cannot wait until Day 21 to see my full results! 

21 Day Fix - Day 9 Recap

Today was a rough day for me, not because of the 21 Day Fix, but because I got sad news that my undergraduate college is closing. This is a very sad moment in my life. I went to a small women's liberal arts school, where we all felt like sisters. It has felt so unbelievably sad all day and I've been going through the phases of grief from sadness to anger back and forth all day. If you never attended a small school like this, it would be hard for you to understand, but know it was an emotionally draining day.

Although, I am very sad about this, I learned something about myself today that I think was a huge personal moment. Today was the first time that I was emotionally upset about something and I didn't immediately turn to food for comfort. This, folks, is B-I-G! The 21 Day Fix has taught me so much about nutrition, taking care of my body, and not losing sight of what's important. Turning to food never even crossed my mind. This is really a huge moment for me and if you are the type that struggles with emotional eating, you understand what I mean! Progress, people, progress!

Today was upper fix again. This time I used the 5lb weights as my light weights and the 8lb weights as my heavy weights. This was fine for me and I honestly should have done that last week. I felt great after the workout and my arms are still burning a bit this evening! I really love the strength training workouts a lot.

Eating today was really off. Like I said, I didn't turn to food for emotional support, but honestly, I didn't turn to food much at all. I ended up having to squeeze in all my stuff that I missed throughout the day toward the end of the day, which was fine, but it would have been more beneficial had I eaten every 2-3 hours. Either way, the victory of not emotionally eating was there!

Tomorrow is lower fix. I'm hoping that I can workout some of this emotion tomorrow with exercise!

I'll leave you with this beautiful picture of my college to give you a slight glimpse of my heart.

21 Day Fix - Day 8 Recap

Mondays are the worst! No, really, my Mondays are so hectic I cannot even remember what happens. Here's what my Monday looks like: Get up, exercise, eat breakfast, play with daughter, shower, eat lunch, take daughter to violin, go to the grocery store, come home, unload groceries, scarf down dinner, go to my online graduate class, get daughter to bed late, read Bible with husband, go online, go to bed. It's all day, non-stop. I've always been so worn down by Mondays, but today was a bit different. I was still tired by the end of the day, but I had so much more energy!

I really believe working out, drinking my Shakeology, and eating well is making a huge difference in my life. I am feeling all kinds of awesome! Today was Cardio Fix Total Body, which is different than the regular Cardio Fix that I hardly got through on Day 5! Today's was tough because I really do struggle with cardio, but there was a bit of strength training thrown in as well, so that helped a lot. I noticed a difference in how I preformed on Day 1 versus how I performed today. My energy level was much higher and I only used the modifier for half of the ski jumping move. On Day 1, I used the modifier the entire time. It's not about perfection, it's about progress, which I'm making, so I'm proud of myself even when I use the modifier!

I posted this picture on my Facebook page today:

I think about how far I've come in only a week and I felt the truth behind this quote. I kept telling myself, "I wish I looked like that" or "I wish I could just lose 10 lbs" or various other "I wish" statements, but the reality is I didn't want to put in the work to get there. I finally decided that I wasn't going to be an "I wish" kind of girl anymore, I was going to be an "I WILL" and here I am, living out my "I Will" statement! 

Are you ready to be an "I WILL?" 

21 Day Fix - Day 6 and Day 7 (Weekend Recap)

Day 6: Today was Dirty 30. I had no idea what that was and honestly, I still don't really get it. Maybe that's a pop cultural thing, or maybe it's just clever because it rhymes? Anyway, I liked this workout a lot. I really liked the lower fix and Dirty 30 is right behind that in terms of what has been my favorite so far. It was much better than that disaster I faced on Day 5. Today I got my rhythm back and felt like I was really working it!

Eating was a bit challenging today. We were invited to dinner at a friend's house and  I didn't want to be rude by asking what was for dinner, so I just brought a salad for everyone to ensure I got some veggies and then ate what they had prepared. It was a little heavy on the carbs because I already used my yellow containers, but that's OK! Building relationships with people is much more important than one off meal. Instead of worrying about it, I just decided ahead of time that when I got home tonight I'd do the 10 minute abs fix. Umm... HELLO!! That was insane. I was thinking 10 minutes of abs would be doable, but wow, my abs were burning! It did go by pretty quickly, but they were on fire!

Tomorrow is Yoga Fix, the day I've been waiting for!!! Yay! I love yoga. Can't wait to enjoy my active recovery day.


Day 7: Today was Yoga Fix!! Yay! It was just as great as I had imagined. There I was doing yoga next to the fire place and stretching out all of my muscles from the week and I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe I completed an entire week of working out!" It felt pretty amazing and is probably one of the biggest fitness goals I've reached in a long time. I can't even remember the last time I truly worked out seven days in a row. This is big! Seriously, if I can do this, I honestly feel like anyone can. I am the queen of making excuses as to why I can't exercise, but I'm done with that now and I'm ready to commit my life to being healthy. I'm really looking forward to this second week.

Eating was fairly normal today, but I did eat a very small sliver of chocolate cake tonight and I didn't feel bad. I knew ahead of time that my mother-in-law was going to have it, so I planned accordingly and I told myself that I was going to have a slice and it would be small and I would not hate myself afterward. You know what? I did eat the cake, it was good, and I don't feel guilty about it. I still feel healthy and I know that I will still continue to eat healthy as I enter this next week. Eating sweets isn't a terrible thing, it's only terrible if that's what we do everyday.

Finally, I thought I'd share some progress results:

1. I have more energy than I had prior to starting the 21 Day Fix

2. I honestly just feel healthy.

3. I didn't really "get" what Shakeology was all about and why the price was so high, but after drinking it for a week, I get it now. It taste amazing, it honestly gives me more energy, and I have noticed a significant difference in blemishes on my face. I believe that the nutrients in the shake has helped clear my skin a lot! I also contribute that to the added greens I've been eating as well.

4. Not only am I seeing definition in my muscles, (remember this?) but I have also lost a total of 4.5lbs in only 7 days! AMAZING!!

I'm really happy with my results so far. I love this program and I love my challenge group. Those girls are so awesome with helping me stay on track, keeping me motivated, and encouraging me along the way. I don't think I could do this without my challenge group ladies and of course my coach!

Here's to the second week and even more results!