This blog is about eating, drinking, and watching movies (which I admit is a sedentary activity) because these are my hobbies. The problem with hobbies like these is that your weight can get a little out of control if you aren’t careful to moderate where you can. If you are reading this you probably have similar interests, I wanted to share my experience in the off chance it inspires someone else to commit or recommit to their fitness so they can continue to enjoy their hobbies, but stay happy and healthy at the same time.
I do a pretty good job of staying active and for the most part eat pretty clean, but awhile back I was in a rut. I was doing the [easyazon_image align=”none” height=”500″ identifier=”B01IQECFRW” locale=”US” nw=”y” src=”http://www.backyardmovies.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/51Lx0bp0brL.jpg” tag=”backyardmov05-20″ width=”500″]same exercises and didn’t seem to be making progress and my weight was ticking up slowly, plus I didn’t like the way I looked. I decided to do something to jumpstart my fitness again, so in that gap between Halloween and Thanksgiving my wife and I embarked on the 21 Day Fix.
The 21 Day what?
The 21 Day Fix is a diet and exercise program designed to get you results in 3 weeks, through portion control and exercise. The program’s designer and instructor is Summer Calabrese, a champion fitness competitor. The program is a Beachbody product, Beachbody is the team that brought fitness programs like P-90X and Insanity to the market.
The program can be purchased from Amazon here. The program comes with the workouts on standard DVDs, a program guide (workout calendar, suggested recipes, food log, etc.), and a set of small colorful Tupperware for the diet portion. All in all, I thought the packing was well thought out and the contents were of a pretty high quality.
The Diet:
The diet is based on your current weight and target weight. You get color coded containers that represent a proper portion size for each type of food (Proteins, Carbs, Vegetables, Fruits, Seeds, Oils). You are allocated a certain number of containers of each type of food each day (i.e. 4 – Proteins, 2 – Carbs, 3 – Vegetables, etc.). So yes, you do have to measure out your food, but you don’t have to count calories, the math is already done for you. My wife and I would measure the food with the containers, then pack it into separate non-21 Day fix containers so that we could share the set. A few things I would like to point out about the diet.
First, all in all it was actually pretty easy to stick to, we were a bit Hangry the first week, but by the end of the week it was nice to be legitimately hungry in between meals. While, the diet recommends six small meals a day, I preferred to eat a light breakfast, a hefty salad for lunch, which saved up a lot of my servings for a large dinner. I was much happier when I left dinner feeling satiated.
Second, I realized that my weight gain wasn’t as much a function of WHAT I was eating, but HOW MUCH of it I was eating. While doing this diet you realize your perception of a proper portion has become pretty distorted over the years. This diet really helped reframe proper portions in my head.
Finally, you aren’t really depriving yourself of anything in this diet. You are cutting out sugars, sweets, etc. but you aren’t cutting out any nutritional building blocks which creates shocks to the system. You can drink with this diet, but it is going to cost you a carb serving, so it makes you really consider what you are going to eat, because there will be a trade off. Honestly, you get to eat a lot of food, there were even some days where I didn’t eat all the allocated food because I wasn’t that hungry.
The Workouts:
Each workout is approximately 30 minutes long, which made it easier to fit into our busy lifestyle. You will workout every day for 3 weeks.
The workouts do require two lights sets of dumbbells or exercise bands. These workouts are pretty high rep, so you will need much lighter weights than your ego will tell you! It was a little shocking to see myself sweating so much while pumping these tiny little weights. I would also recommend a yoga mat.
I am not going to review each of the seven workouts, but throughout the week you will work out every part of your body during the 5 days of strength/cardio workouts and then you will stretch and lengthen on the 2 active recovery days (working out/moving without stressing the body i.e. Yoga and Pilates). The yoga workout was really enjoyable and the pilates workout was straight up hard. The good news is that the workouts are very accessible to a whole range of fitness levels and the videos have modifications for each exercise.
The truth is that three straight weeks of working out gets to be a little tedious, but the workouts are quick and effective. I was sore the first week or so and I felt like they forced me to do exercises that I would normally ignore, thus improving my overall fitness.
Results:
My and I did the full three weeks of working out, we even took the DVD and bands with us when we left town for a weekend. During the three weeks we had a fundraising dinner, a long weekend in Maui, and farewell BBQ…so we weren’t completely disciplined on the diet. But we tried to make good choices even when we were deviating and stuck to the diet during the week.
At the end of 3 weeks I lost 11 lbs and my wife lost 8 lbs. But more significantly, we could really see the difference in one another. I got a lot more definition in my stomach, my clothes fit a lot better, I felt better all around. So even with a few hiccups in the diet, I was pretty pleased with the results and consider the experiment a success. A loosened up on the diet, but stuck with the workouts and 6 weeks later I had not only kept the weight off, but I had lost an additional 2 lbs…so it is sustainable.
Tips:
Doing it together as a couple was critical, it helped us hold one another accountable.
If you fall off the horse (diet), don’t just give up, get back on and press ahead.
The diet does require preparation, plan your meals out in advance to make sure you have enough healthy things in the house.
Working out first thing in the morning allows you to make your fitness a priority and prevents unexpected challenges from derailing you.
Conclusion:
The 21 Day Fix was a big success and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to kick start their fitness or feels like they are in a rut. The program is simple, but not easy, but all it takes is a little preplanning and discipline. I guarantee that you will see results and will feel a lot better by end.
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