OFFICIAL: Round 1, Day 1: Here We Go

I hate Mondays. And today was a very stereotypical Monday.

Meal planning is hard. I made the mistake of not prepping last night and I overslept this morning, so there's that. I'm going to blame the apocalyptical storms that have been hangin' out over Florida for the last two weeks. This morning, it was pitch black at 7:15 when I managed to pull my phone off the nightstand and leapt out of bed. My goal was to make it to work alive. Considering they shut down multiple bridges and roads were starting to close, my 40 minute (max) commute turned into an hour.

I realize these are all excuses. Lesson=learned. Meal prepping is clearly the answer. 

So this is what I count as the beginning of my 21 Day Fix. One of the girls at work is starting hers this week (I'm pretty sure, anyway) and I have my full grocery list purchased. 

I can't hold in my excitement anymore--I did the entire work out today with zero "additional" breaks (aka me pausing the DVD player while my breathing catches up with the rest of me). NONE. Zip. I'm not saying it still wasn't ridiculously hard. I'm also not saying that my quads are thrilled with me. 

Along with my quads, my butt hates me, my shoulders hate me, my abs are still twitching and my hamstrings are like, "Whoa, hey there. Didn't realize we could move like this..."

Seriously. The best work out I've done so far (though I feel like I keep saying that?). It may just be thirty minutes but Jeez-Freakin'-Louise. This thing is no joke. Autumn does not play.

I kept up. I didn't modify nearly as much as I did last week. I pushed myself harder on all of the work outs, but specifically the Knee Pulls.

[Okay, side note: I just got up to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer and it took me a solid 60 seconds to get into a standing position. Ouch. I have no shame. Quads, you'll thank me later.]

Anyway. Knee Pulls. So Autumn mentions focusing on your quads, your hamstrings, your butt and your abs on this one. I think the last time I did this, by this point my quads were screaming and so I didn't really put the "umph" into it? But this time was different. And so I gave it my all. I mean, now my butt and my abs think I'm a jerk, but it's cool. Tough love, kids.

Bottom line: I feel so ready to take on this challenge. I'm hurtin', don't get me wrong. But it's a good kind of hurt. It's the kind of hurt that makes me want to keep going. I've already broken out the muscles, might as well keep toning. 

I was super bummed I missed my window to make my Shakeology this morning, but I kinda forgot from last week when Autumn reminds us that after a work-out like this, Shakeology is probably a good idea. So bam. I did strawberries, blueberries & raspberries (totally picked out the blackberries from yesterday--their seeds are just too much), a little bit of almond milk, some water (I did half and half this time), 1 scoop vanilla Shakeology and half a banana.

And frozen grapes for later!

Things you should take away from this entry: don't move to Florida unless you enjoy apocalyptic weather; it doesn't get easier--you get stronger; life's too short--be healthy; your quads (and other body parts) will hate you for a few days, but they'll love you in the long run!

This is it, kids. I see my life changing in a big way. Color me stoked. This Monday may have started  off kinda shaky, but the sun is out and life is good and it couldn't feel any less like a Monday.

Count Down: To Tomorrow

Today was pretty basic. Sundaze. I stayed up talking with a friend until 3:30 in the morning (actually, I went to bed around 11, passed out, he woke me up around 12:30 and we spent the next three hours laughing and being stupid. So I was pretty sure I would sleep til noon today, but I had so much I wanted to get done that I knew I needed to force myself up by 10:00. 

I managed to get out of bed around 10:15. I went with Shakeology for breakfast (it's so easy and so filling, so that's probably how I'll do my daily Shakeology going forward).

Today (even though it meant cutting out the coffee), I decided to try a different recipe. This time I went with:

- 1 scoop Vanilla Shakeology

- 1/2 cup of vanilla, unsweetened almond milk

- 1/2 a purple of frozen berries (I bought a massive bag of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries--all mixed. $11 at Walmart and pretty sure it'll last me a solid month)

- 1 banana (I realize I probably overdid it on the fruit today, but I'm pretty obsessed with fruit, sooo...)

- a handful of ice

This. Was. Delicious. Holy cow. Screw the coffee latte thing I made yesterday! This was amazing. The only thing that bugged me were the seeds from the blackberries. I hate those in general when I eat blackberries, so I may be super picky and pick out the blackberries tomorrow. Other than that--DELICIOUS.

I did some laundry. For lunch, it was some turkey lunch meat, kale, cucumber and carrots. Ran some errands, finally (because somehow Mother Nature decided to COOL IT and stopped the rain. HALLELUJAH, I thought the world was ending and was starting to price out boats because I was pretty sure if it kept up, I would no longer be able to get to my car. On the upside, it seriously looks like a waterfront view off my patio...and I'm not even paying for waterfront!). 

So then I went to get my nails done (treat to myself and it stops me from gnawing on my fingernails). On the TV, I immediately recognize what's happening and almost do a double take. It's a Paid Programming Ad for 21 Day Fix!! It was...exciting? I don't know. I was almost proud? I wanted to tell the girl next to me, "I'm totally doing that." But I refrained. Usually I hate ads but it was cool to see all of the testimonies and the people who had met their goal weights off of this program.

Anywayz.

Dinner consisted of baked chicken, steamed veggies, and a little kale and salad dressing. It was pretty yummy. Chicken was a bit bland, but hey. Getting used to it. I also had a massive headache this afternoon. I can't tell if these are symptoms of sugar withdrawal or caffeine withdrawal or both. Probably both. I sucked it up (and took some ibuprofen) and pushed through it.

I decided to check out Beachbody-On-Demand since I have access to that now, too. I stumbled across Insanity. I was pretty terrified to try it, but kinda decided why not? and gave it a go. Sooo, it was intense. It's still right around 30 minutes (33 minutes, to be exact). It really took a lot out of me. It was a lot like Total Body Cardio Fix, in my opinion.

My "official" 21 Day Fix Challenge starts tomorrow--I've just been getting a head-start. So tomorrow we go back to Total Body Cardio Fix and my quads are already crying.

But I can do it! No giving up. Not gonna happen. Oh! And frozen grapes are amazingly delicious for a nighttime snack. Seriously. Ice Cream Who? Frozen grapes, all the way. 

Pray for me tomorrow; more specifically, my quads.

Xoxo

Day (what day is it?): Shakeology and Upper Fix (take two)

So this week has been pretty insane, to say the least. Shingles, crazy work schedule, booking private planes and all that fun stuff (not for myself, I should probably add...) so I've been thrown off the metaphorical 21 Day Fix Horse. Last night, my Shingles patient needed to go to the store so I figured I may as well pick up a grocery or two...

I'm not sure where this motivation came from entirely (yesterday was an awful day at work. I was tired, grumpy and wanted nothing more than to stuff my face with junk food and let this 21 Day Fix Horse [let's call him Bullseye..."Ride into the wind, Bullseye!"...anybody? No? Just me? Cool...] ride into the wind...). But somehow, someway we get to the store and I'm like, "I'm going to pick up a few things, cool?" He agrees. I start down aisle one.

Well, $85 later...my fridge is stocked, my pantry is full and I'm all about this 21 Day Fix thing all over again. So I've climbed back on Bullseye who never left my side (just call me Jessie!) and we're back at it.

So this morning I went for eggs with some steel-cut oatmeal, banana and a splash of raw honey. It was...okay. I'm not going to lie, eating eggs but holding the salt was pretty frustrating. The oatmeal was pretty good! I had to refrain from dousing it with honey or something sweet. 

Lunch I went for my first Shakeology. I think I had higher hopes for this in that it would easily replace my daily iced coffee (or should I say, caramel or vanilla cream with a splash of iced coffee...). There's a recipe on the Shakeology flyer that you get when you buy it--1 cup of black coffee, 1/2 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a scoop of Shakeology, a tsp of raw honey and some ice. It was no caramel macchiato, but it wasn't terrible.

After lunch, I decided to go back to the Upper Fix because I hadn't made it all the way through the first time. Here's what I noticed:

Holy warm-up, Batman! I did it. I did it in FULL force! I didn't have to modify squat! I DID IT! This is only my 4th time on the warm-up and I'm already noticing that I can keep up better than ever before. If I wasn't so winded, I would do a happy dance. (I said I did it, I didn't say it still wasn't a work-out).

Arms. I love arm days. I don't know if this will change over time, but I. Love. Them. Sooooo much more than leg days. No joke about it. I'm not going to bore you with the details of the work-out ('cause they're in my last blog). My arms were still all shake-y, especially on those push-ups and the plank, the plank about killed me on round two! But I felt like I could fully conquer arm-day with zero problems.

Mid-afternoon snack: I had some whole, raw almonds. Again--almonds are weird without salt. Not a bad weird, necessarily. Just...something I'm going to need to get used to.

Dinner. Oh, dinner. So I was craving junk food. This surprised me. I was like in full-on "I'm going to eat the pantry whether you like it or not, Bullseye". Well, thanks to my "no more buying junk food" kick, there was literally no junk food to eat. So I look at my keys and I'm fully prepared to go find junk food. I even went to my car! I even got in my car! I even started driving.

So Florida is all about these torrential, hurricane-themed down pours over the course of the last 2 weeks. Pretty soon, I'm going to need a boat to actually leave my doorstep. So as I'm driving, I'm looking at the sky and it's really getting pretty dark. Like End-of-the-World dark. "I mean, I might as well go home and eat something there, I don't want to get stuck in this mess," I literally said to myself.

The child in me is screaming: "WHAT?! No! There's no junk food at home! Just stop at 7-11! Get a Slurpee!" Nope. No stopping. I drove home, I had some kale with carrots and cucumbers with a little bit of balsamic dressing. And that was that.

I've popped some grapes in the freezer for a snack later, and I'm feeling so badass that I'm planning to do the ab workout DVD shortly. Two work outs in one day? Who am I?

The main point I would like to make in this entry is: life is going to happen. Things are going to happen where maybe you can't have the best meal one night or you have to skip a work out because someone you know gets Shingles and has to go to the ER. But you HAVE to Keep. Going.

Keep Going.

It's as simple as that. And if I can do it? I promise you, you can do it too.