21 Day Fix

(Scroll to the bottom of this page to find links 

to my other 21 Day Fix posts)

There's a lot going on around here, let me tell ya!
My kids have less than 2 weeks of school, so excitement is at an all time high right now.
My kids (3 of them anyway) just got their goats last week for 4-H this year.  They go out every morning before school and every afternoon when they get home from school, and then sometimes in the evening to work with them.
We're also in the beginning stages of getting a new house built, so we (actually mostly my husband) have been busy uprooting and moving trees, taking apart a deck, taking down and moving fences, moving a shed, having a new driveway put in- it's crazy!!!

And in the midst of all of this I'm starting the 21 Day Fix program.
If you haven't heard about this then let me tell you about it now.
It's not your typical diet or exercise program, but it combines both to give you the lasting results you want/need.

First let me tell you "my story" :)
I've always been a petite person, I'm 5'2" and usually weigh between 105-115.  Post high school I was probably more like 115-120.  
After my first baby was born the weight came off pretty quickly (around 4 months) due to breast-feeding (Loved it!!).  Same thing with my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th babies.  I would usually bounce back to around 115 within 4-5 months because of breastfeeding.  My stomach wasn't always the same after having kids, but within about 9-12 months of having a baby my stomach looked fairly alright and I could hide pretty much any lumps/bumps with clothing.
My fifth baby was another story though, I was 36 years old when I had him and my body didn't bounce back like with the others.  My stomach just wouldn't go back like it had with the first four.  But I wasn't too concerned because for the most part I could cover it up with the right kind of clothes.

But within the past 2 years my body was doing things that I didn't like too well.  
For one, I would have high blood pressure problems off and on (I had high blood pressure as well during my 5th pregnancy). 
Realizing that my aging body was beginning to have issues like this was a bit of a wake-up call.
My skin was worse than it was in my teens too.  I would break out more often now, whereas in my teens and 20's my skin was flawless.
My stomach pretty much always looked like I was at least 2-3 months pregnant because I had no muscle tone left in my abdominals.
So all these changes were happening in me that I didn't like- something had to change!

Last year I got a gym membership which I loved!  I actually enjoyed going to a weekly class, and I even started running (actually jogging) on the treadmill.  I felt better than I had in a long time.
At that same time I was hearing more about clean eating, and real foods.  I started reading more about what that meant, and trying to incorporate that kind of healthy eating into our diet.

As a side note, my husband has suffered from Ulcerative Colitis for 10 years and incorporating real foods into his diet was important for us.

After about 6 months of having a gym membership my husband's schedule at work changed so getting into the gym was not as easy since I didn't have him to watch our littlest one, so I let my gym membership lapse.
About 3 months ago I decided to try exercising at home.  I have a Gilad workout video that I bought awhile back.  Gilad had a regular 30 minute workout show about 5 years ago that I loved, where every day the workout was different so you wouldn't get bored.  Unfortunately the exercise channel was canceled and so were my workouts, the video I bought was good, but start to finish it was over an hour and I just didn't have that much time.
Last month I renewed my gym membership in hopes of going more often, but unfortunately the same problem occurred, I couldn't really figure out a good time to go unless it was when my husband woke up around 3-4 in the afternoon from his graveyard shift, which was also right before dinnertime.  So I would try to go on his days off, which didn't happen all the time.  In the month I had the gym membership I think I only went 7 times- just not enough for me to pay $30 a month.

So here I was thinking, "what am I going to do now??".
(Cue trumpet horn)

21 Day Fix!  
It was a weekend and we were all working outside, coming in and out of the house to get this and that, and there was an infomercial for 21 Day Fix on TV.  It instantly caught my eye.

What hooked me was the fact that this isn't a diet, and this isn't an extreme exercise program.  But it incorporates both the nutrition aspect and the fitness aspect.  
Hmmm...sounded good to me.

The nutrition part is all about real foods, whole foods, nothing processed- nothing fake.  This is what I was trying to do anyway for myself and my family, but 21 Day Fix is also about eating the right foods in the right portions.  Everyone knows that portion control in America is way off- look at all the super-sized foods we're offered!  
The program includes 9 boxes to help you with the correct portions of eat kind of food. This was perfect for me because I knew I was eating way to many carbs- breads and pastas are my weakness.  This program doesn't cut those foods out, it just helps you with the right portions.
So I loved the nutrition aspect of this program!

The other part was the exercise portion.  
Remember how much I loved my Gilad workout shows on TV.  Well these 21 Day Fix exercise videos were exactly what I needed!  There are 8 workouts on the dvd's, seven 30 minute workouts and a 10-minute abs workout.  The workouts include a total body cardio fix, upper fix, lower fix, pilates, cardio, yoga, and a dirty 30 workout.  You just can't get bored with this- and that's exactly what I wanted!

I was pretty well hooked, though believe it or not I didn't order it at that time.  
I researched it for about a week, I went online and read reviews, I researched more about clean eating and real foods, and I found a ton of good links on pinterest.  The more I read about it, the more I liked it.  

So I ordered it.

While I was waiting for it to arrive I went grocery shopping for more real foods (the outside aisles of the grocery store mainly) and pinned all sorts of recipes.  I even found a friend who is a beach body coach, she helped me out a bunch too by sending me emails full of information.

Here's my package!  This picture doesn't include all the little pamphlets that came with it,
or the workout dvd's which I set by my TV.

So here I am on Day 2 and I'm feeling motivated.  Of course anything you just start you feel motivated about, but I really feel like this is a real life change, not just a temporary fix.

I'm going to stop this post here now, but I'll be giving regular daily or weekly updates on how this is going, and perhaps you'll decide this is a good program for you too.
Check back regularly for updates!  :)


Posts:

6/8/15   First week on the 21 Day Fix

6/10/15  21 Day Fix- nutrition