Results of the 3 Day Refresh

It is over!  I am more than ready to start the 21 Day Fix, but first, the results of the 3 Day Refresh:

I can tell a little difference in my stomach.  I feel good and I am not craving junk.  Will I do it again?  Probably not.  Never say never of course, but as of right now, I really doubt I will do it again.  I like losing that amount of weight in the time period though, so if I have a big function to get ready for and feel the need to lose a quick few pounds, I guess I would consider it.

This was to kick start my weight loss (again) and I hope to stick with eating right and only allowing myself treats from time to time, not everyday with every meal!  Hoping I have even bigger results after 21 days for you!  I have a busy schedule ahead, I plan on keeping up this momentum!

If you want to see Days 1 and 2 of the 3 Day Refresh, you can go to the following links:
Day 1 of the 3 Day Refresh
Day 2 of the 3 Day Refresh

Have you completed the 3 Day Refresh?  If so, how did you feel about it?

Day 2 of 3 Day Refresh

To ready about Day 1 and the schedule of eating for the 3 Day Refresh, visit Day 1 of 3 Day Refresh Completed.

Day 2 was very similar to Day 1, so I will not go over the schedule of eating again.  But I will talk about the Fiber Sweep again.  If you read about my Day 1, then you know I could not finish the Fiber Sweep.  Well, for Day 2.... I finished it all!  The trick is drinking what you can in the first few gulps.  It was not even that bad and it did not have time to thicken up on me.

I was disappointed that I was still hungry at night.  I know it will take my body a while to get used to not eating and gorging myself at night, but it still stinks to go to bed hungry.  I did not sleep as well last night, I think maybe because of the hunger thing.  But I have to remember that my body is used to consuming most of its calories before bed, I need to stick with it and have healthier habits.

I also did better with spreading out my water intake yesterday, so at least I did not have to get up to use the bathroom last night. 

I weighed myself again this morning and lost another 2 pounds from yesterday's total, so I am now at 158.  This is 4 pounds total so far.  I do hope I still lose in my first week of 21 Day Fix as well, but then I remind myself that it is not about my weight, it is about my health!  I wish I could find my measuring tape to measure how many inches, but it is packed up somewhere with the house being on the market.

I am ready to finish off this last day and start the 21 Day Fix tomorrow.  I also missed using a work out video yesterday, though I did go out for a nice long walk.  Hoping I can fit in a walk when my husband gets home this evening, I don't like not getting any exercise in.

Time for me to start this day and to start on some work for school.  I hope everyone has a great day!

Day 1 of the 3 Day Refresh Completed!

It was not as bad as I thought it could be, but part of that was because I was ready for a change!  I have been eating crap for weeks now and I am ready for that change.  Was I hungry during some points in the day, yes.  Especially at the end of the day because that is when I tend to eat and eat and eat.  I know myself and that my body will adjust and I am ready for Day 2 today.  But first, a little about the program from Day 1 (every day is pretty much the same schedule, but you can mix up which veggies and fruits you eat as long as it is on the approved list of foods in the program guide).

First thing when you wake up, it is time to drink at least 8 ounces of water to get your system going.  After waking up and drinking some water, it is time for a Shakeology.  I did not realize when I ordered, but Beachbody recommends the vegan option of Shakeology.  I probably would have ordered that if I had realized, but I went with the regular chocolate Shakeology and enjoyed it.  I mixed it with water, ice, and 1/2 of a banana.  An hour after Shakeology, you do have the option of having an unsweetened morning tea. 

I am not a fan of unsweet tea hot or cold, so I skipped this and waited 2 hours after my Shakeology to try out the Fiber Sweep.  I was dreading it all morning because I just had a feeling it was not going to be a nice taste like one of the shakes... and I was right!  That is some nasty stuff.  I mixed the Fiber Sweep with the 8 ounces of water it calls for.  I had read that I needed to drink it fast as it thickens up as time goes on (YUCK!).  I tried to drink as much as possible in my first gulp; it tasted like gritty, very watered down, lemon flavored tea.  The grittiness got me, I almost wanted to gag.  But I took another swig of the stuff and held down the urge to gag.  With each drink, I could tell it was thickening up and after drinking about 3/4 of it, I had to quit.  Today, I am hoping I get more drank with the first gulp so hopefully I can finish it all.  I paid a lot of money for this yuckiness, I want to be able to drink it all!

An hour later, I could finally have some lunch.  I made the Vanilla Fresh shake without any fruit since that is how I would have to drink it at dinner time as well, but I mixed it with some ice.  It actually was okay.  I had a hard time with it mixing correctly in my blender for some reason, but it mixed well enough that I could drink it with a straw.  Then I could have 2 small plums as my fruit, then I had baby carrots with hummus.  The carrot portion felt quite small and I had a lot of hummus left over, but I just scooped it up with a spoon and ate it because this was a much smaller lunch than I am used to.  An hour later I was able to have another vegetable and healthy fat, which I chose 10 pods of snow peas and 2 tablespoons of avocado.  I did not eat them together, as I like plain old avocado, otherwise it seems like an odd pairing, I know!  Again, you can have an afternoon tea an hour after this, but I chose not too and waited a few hours to eat dinner because we had a busy late afternoon/early evening.

For dinner, I got another Vanilla Fresh shake with ice, my blender worked much better this time (it seemed that the first time the small ice chips that were blended got stuck all around the blades make it tough for the blades to properly mix the rest).  I chose the spinach salad from the dinner recipes list.  It was a big salad when I got everything in the bowl, in fact, I had to switch to a bigger bowl when I realized I had no room to toss in the original bowl I had out.  I liked the veggies for the salad, but this salad only called for some lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil to dress it in.  By the time I was getting to the bottom of the bowl, I was not enjoying the taste of the lemon juice.  I ate it anyways because I knew I would be pretty hungry as I am used to eating a lot in the evening and night.  After the salad, I heated up a mug of vegetable broth in the microwave and drank it.  Of course, an hour later you can have an evening tea, but I chose against that.

Since I needed to drink around 80 ounces of water (the amount of water is based on half my weight in ounces, so I should actually be doing 81 ounces), I still had 32 more ounces to drink after dinner!  I hope I spread it out better today, because I had to get up a couple of times in the middle of the night to pee.

Yesterday I started out at 162 pounds in the morning (Yoyoing with Weight).  This morning I weighed myself at 160.  I know most that is lost with the 3 Day Refresh is water weight, but I feel I will at least have that over with when I start the 21 Day Fix.  Yesterday I did the Stretch video from Beachbody's T25.  Today and tomorrow I plan on walking.  It is recommended not to push yourself with extreme exercise during the 3 Day Refresh.

Have you ever done a cleanse for your body?  What type was it?  Did you find it beneficial? 

Yoyoing with Weight

Since my first pregnancy, I have struggled with keeping my weight down.  By the time I had Cara, I was getting a little too close to 200 pounds and so I did weight watchers for about 7 months and lost about 50 pounds, bringing me back down to the 140s.  I was unable to keep up with staying in the 140s so when my weight got back up to the 150s, I tried to stay there.  Any time my weight would sneak up into the 160s, I would go on a diet.  After getting close to the 140s again, I would quit and go back to eating junk, slowly allowing myself eat more than a regular serving, then on to having many more snacks than I should in a day.  So I was constantly struggling, worrying about my weight, but not necessarily worried about making healthy choices for the long run, only long enough to get my weight back down, as it would be too easy for me to let my weight get back to where it was after I had Cara.

So here I am back in the 160s.  I have been doing T25 exercises from Beachbody for the last few months, but have not made the commitment to change my eating habits.  I have more energy from the workouts, but I am not seeing big results because I am still eating junk.  But, I want to eat healthy for the long run.  I want to know that I can be healthier and feel good even when life gets super busy (as it will as soon as it is August with the new school year).  I want to be one of those people that enjoy eating fruits and veggies and see it as fuel for my body.  I am trying to change my mindset and make it a lifelong life change, not just for a few months.

I am starting with doing the 3 Day Refresh from Beachbody.  Today is day 1.  No meat or breads for 3 days (not eating bread or bad carbs is a tough thing for me!).  I am hoping that this will kick start my new mindset.  After the 3 Day Refresh I am going to move into the 21 day fix.  My focus there will be food portions and finding new recipes for healthier versions of things I love to eat.  I do not want to deal with counting calories.  If I am eating for my health and not for my weight, well, hopefully everything else will just fall into place.  Though I cannot help but check in on my weight, it is not the end all of my journey.  My starting point for the 3 day refresh is 162:

I cannot wait to see the changes in my body after these 3 days, then after the 21 Day Fix.  I am hoping to keep myself busy this weekend so the foods I love and cannot eat are not on my mind ;) 

Updates

So it looks like I got busy with school and kind of fell off from posting updates here!  The last half of the year as I took over a classroom went really well.... so well that I got rehired to teach first grade this upcoming school year!!  I am so excited and it has been a long wait to have my own classroom from the time I graduated with my degree.  So long that I had to renew my statement of eligibility to teach, but it all went smooth and I am ready to go for the new year.

We did get the house on the market in the beginning of April in hopes of selling and buying a new place in the country.  Unfortunately we have not had any offers yet.  I am trying to not get too hopeful as I am afraid of being let down and not selling within 6 months.  Once 6 months are up, we are planning on taking the house off the market and I am not sure we will put it back up for sell next year.  We shall see though, as we are planning to pay off more debt with the sell of the house and start new and fresh with only a mortgage as our only debt if the house sells as planned.  I am getting nervous because there are not many houses selling in my neighborhood right now.  Last year, houses did start selling in late July/August for a couple of months, maybe the same will hold true this year?  We also have major road construction going on with the main road leading to our subdivision which is not helpful.  I can imagine people not in the best mood by the time they get here if they are viewing the house during peak traffic time.

I also have not worked in my garden this year.  I was kind of hoping to get an offer on the house by now, so I have not kept up with the garden.  I am missing it and my fresh veggies.  My brother is missing my canned banana peppers!  He came over on Independence Day and asked for some.  I told him to find me some fresh banana peppers and I would love to!  I am missing them also, eating the store bought canned banana pepper rings is just not the same.

We have had to do some small trips again this year like we did last year.  I was hoping to get to the beach this year, but do not have the money with the house not selling as I had hoped.  So far we have been to Kings Island and Pigeon Forge.  Those trips are worth posts of their own so I will spare the details for now.  I do wish I took more photos on those trips, but honestly, I was more concerned with enjoying my time with the family than of taking photos.  But I do love photos to remember those special moments!

I guess this is update enough for the time being.  I have other great things to talk about, including my try to lose weight once again (I am still up and down on that front) and more.