Summer Shape Up: Week 3 Update (again…)

I am so happy to announce that I am back on track in terms of my fitness and food. I’ve been following along with the Fitnessista’s Summer Shape Up Program, it is a free month long fitness program offered on Gina’s blog. Each week she provides a workout schedule and healthy meal ideas. The idea is do what you can, when you can. Week two was great in terms of the weekdays but the weekend was not good at all.I am posting my progress each week in order to keep myself accountable, feel free to read and follow along if your interested.

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Food

This week has been a little different in terms of food. I feel like I’ve been putting a pretty decent effort into eating better for quite some time. Sure I slip up here and there but on average I eat well and yet… no results. no changes. no nothing. It is incredibly discouraging. So I made the leap and decided to do a cleanse/shake program, just to see if it would make any difference. The topic of cleansing and meal replacement shakes is pretty controversial in the healthy food world. So if you aren’t comfortable reading about it please skip this section of the post. I’m not looking for criticism here, as I said I am sharing this journey on the blog so that I can keep myself accountable.

The company I got the cleanse/shake from is called Isagenix. I have many friends who use Isagenix products and I feel comfortable with the contents so after sone research I decided to give it a go. I am doing the 9 day program. This consists of 2 cleanse days, 5 shake days and then 2 more cleanse days.

On cleanse days you are to take the cleanse juice 4 times throughout the day,  the cleanse snacks 4 times throughout the day (not at the same time as the juice), some vitamin supplements and drink lots of water.

On shake days you drink the isaLean shake for 2 meals and have regular (healthy) food for the 3rd meal. I am having my shakes for breakfast and lunch. This way I am still able to participate in my family dinners.I started on Wednesday of last week and so far I feel great. The first cleanse day was actually way easier than I expected it to be. I didn’t feel hungry at all. I had to pee every 25 minutes but other than that I felt good. The second cleanse day was more challenging. The lack of solid food had me in a bit of a grumpy mood but I still wasn’t feeling hungry, just a little more tired than usual. Drinking a shake for breakfast after the cleanse days was so filling. The day of my first shake day was also my summer staff party. It was a lunch time bbq of so much unhealthy stuff. And I didn’t want any of it. The cleanse had basically taken away my desire to consume sugars and fats.

You can already tell just by looking at my stomach that the infamous “pouch” is shrinking. I can’t tell you how wonderful that is. The pouch is the part of my body that I can’t seem to get rid of and I hate it. No amount of exercise and healthy foods seemed to effect it. But the Isagenix is finally making a difference. After this 9 day program is done I will likely continue to drink shakes for breakfast at the very least. Possibly also for lunch. We’ll see. Stay tuned on how I’m feeling after my second round of cleanse days.

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Exercise

Daily: 20-30 minutes of Yoga with Adriene

Monday: Yoga only

Tuesday: Gentle steady state – 2 hours of walking

Wednesday: Plank burner + Ab burner

Thursday: 5 mins on the elliptical as a warm up, 20 min weights for arms circuit, 5 min elliptical cool down

Friday: Workout # 3, 25 minute run (3.6 km), 30 minutes of Yoga for running cool down

Saturday: Off

Sunday: Yoga + swimming

I tried to get more strength training in this week. I’m also sticking to my daily yoga. It really makes me feel so good and clam and relaxed. My bet workout of the week was definitely Friday. It incorporated everything, strength, cardio and stretch. The downside is that it took a long time to do it all. So it can’t be a daily thing. But if I could get that type of workout twice a week I’d feel great.

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Summary

Wow. All I can say is I am glad I decided to redo week 3. I suppose it doesn’t exactly count because the whole point is for it to be 4 weeks in a row. But personally it is less about that and more about challenging my body in new and different ways and about adding more fitness to my weekly routine. So far I think that is going well. I’m excited to finish strong with week 4. So checking in with my goals from last week. Drink more water. CHECK! Because of the cleanse I have been drinking 4 or 5 very large water bottles throughout the day. This is a HUGE improvement for me and I plan to keep it up. Reduce wheat, dairy & sugar. Also because of the cleanse this has happened. We’ll see if I can adhere to it once the cleanse is over. Complete all workouts. Half check. I did workout a lot but I didn’t follow the schedule. I am realizing that I am not really a fan of high intensity interval training (HIIT). Unfortunately there is a lot (and I mean A LOT) of research that suggests that HIIT exercise is the best way to burn fat and build muscle. Go figure. I much prefer steady state training (ie. running at one pace). I think perhaps I would like HIIT more if I went to a class or something where someone other than myself was motivating me. Anyway, for this weeks goal:

• Complete all workouts on the schedule
• Finish Strong!

Cottage yoga is the best kind of yoga.