Truth About The 21 Day Fix

Beach Body's 21 Day Fix touts that you can lose weight fast in 21 days by following the program. You get color coded containers that portion your food and help you to know how much of each type of food to eat. You also get an exercise program that has 7 different days of workouts (plus a 10 min ab workout); you do one each day of the week.

(below is a picture of what you get with the challenge pack. The Shakeology is a great whole food meal replacement protein shake that gives you energy, cuts down the cravings, and helps flatten your tummy... I will write another blog later to go more in depth about it.)

Sounds like a great gimmick, right? For some it draws them in... "I need to lose weight fast, this sounds great!" And to others it turns them off, "I hate quick fix diets...they aren't healthy and aren't long term."

I want to address these thoughts and talk about what the purpose of this program really is.

Ok...yes, it partly is a gimmick in a way. Who doesn't want to have a quick fix for their weight!?!? It takes so much time and effort to lose weight that the title really is a draw. And you really do lose weight and dramatic inches in the 21 days.

But is it healthy? Is it the right way to go?

It is said that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So as you are consistently working out each day and having portion control with your food (and the right types of food), you are actually retraining your brain and forming a habit. So although it is played off as a quick fix, it is actually the beginning of a lifestyle change.

For someone who either never works out or rarely works out, the 21 Day Fix is a great start. It helps you get into a routine. And by having it in your mind that you WILL do ALL 21 days and follow it to a T those 3 weeks, it is much easier to start doing. Then once you get to day 21 and realize you are done, you already have formed the habit, you have seen the results, you feel so much better, and so much stronger that you want to make eating healthy and exercising a part of your daily life. And Beach Body has a lot of other great exercise programs that you can do once you are tired of doing the ones in the 21 Day Fix. (You can also pay for Beach Body on Demand so that you can access many different programs!)

I was hesitant to do the 21 Day Fix, but I was really glad that I did it. I am almost to my goal weight and am stronger than I was before (I completed the Spartan Race, so that is proof enough for me that this program helped me get stronger!) I am planning on doing it again because I have gotten out of the habit of exercising since I hurt my knee at the end of May. I need to re-form my habit!!

So do I recommend it? Yes I do! Not just because my husband and I are Beach Body coaches, but because we have both done this program and love it. We both have seen great results and believe in this program whole heartedly. My husband is unable to do intense cardio because of having a pacemaker, but he is able to do the exercises (there is a person showing you how to modify if needed).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at journeytoahealthymomma@gmail.com
Also, visit our coach page and check out what Beach Body has to offer by clicking here

I am more than happy to help you reach your fitness goals.

I am Spartan! Aroo!

Last Saturday I completed my first Spartan. My brother, his son, my daughter and I all got free races for volunteering so we raced during the volunteer heat (the last one of the day). We were literally the very last people doing the race....and were the very last people on the course for a long time. We ended up passing quite a few people once we got past the dreaded hills.

I will be honest...I was scared of doing the race. I was scared I wouldn't be able to physically finish it. I figured I would end up doing many, many, many burpees (you have to do 30 burpees for each obstacle you don't finish). There were 23 obstacles and I only had to do burpees for one. The last obstacle before the finish line; the rope climb.

Here is me doing my burpees... haha



The race stared out going up a very steep hill. We decided that we would run up it because we figured one of our spouses was videoing us so wanted to look good. Once we were out of their sight I had to slow down because my tachycardia kicked in and so did my arrhythmia. The first part of the race (a huge part of the race) was a lot of steep hills. We went to the top of a small mountain. I slowed down, but kept going. I finally got my tachycardia to slow down, but then I started getting calf cramps. I had to stop and stretch my calves out, but kept going.

I kept pushing myself. It felt good. I was determined that no matter what, I was going to finish. Thankfully they encouraged team work. So on some obstacles we helped each other. The ones I needed help with were things like the monkey bars because I just didn't have the upper body strength to hold myself up that long.

We got to the barbed wire crawl. This race is done on a motocross course. The barbed wire crawl was done on the "whoops jumps" area. So was a series of mini hills in a row for about 50 yards. It is muddy and long. It wasn't easy to crawl/roll under the barbed wire. My arms are pretty bruised up from it! But what really made it hard for me was that both my calves seized up. The cramp in each calf went from my ankles up almost to my knees. Solid, hard as a rock, cramps. It was incredibly painful! I kept trying to crawl through the pain and it just kept getting worse.



I finally decided to try one of the honey energy gel packs I brought that happened to have some potassium. Thankfully that wiped out the cramp! I was able to finish the crawl and move on to carrying a bucket of rocks up a steep hill. (side note hint: one of the workers told me that to prevent calf cramps in a race like that to take a couple Midol pills before the race. He swears by it!)

My daughter hit her shoulder blade real hard during the barbed wire crawl so was struggling to do much. I had her take a bunch of her rocks and add them to my bucket. It was so heavy and hard to carry since there wasn't a handle. It took us a while, but we were able to complete that challenge (course on the way down the hill, I slipped and fell... hit my bum hard on a large rock and spilled my bucket everywhere. Had to pick up as many rocks as I could and continue on)



After we got done with carrying the buckets of rocks up and down a hill, we had to climb up an insanely muddy hill! It was hard, but pretty fun too. I don't know why, but I do love challenges like that.



Completing this race is a very proud moment for me. I get to check it off my bucket list! :) It was challenging and I didn't give up. I pushed through the pain, I pushed through the challenges, and I did it. It may have taken me 3 hours and 43 minutes to complete, but what matter is that I did finish! I may be bruised...

....But I came out feeling better about myself and my abilities.

It is worth it to push past fears and challenge yourself to complete something you never thought was possible!

3rd Race This Year

When I was a kid I did a race called the Spit Run up in Homer, Alaska. I barely made it. It was pretty long. I think I was around 10 when I did it. That was the only race I had ever done. Then this year happened.

I did a 5k in April with my husband and 4 kids. It was pretty fun and easy. I didn't run because I stayed with my husband (he has a pacemaker and cannot run because it could set off the pacemaker) and was pushing my 2 toddlers in the huge double stroller; also they would get out every once in a while and walk it. Honestly, I wouldn't have actually run though, I don't run... :)

Then in May I did my very first obstacle race. It was so fun! It made the plain ol' 5k seem very boring. I realized just how much I prefer the challenge.

Tomorrow is my first Spartan race.... My brother is on his way from Utah. He, his son, my oldest daughter, and I will be doing the race. My brother has done many (he has a trifecta!), but for the rest of us it is a first! It is a lot more intense than the Mud Stash that I did. The Spartan has harder obstacles and if you cannot complete them then you do 30 burpees. It is going to be a major challenge. I am excited!

But....

I am also terrified!!!

This is going to be the most physically difficult thing I have ever done. (and I have given birth 4 times! haha)

With my health problems comes muscle weakness and fatigue. So that worries me. My arm gets tired just from holding up the hair dryer, so I worry I will have big struggles with the challenges. BUT I also know my personality. When I am determined to finish something then I will force myself to finish it. I will find a way. I don't care how long this race takes me to complete, I just care that I do complete it!

Today I am resting up my body and hydrating as much as I can. Tomorrow is a big day.

I will hopefully be able to post early next week about how the race went! My husband will be taking pictures so I will add those also. Wish me luck!

Scales Aren't the Only Things That Lie...

It is crazy the tricks that our minds play on us. When I look in the mirror I still tend to see a fat girl looking back at me. I believe what the mirror is showing me. I then feel down and frustrated that my work is for nothing. Which makes me sneak junk food and not work out as often as I should. I believe the lies the mirror is telling me.

The other day I went to my brother's house. His teenage daughter gave me a hug and she said something like, "woah, that is so weird. You are so skinny!" I was caught off guard! It made me feel good and also made me wonder if that was true. Was I really thin now? But the girl I see in the mirror isn't thin...

Today was a really rough day with the kids. They were fighting with each other, treating me poorly, etc. I was in a horrible mood and wanted to run away. By the time I got the two youngest to bed I had already planned I was just going to leave and walk for a couple hours by myself (tempted to not go back home for a long long long LONG time...). I had my shoes on and I was ready to leave after I tucked in my 4 year old. My husband peaked his head into the room when I was reading her a book and asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him when I was done. I decided it would be less lonely to run away if he were with me =)

We normally only walk about a mile, but with how I was feeling tonight we just kept walking. We ended up walking 3.8 miles (speed walking a lot of the time).

Ok, so how does this have anything at all to do with the first part of my blog??? I'll tell you...

When I was feeling so down and angry, I was feeling crummy about myself. I saw the fat ugly girl in the mirror. At first on our walk I still felt that way, but by mile 1 I was starting to feel a little better. I had emotionally cooled down. I was enjoying my husband's company. The endorphins were flowing. I went to look at the ground and saw this small body. My first thought was of confusion. Whose body was that??? Because it couldn't possibly be mine! I realized that the mirror had been lying and that because I have been stressed and not exercising as much as I should, my depression started kicking in. And when depressed I tend to believe the negative over the positive.

I may not be at my goal for how I want my body to look. I still have toning to do, I still have strength to gain, but I need to quit believing the lies that I am still the 210 lb fat girl I was just a few years ago. I have lost 64 lbs!!! I just walked 3.8 miles without getting out of breath and could've easily walked further. I am healthier than I have ever been and will continue to get better. And for now on, I will call the mirror out on it's lies and let myself see my progress and be proud of how far I have come.

Alone With My Thoughts

I have mentioned before that getting healthy isn't just physical health. Mental, emotional, and spiritual health are just as important. This post is focusing on those aspects of health.

Today my friend was in need. She needed me to deliver something important 2 hours away. I gladly helped her out, but honestly was a little afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I was happy to get to have a 4 hour break from everything and not have kids fighting or demanding things from me, but I'm not used to being left alone to think. So that made me feel a little anxiety.

I turned up the music so I wouldn't think much, but some music brought back memories and so did some places I drove by. Those memories were hard to have resurface. I tried quickly to push them back to the far back of my mind to keep them hidden like I've done for years. Because that is safer...

Then a scene from a show that I watched earlier today popped into my head. The girl had been sexually assaulted. She was embarrassed and felt ashamed. She felt if anyone knew they would see her as unfit for her job (she was a police officer) and see her as a victim. She was told that by not speaking out about it, that she was a victim. But that if she pressed charges, spoke out about it then she wouldn't be a victim any more. She would be taking back the power.

This made me think a lot. All these years of being ashamed, feeling guilt, and embarrassment. All these years of hiding what I went through. I didn't allow myself to heal. It is all still buried deep inside me. It tears me apart daily. It has made me feel powerless. I'm tired of feeling powerless.

As long as I keep everything buried instead of actually healing from it, my mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, AND my physical health WILL be affected. Now it is figuring out how to heal.

I think that often times when someone is struggling with weight issues and some health issues, that they have things buried that they need to figure out how to dig back up, deal with it, heal from it, and never let it weigh them down again. It is a hard thing to do and I'm not sure yet HOW to do it.. but I think it is important enough to figure out so that I can be a healthier person on all levels.

What things do you need to work through in order to allow yourself to get healthy? I encourage you to ponder that question.

My First Obstacle Race

I have been meaning to write about this for a month, but time slipped away from me. In the end of May, I flew out to Indiana to spend time with family. My parents (who actually live just a couple miles from me), my 4 brothers, my 2 sisters, and I got to spend several days together (also several nieces and nephews). One of the things we did together was participate in a race called the Mud Stash (click HERE to see the website about it). It was so much fun. As an adult, I had only done one race, which was a 5k blacklight run. Never have I done anything with mud and obstacles!

I had completed the BeachBody 21 Day Fix a few days before the race. Thank goodness I did that because it prepared me much better than I would have been. We had a group of 14 doing the race together (my dad, 3 of my brothers, my sisters, and nieces and nephews) which made it seem to go by real fast. Some of the obstacles were very difficult, but I tried almost every single one. I learned that my upper body strength isn't where I need it to be. The monkey bar style ones were too hard for me to get very far on, but at least I did try!

Toward the end, with the finish line in sight (but about 4 obstacles left) I slipped off one in the water and slammed my knees into gravel. They were bleeding and swelling up fast. The old me I think would've just stopped then, but my first thought was, "I HAVE to finish this!" So after I took a moment to compose myself and the rest of our group was ready, we went on to the next obstacle. Dragging my knees as I army crawled in mud under ropes... I just kept going. (below: my brother, Josh, and I)

I made it to the finish line and got my first medal!

I can't put into words how great it felt to accomplish something like this. Other than childbirth, this was the most physically wearing thing I have ever done.

I have spent the past month having to do physical therapy for my knee. I hurt one of them much worse than the other (the doctor thought for sure I had fractured my knee cap and was surprised to see on the xray that I hadn't. Just hurt the pattelar ligament and deeply bruised my knee) so I wasn't able to do much for a while. I was on crutches and wearing a leg brace, plus doing physical therapy twice a week. I am not 100% yet, but almost there. Tomorrow is my last physical therapy appointment and I just got the go ahead to do my intense leg workouts to test out my knee.

I have 32 days left before my brother and I will be doing the Spartan, so I have to get back to my training!

I have never been one who has much physical strength, but I have always been one who is quite determined to finish what I start. I am working hard to gain the physical strength to go along with my determination so I will be unstoppable! :)

What do you do for YOU? I have found that I absolutely love the feeling of finishing a race. I want to do as many as my finances will allow. It makes me feel good about myself, it gives me a goal to work toward... it is important to have something that is just for you. Especially as a mom. This is something I do for me, for my health, for my emotional well being. What will you do for you?

My 21 Day Fix Results

This past week has been a bit crazy! Sorry for not posting.

Last week, I wrote about how I slipped on a toy and hurt my leg. It got worse, so I finally went to a doctor. Luckily it wasn't broken, but my fibula had a contusion. So she told me not to exercise my leg at all and let it rest. I had to modify my workouts and only workout my abs and upper body, but I still stuck with it!

Monday we had our weigh-in. We completed the 21 Day Fix. I was disappointed that I didn't lose as many inches in the past week, but with my injury I expected that. I did lose 2 lbs in the last week though!
Here is my before and after picture for the 21 day fix:

9 1/2 inches lost and just over 4 lbs in only 21 days is definitely something to be proud of, and I am. But most importantly, I am getting stronger and healthier. I am going to keep up with the regimen. This wasn't just a "quick fix" for me, this was to jumpstart my new healthy lifestyle.

If you would like to start a healthier lifestyle and join me on this journey, contact me at journeytoahealthymomma@gmail.com and I will help you find what can work best for your situation.
To order the 21 day fix program (or any other of Beach Body's great programs) CLICK HERE