Finding My Maternal Side: 21 Day Fix

Well, here I am trying yet another weight loss program. From Weight Watchers to Paleo to extreme exercising; I've tried many. But I'm 10 days into my 21 Day Fix and I must say, I'm not miserable and more importantly, I haven't given up.

I heard about the 21 Day Fix from several blogs that I follow and I became intrigued. The more I researched, the more I thought this might be a good fit for me. I liked the idea that it was only 21 days. You can do anything for 21 days. If I hated it, I would be off to have pizza and a Blizzard on day 22. I also liked that the premise was eating real food which is something that is important to me and I want to set that example for my kids. The downside was the exercise. In order for me to be successful, I would need to do a 30 minute at home workout everyday. Remember, I have an aversion to exercise, that "runner's high" everyone talks about doesn't exist for me. But again, I can do anything for 21 days and even if I half assed the workouts it would still be more than I was doing now. And they were at home so I could do them in the playroom while the kids played. Which actually didn't sound like a bad idea. It would get me out of doing yet another Paw Patrol mission.

I shared my research with Mike to see if he wanted to do it with me. I figured it would be easier if we did it together and I knew he wanted to drop some lbs as well. Sympathy pregnancy weight gain...it's a thing! Mike was on board so we started to game plan. Planning is an area where I've failed before. When trying other weight loss programs, I sign up on a whim and usually after a I've had several days of glutinous eating or have gone through my closet and determined nothing fits. WW is my default program. I've signed up more times than I can count and have seen some success, but I couldn't sustain it. I tend to think, oh I can never have a cookie or chips again and then I give up. Who wants to live life like that? I'll just be happy and fat. The 21 days was the real appeal to me. I can have cookies and chips again, just not for 21 days.

Once Mike and I both committed, I went to Amazon and made the purchase. Done. When the product arrived, the first thing I thought was that they had forgotten some of the food containers. Nope, they are just that small. Yikes! Mike was already second guessing this decision. We started reading through the literature to see what was on the food lists and how much we could eat. Once we calculated how many containers we could have each day we felt better. It looked like you got plenty of food. We also committed to no soda, no alcohol and only black coffee. No delicious creamer or half and half.

Now, when to start this 21 Day Fix? Easter was coming up along with Cora's birthday. Our anniversary and E's birthday followed shortly after. Yes, we wanted to enjoy food and adult beverages for these occasions so we wanted to work around those days. We decided to start May 1st which would be right after Cora's birthday and we would end right before our anniversary. But then Mike realized he had his NFL Draft boys' weekend at the beginning of May and wasn't about to participate in that without alcohol. So we decided May 6th was our start date and now here we are, 10 days later and we're still going strong.

Preparation has been key. I've always been pretty good at meal planning but now I'm strict about it. We stock up every Tuesday at Sam's Club so we have plenty of produce and sometimes make an extra run during the week. We do the workouts together with the kids hanging on us and it's turned into a family event. I love to see E get into it and am so proud we are setting good examples for our kids. I love to hear E say, "Exercise is fun!" The workouts do go pretty fast and they are tough. Yes, sometimes I half ass them, especially when it comes to push-ups. But I usually fight my way through. One alteration we did make was that we skip workouts on Sunday and Monday. With my work schedule, sleep is more important to me on those days.

I didn't take full body pictures of myself or measurements before I started the program. I didn't want this to be about weight loss. I wanted it to be about feeling better and creating healthy habits. I already do feel better and my pants aren't quite as tight which is a great feeling. I will weigh myself at the end just to see if I dropped some lbs. I'd be lying if I said it was easy. There's some days when I just want a Diet Coke so bad I can taste it. And on those beautiful spring afternoons we've been having, I'd love nothing more than to have a Sam Adams Porch Rocker while we play in the backyard. But I'm sticking with it and I feel proud of the commitment I've made. We'll see what happens when the 21 days end. Mike and I have already talked about modifying the plan a bit to keep these healthy habits going and if we feel we've gotten too laxed we'll start up again with another 21 Day Fix. I'm so glad he's doing it with me, it's so much easier. And the lifestyle we're creating for our family is priceless.