80 Day Obsession - Week One

I made it through week one of 80 Day Obsession! Week one was full of learning, ups and downs, meal prep, timed meals, intense workouts, challenging new moves, delicious combinations, random things thrown together, early bedtimes, dishes, epsom salt baths and a few tears - but I made it.

The Workouts

The workouts in 80 Day Obsession are intense! This week ranged from 31 minutes to 60 minutes, with most of them being on the side of 45-60 minutes. I was definitely challenged by the movements, range of motion, and intensity.

Total Body Core kicked off the week with a full body workout that engaged the core with each movement. It was a swift kick in the pants but felt great to get started.

Booty focused on, well, the booty and incorporated lots of crazy movements with the resistance loops to target different parts of the booty. It hurt for a few days. 

Cardio Core alternated low and high intensity cardio with tough core moves and it certainly challenged me! 

AAA (Abs Arms and A**) was probably my favourite workout of the week. I really enjoyed the focus on these three areas, the moves and the flow of the workout. It also seemed to go by the fastest, which was a plus. 

Legs - one thing to know about trainer Autumn Calabrese is that she loves working legs whenever she can and it's her favourite day. As I write this post, I can still feel the impact of leg day!!

Cardio Flow was a challenge, especially when I learned that we would be repeating this workout every week and that in week 5 we would increase the number of reps we do, and then again in week 9.

Roll & Release included some helpful guidance for stretches with a foam roller - totally necessary after this crazy week! It's kind of a bonus since Sunday is a rest day, but definitely provided some love for my poor muscles.

The Meal Plan

The 80 Day Obsession meal plan was a really good thing for me. I can fall into a pattern where my eating is really great, but then lots of little treats and extras start to creep their way in. Following this meal plan this week has certainly broke me away from the little treats and extras, and has helped me to focus on eating nutritious food to fuel my workouts.

It felt like more food than I would normally eat, and I'm working to adjust myself to eating a meal first thing in the morning before my workout. I followed the meal plan that I created, but by the end of the week my meals ended up being random combinations of foods that fit into my allotted containers. One thing that helped me to be successful was to keep things simple! I heard this advice before I started the program and I'm glad that I listened. 

I also found that doing a bit of meal prep on Sunday made a big, big difference. I'm going to continue meal prepping, even just a little bit each week as I found it to be really helpful to my success in following the meal plan and my own sanity. On the days I was at the office for work, I packed a large lunch bag with up to 4 meals for the day. When I was home, I followed my set meal times and grabbed what I needed when it was time. Having a plan was key and I enjoyed my meals throughout the week.

I decided to keep things simple again for week 2. I have a couple of meals out this week (last week there was just one) but I feel confident in following my plan and sticking to my plan. I may just be the gal busting out the rainbow containers at a restaurant so that I know I get my portions right.

The Rest

Getting up at 6am on weekdays got easier as the week went on and my body fell into a routine. I found that by the end of each day I was absolutely pooped, so I was clocking a solid 8-9 hours of sleep each night. Autumn talks about the importance of sleep all the time and I found it best to listen to my body - I needed those zzz's.

I didn't have a tonne of social situations this week, so there was very little sneaky food to avoid. I did say no to a gluten free muffin. There was one night I found myself wanting to eat, pretty much for something to do, so I just had a cup of tea. I felt satiated most of the time, so wanting to reach for snacks was mostly mental instead of physical.

Most days I had a lot of energy. The exception to that was after leg day. I had gotten a little less sleep than I had wanted and the workout just tuckered me out. I had a short nap midday and that seemed to do the trick. I find that I start powering down a bit before meals, but I'm getting into the groove and know that I want to stay within that 2-3 hour meal window.

I cried a couple of times during the week, which wasn't very surprising because it's often how I express my feelings. Twice on the first day when I was listening to an inspiring video from Autumn, and then again when Eminem's Lose Yourself came on. (who knew Slim Shady would have such an impact on my feelings?) There were some other tears during one of the workouts that was particularly tough and then on Sunday I just found myself having a low energy, sad day.

I know that this can be a tough time of year for me and that I'm doing something more extreme than usual. I'm challenging my physical and emotional fitness, so Sunday made a lot of sense to me even though it was hard. I'm thankful for my boyfriend who has been doing everything he can to help and make things easier for me, sweet friends who continue to check in and the awesome gals in my January and 80 Day Obsession groups who inspire me every day. (We'd love for you to join us!)

Epsom salt baths are my new favourite thing and I think I'm going to have a love/hate relationship with my foam roller.

I'm really proud of completing week one and feel great about continuing onward with this program! There are parts that are going to get easier and more intuitive (following the meal plan, knowing how to take care of my body, finding joy in the process) and also parts that are going to get tougher from here (pretty much anything related to the workouts!!) I'm thankful for this process and look forward to how I feel at the end of week 2.

If you want to follow along my daily adventures with this program, I've been sharing a lot via Instagram - you can follow me @ashleydtl or on Facebook. Would love to connect with you there!

Let's Go - Starting with Core De Force

Today marks day one of my journey with Core De Force, and as I talked about last week I don't think I've been this excited to get started with a program in a long, long time!

I've spent the week test-driving the Core De Force workouts and I'm stoked to officially jump in with the full 30 day calendar today. This has been a tough year and my body is not where it was. To be completely honest, I'm feeling frustrated, sad and a bit embarassed about this. I am such a huge advocate for healthy living and loving your body, but that's something that's been really tough for me of late. I want to write more about this in the future, but I'm feeling optimistic and empowered today to be starting with this brand new program and really giving it 100%.

In anticipation of getting started today I've gotten ready by:

taking my measurements

snapping before photos

making a meal plan

doing some grocery shopping

prepping some meals

I did my meal plan and grocery shopping from Monday - Thursday by hand and then hit the grocery store yesterday!

The little colour coding system at the bottom of my meal plan refers to my allotted containers for the meal plan each day. This program follows a similar version of the 'Portion Fix' program that is used in 21 Day Fix, 21 Day Fix Extreme, Cize, and more. I'm in the 'A' category for the meal plan. I kept things fairly simple for the week and I'm also looking forward to sampling a few of the recipes from the Core De Force meal plan guide. 

I spent some time on Sunday doing a little meal prep (which included protein waffles and chilli) and made a couple of tweaks to my meal plan:

This is mostly based on the fact that a) the protein waffles didn't really turn out as planned (the first one was a COMPLETE disaster!) and b) I realized I was going to be eating out on Thursday night and needed to move things around a bit. In any case, I'm all set with meals!

I'll be getting up each morning to get my workouts done. The workouts are 30-47 minutes long, so I'll be up at 6-6:30 each day to get them done! I'm thankful for our November accountability group which is getting started tomorrow because I'll have an awesome group of challengers and coaches to help keep me accountable!!

You may be wondering why my meal plan only goes Monday-Thursday... well that's because I'll be in New York City Friday-Sunday! I'm thrilled to be spending a weekend in my very favourite city. It's been 2 years since I've been back (check out my last trip here for the food and the fun) and I've been missing it! I'll be drinking my Shakeology, carrying on with my workouts but visiting all sorts of restaurants and having great adventures. I can't wait!

Okay Core De Force, let's do this! 

Master's Hammer and Chisel - Month One Recap

4 weeks of The Master's Hammer and Chisel are now complete! I have officially finished month 1!

BOOM!

So much quality time with Autumn Calabrese and Sagi Kalev. Watch the video for a full recap, including my best tips for anyone getting started with Hammer and Chisel.



I am feeling happy, proud, sore - but most of all STRONGER! I've been having a lot of fun staying accountable through blogging my experience with this program and the meal plan.

You can read about my first 3 weeks here:

The Master's Hammer and Chisel Week One
The Master's Hammer and Chisel Week Two
The Master's Hammer and Chisel Week Three

Here's to heavier weights, lots of sweat and many more delicious and nourishing meals!

If you're interested in learning more about this program, I would love to connect! Send me a message and let's talk about your goals and how I could support you as your coach!

21 Day Fix Extreme - My Experience

Back in the spring, I was really excited for the release of 21 Day Fix Extreme. Many of my fellow coaches and challengers had done the original 21 Day Fix and LOVED it, and I thought this would prove to be an awesome new challenge for me. It boasted:

• 30 minute workouts, each with weights and/or a resistance band
• variety in the workouts - plyo, upper body, lower body, pilates, cardio & yoga
• modifier for every exercise
• food plan, complete with portion controlled rainbow-coloured containers
• opportunity to get shredded 

I was super stoked to do this program and had a group of gals all set to do it with me...

And then I got the godzilla flu. I was out of commission for 10 days complete with fever, no appetite, lethargy, weakness and fainting. It was AWFUL!! It took me awhile to get back into the swing of things and I definitely wasn't in shape to do the program (Heck, I couldn't even get out of BED for 10 days, let alone do jumping jacks with weights!!)

After I regained my strength and my health, I got back into working out daily. I did many of the 21 Day Fix Extreme workouts and dabbled in the program, but never completed the full 21 consecutively and NEVER embarked on the meal plan. 

Why?

Back in 2006 when I first decided to lose weight I counted points, which at the time was a glorified way of counting calories. It did a great job of helping me learn about portion and was instrumental in me losing 35 lbs, but it also created an obsession with numbers.

Be it points or the number on the scale, I was a wee bit obsessed and not always in a positive, helpful way. A lot changed - I learned more about healthy eating and real food.

I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and went gluten & dairy free.

I lost more weight in an unhealthy way after my break up then gained it all back + more. But I remained obsessed with numbers and the scale until I stopped counting points and banished the scale. I found freedom in not weighing myself and viewing all food as choices, rather than good or bad foods that had a number attached.

In doing so, I found a balance with healthy eating and finding those goods feelings inside myself - not based on any number. So I was resistant to try using the containers because I didn't want to feel restricted / inhabited / confined to numbers again.

In the 21 Day Fix system, the containers help with portions, focusing on whole foods and gives you a system to follow (each colour represents a food group). You count the number of each container you have each day, but those are the only numbers to follow. Watching my challengers and fellow coaches follow this plan and have super results was incredibly inspiring and I also wanted to really understand the program. Yah, I could read about and learn everything there was to know - but that's very different than actually DOING!

With all of the traveling I did this summer, I also had let a lot of treats creep into my daily routine. Treats are great and delicious - but they should actually be a treat, not a daily occurrence. 

So with all of that in mind, I declared that I was going ALL IN in October, committing to a full 21 days of the program and giving the containers a go. 

I loved all the variety in the workouts. There are 7 different workouts that you're doing, so over 3 weeks you only do each workout 3 times. I really enjoyed seeing myself get stronger each time I did a workout - be it with heavier weights, the ability to do more reps, use better form or not have to modify. I started out with 3, 5 and 10 lbs weights. I'm about ready to retire the 3's and need to pick up some 8's!! 

I find Autumn to be very motivating (and am also motivated by the handsome, bearded men in the workout - hah!!) She is fierce, but not scary. I want to work harder because of the things that she says!!

I committed to the meal plan last week and found a few interesting things:

• Planning is key- I knew that going in and do like to have a meal plan each week, but ensuring that you get the correct number of containers each day definitely requires some thoughtfulness and planning. If you have everything on hand, and can make a few big things to help you get through the week, you're golden!
• There are so many snacks - I'm not usually a snacker, but in order to get in all of my containers for the day I was required to change that, which was actually awesome! My energy levels were stable and I felt like I was eating so much food. I also tried out a bunch of new, fun snack recipes and will be incorporating them into my routine. 

• I didn't feel restricted - I enjoyed having a plan to follow and I didn't feel like I was depriving myself because there was so much food. Counting containers didn't freak me out like I was worried it might and it was great to have a goal to work towards. 
• More protein please - the meal plan forced me to focus on protein, which was a good thing! I was having protein at most meals and incorporating it into my snacks as well, which was great. 
• Let's change things up a bit - I tried some new recipes that I really enjoyed. I made a bunch from the Fixate Cookbook and some from the 21DFX meal plan book. I haven't talked about this on the blog yet, but I started eating meat again back in the spring (it was part of my recovery after I was sick...) I'm focused on eating ethical meat from quality sources, and still eating a predominantly plant-based diet that is gluten & dairy free. It's been an interesting transition for sure, but I feel amazing. Cooking with meat is still foreign to me, so it's been good to try some new recipes and find new favourites. 

Some of my favourite meals included: Shakeology smoothies in the morning, big salads with tofu, hummus & lots of veggies, chili, taco salad, cashew & oat hot cakes and eggs with veggies & goat cheese. 

Some of my favourite snacks were: sliced fruit with nut butter, plain (goat) yogurt with fruit & seeds, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin energy bites. 

I'm proud to report that on Sunday I finished Day 21 of the program and did a week of the container system. And as a result, I dropped 6 inches - not bad for 3 weeks!! I didn't take my own advice and didn't do progress photos -- I need to find a spot in my new house to take them! 

I am proud to have completed all 21 days and am looking forward to more workouts with Autumn come the new year! I am going to be using more of the 21 Day Fix recipes (and continuing to play with the Fixate cookbook) and I think I will follow the meal plan hardcore again come January. 

If this sounds like a program you would like to try (either Extreme or the original) I would love to have you join me in one of our upcoming challenge groups! You can do anything for 21 days! 30 minutes a day at home + colour coded containers + support?? Totally manageable - and I'd be with you every step of the way! 

Where are my fellow 21 Day Fix-ers at? What is your favourite workout? Do you have a favourite 21 Day Fix approved recipe?