So far, I’m pretty happy with my FIT FIX Diet Plan. The three-day JUICE CLEANSE has worked well as a kick-starter and now I’m very much ready to move on to the next phase of this experiment – eating REAL food!
DAY THREE – reviewing Wednesday
Yes, I got weary during the second and third days of the JUICE CLEANSE at certain times, but at others, I felt energised and fabulous. The ‘tired’ part is to be expected, given I wasn’t getting any caffeine. It did help that I reduced my coffee intake drastically over the last month and am now more likely to have an Earl Grey tea than a coffee on most days. At least I was spared a splitting headache, which usually happens with the detoxing process.
But three days of juice is DEFINITELY enough. Although I didn’t quite do the FULL three days. As I said yesterday, I planned to eat dinner last night at my Mum’s anyway which I did, and managed to eat only a very small portion of her delicious roast with gravy and said ‘no’ to roast potatoes. AND sweetcorn. AND Yorkshire pudding… I even said NO to Mum’s homemade apple crumble… Heart-breaking but essential if this plan is to succeed.
I also declined the red wine on offer, so I can happily say I’ve kick-started the week with three consecutive AFDs. (That’s alcohol -free days in case you were wondering) I am now very much looking forward to a glass or two tomorrow night. But part of this plan is to also reduce my alcohol intake, so I will be monitoring ‘how much’. (sigh…)
WEEKLY FOOD PLAN
The Fit Fix Diet Plan is designed to be extremely flexible to fit a variety of lifestyles. So many of our plans change so quickly on a daily basis, that we all need something that’s adaptable. Having said that, I also believe planning ahead is essential.
Food shopping the LEAST amount of times possible is a biggie for me too. Life’s too busy to be heading to the supermarket on a daily basis. Twice a week is plenty!
Picking components from various diets and mashing them together also appeals to me, so here’s how this diet will work.
As well as THE RULES I spelt out yesterday, I’m aiming for one juice fast day a week, (MONDAY) and one day with a very low calorie intake. (THURSDAY) This will be in accordance with the 2-5 diet which has a lot of evidence backing it to suggest that by almost fasting two days a week, we can eat what we like on the other five. I tried this, but the ‘eating what you like’ on the other days just meant I pigged out ridiculously. Which is why I’ve decided to create my own plan.
Yes, I’ll still have 2 days which are low calorie, but I’m only allowing ONE day which is a free-for-all. And yes, that’s the day you can have CHOCOLATE and don’t have to count calories. For me, that’s preferably a SATURDAY.
The first week of the FIT FIX Diet Plan differs from the following weeks, because of the 3-day juice cleanse, but as of next Monday, I’ll be aiming to stick to a pretty regular eating schedule. So usually today would be one of the ‘almost fasting days’ but after coming off the three-day JUICE CLEANSE, that’s not happening this week.
As well, I can safely say it’s highly likely social commitments will probably force changes to my plans, but then I can explain how I adapt and hopefully this will help you too.
Breakfast: The Muesli (50 grams) with skim milk, (100ml), Greek yogurt (50g) and frozen berries (25g).
Snack – celery sticks
Lunch – can of Sirena basil tuna, lettuce and spring onion
Snack – Tamara Yoghurt tub with berries
Dinner – Bolognaisse sauce – NO PASTA, plus two glasses of red wine
Using the My Net Diary App, the total calorie amount would add up to 1409. This is just under my daily allowance of 1430, so well on target. Especially as I put in a good effort with exercise this morning, doing both a half-hour abdominal class, followed by 45-minutes of a seriously sweaty spin class. According to the My Net Diary App, I burned off 593 calories, which means I still have 614 in the bank. Maybe this means I can have more wine tonight??
THE ALCOHOL ISSUE
Speaking of alcohol, the 3-day JUICE CLEANSE reinforced to me how important it is to have at least three days a week without grog if you want to lose weight. I KNOW once I’ve had a couple of wines, I’m far more likely to grab a handful or two (or 5) of cashews from the cupboard, or to hoe into a cheese and crackers session at 10pm.
Even a couple of glasses will drastically reduce your willpower. Which is why this rule is a MUST.
HOW TODAY REALLY WENT (so far…)
It’s gone to plan except that I decided to substitute my two snacks with a bottle of green juice, left over from the stash I bought for the 3-day cleanse. Which adds up to roughly the same amount so I’m doing fine.
Let’s see what happens tonight after that red wine. I’ll report back tomorrow and also discuss how my weight is going – which is embarrassing but important for you to know as evidence as to whether this FIT FIX Diet Plan really will work. Stay tuned!
So now I’m into DAY THREE of my Juice Cleanse and I’ve stuck to it solidly. Here’s how yesterday panned out and what’s happening today:
DAY TWO
Day Two started off swimmingly, but my enthusiasm started to wane by late afternoon. It wasn’t that I was getting tired of juice – I was starting to feel rag-doll tired.
I really should have listened to the advice from the Pressed Juices staff who recommend taking it easy on the days you’re ‘cleansing’. I thought I was doing well skipping a spin class at the gym and going for a power walk instead, but in the afternoon, I had quite a bit of running around to do with appointments and errands in the city and Chadstone shopping centre, so by day’s end, I felt completely drained.
I still enjoyed the juices with a fantastic selection of flavours. My favourite was the Zest Juice in the afternoon made up of pineapple, ginger, mint and pear – yum.
Challenges included watching my daughter eat sushi at Chadstone from our favourite store and suddenly missing the action of ‘chewing’ myself. Then she baked some delicious smelling biscuits when we got home which was horribly tempting, but I stuck to my guns.
DAY THREE SO FAR…
You might think I’m a piker, but I’ve decided to eat a ‘proper’ meal tonight, cutting back my 3-day JUICE CLEANSE to two and three-quarter days. I can justify this quite admirably though. You see, I REALLY want to get back to the gym tomorrow morning and without a bit of protein in the tummy tonight, that just won’t be possible.
Plus we’re going to a family dinner tonight and how can you say NO to your Mum’s home-cooked roast??? I won’t have potatoes though. Or dessert. And maybe I’ll have to ditch the gravy as well. NOOoooo. I’ve changed my mind. I’m having gravy.
But I have stuck to the Juice Cleanse for all of today so far and I’m feeling fine. In fact, most of the time (apart from yesterday, late afternoon) you feel fabulous! For exercise, I put in a good forty minutes on the treadmill, walking at a fast pace, so I can tick my exercise box too.
Now it’s time to get down to the RULES of the diet I’m going to design for myself. Let’s call it the FIT FIX DIET for the sake of having a reference name.
FIT FIX DIET RULES:
1. Things you can’t eat: potato, rice, bread and products with more than 5% sugar content. (the sugar rule doesn’t apply to wine or the one day you are allowed chocolate!)
2. You must write down everything you eat and count calories. (sounds boring but I have an easy solution for this!)
3. You must exercise every day for a minimum of between 45 minutes and an hour. I am going to aim for spin classes four days a week, plus two lots of abdominal classes and two sessions of body toning or weights workouts. If you don’t go to a gym, you can ride a bike, run and do toning exercises at home.
4. You must weigh yourself every day.
5. You must have three alcohol-free days a week. I calculate my week starting on a Sunday.
6. You can have one day off the regime per week where you eat what you like and ditch the calorie counting.
3. An I-phone or device that can use the My Net Diary App. This is my secret weapon in the fight against flab!
It means you can easily put in all your measurements and target weight and it will calculate how much you should safely eat per day in order to lose weight.
You might think it sounds terribly boring to type in everything you eat, but the bonus here is that once you pop the food item into the system, the App will recall all the details and the information will come up automatically. Given I don’t vary my food intake THAT much, it isn’t too hard. And believe me, I’m no tech-genius, so if I can do it, you can!
I start with My Net Diary tomorrow and eating a regime of more regular food. Which I’ll detail in a food plan later.
The other aspect of this App I love is that by storing your weight every day, it produces a little chart to show how you’re progressing. It’s great when you finally see the line on the graph start to head south!
