My Health Journey
I’ve spent the last 11 weeks and counting committing to myself. I decided to stop waiting for the “right time,” until the start of 2019 or until I hit my next career milestone and actually hold myself accountable now. It was reading “Girl, Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis that made me get up and start focusing on myself. Her words motivated me to just start, it didn’t matter if I started small; I didn’t need to run a mile on my first day, or go to the gym for an hour every day of the week, I just needed to start. So that’s what I did. I worked out at home for 30 minutes a day to a workout DVD. I could do that, keeping this small goal and being intentional with it is what has kept me going. Because if I can’t keep this promise to myself, how can I expect to keep a promise to anybody else?
“When you really want something, you will find a way. When you don’t really want something, you’ll find an excuse. … Our words have power, but our actions shape our lives.”
So I’ve continued to strive to keep that commitment to myself, to live with that intentionality and I’m proud of this journey. I intend to try new workouts every few months and incorporate more nutritious options into my diet to evolve a healthier lifestyle. Below I’ve compiled the workouts, protein powders and tools that I’ve tested to date on this journey.
“The only thing worse than giving up is wishing that you hadn’t.”
Workouts
21 Day Fix/21 Day Fix Extreme
Almost every day for the past 11 weeks, I’ve spent 30-35 minutes working out to Beachbody’s at home workouts, the 21 Day Fix and 21 Day Fix Extreme programs. On very busy days, I will miss a workout then double up the next day, but I try to wake up early and get a a workout in every day. For the first six weeks, I completed two rounds of 21 Day Fix, however I started to get bored of doing the same workouts for six weeks straight so I moved on to the 21 Day Fix Extreme program. I’m currently through five weeks of this program, and I rejoice when I get through each workout. Needless to say, they are still a huge challenge for me and I’m not getting bored at all of these workouts. I plan to do at least one more round of Extreme before moving on to another program.
MyFitnessPal
After a couple of weeks of working out, I decided to start tracking my daily nutrition through MyFitnessPal. I’ve used this app before, but always quit on myself when things got hard or I had a bad day calorie-wise and didn’t want to face how much I had consumed. But this time around, I’m not holding myself to perfection or an immediate turnaround in my diet. I haven’t cut myself off from any food groups, rather it’s been more of a natural progression with my desire to eat less dessert and focus more on my nutrition. I enjoy checking my nutrition intake every day for different nutrients. Again I’m only setting small goals here, but I started by just trying to meet my calorie goal and now I’ve begun to focus on my protein intake as well.
Protein Shakes
Shakeology
I started drinking Shakeology because we had a couple boxes sitting at home from previous attempts at getting healthy. The two boxes, chocolate and vanilla, lasted me all 11 weeks and I drank it at least five days per week as a post-workout/breakfast combination. I tried both the chocolate and vanilla flavors and enjoyed them both. I found a snickerdoodle shake recipe that I LOVE combining the vanilla flavor with ice, almond milk, vanilla, cinnamon, peanut butter and honey. For my chocolate shake, I just add ice, almond milk and a tablespoon of peanut butter. The first time I tried a shake, it was very grainy so ever since I’ve made sure to blend it for at least 90 seconds, oftentimes for two whole minutes to ensure it’s mixed thoroughly. Ever since I increased the blending time, I haven’t had any issue with the texture. Shakeology isn’t just a protein drink, it does contain other superfoods and nutrients for your body. I definitely enjoy the taste of Shakeology, however each shake is 150+ calories with 15+ grams of protein and 6+ grams of sugar in each serving. Since I started researching the best protein shakes, I’ve come to realize that’s quite a bit of sugar per shake. As far as the price, it was super convenient for me since we already had it in the house, but I definitely wouldn’t purchase another box at its current price of $129. Now that I’ve run out of the Shakeology packets, I’m going to try a new protein shake every six weeks or so to determine what I like best as I continue to learn more about my body and the nutrients it needs.
Little Miss Delight
I decided to purchase the Little Miss Delight protein powder as my next protein shake through Amazon in part to its reviews, price and its inclusion in many “best protein shakes for women” lists I researched.