Eating Challenge

peanut butter and banana shakeology

I just finished participating in a 5 day clean eating challenging. There were few focuses. They were exercises everyday, eating clean, and eating 5 meals a day. It was via a facebook group. There was daily discussion. We had daily posts with homework to do which we mostly had to read some article and talk about things we learned. There were usually 4 or so things to answer and when I answered them I had the longest comments by far so really everyone didn't answer everything.

Some articles were Ask the Expert: Are Cheat Meals OK?, 85 Tips and Strategies for Dining Out, 10 Ways to Eat Clean. There were also images shared of recipes and stuff.

The challenge was free except for the purchase of Shakeology for the 5 days. I actually only joined the challenge for the shakeology because I was sick of skipping so many meals with Ella and not eating anything at all until 4 or 5 PM far too often. Up front I told the group I didn't plan to do all the clean eating. That wasn't appreciated.  So I did a little.

Overall I had 4 meals a day instead of 5 which is better than my normal 2 plus a late night snack. I only used 2 of my shakeologies! I did like the vanilla one mixed with peanut butter and banana. I started the week sick so for 3 of the 5 days I had a really bad sore throat every time I swallowed.  That sucked.  I cooked healthy dinner twice. I ate bananas for a snack during the day instead of junk food.  I had Dave buy me food the day before the challenge started since I was too sick to shop and I didn't even get to it all. I was eating smaller meals than suggested but bigger than my normal. I ended up lightheaded 4 of 5 days but believe that was from being sick and not the diet.

I felt like I barely did anything I should have for the week and it was only a week but both my hips and my waist list a half inch. (Well maybe slightly over a quarter inch but with rounding it's hard to tell/remember). I lost weight too but I don't believe the scale. Even with a second day after. I would say I lost 2 lbs. But the scale says 5 but my weight went up 3 lbs just for the start of the challenge.  My jeans were falling off me by the end.  I took progress pictures but won't share them because I don't post pictures of myself in only a sports bra and shorts. I made a collage with the before and after and analyzed the pictures and can't tell anything anyway.

I didn't even mention exercise because I do that anyway. We were told to schedule it in so we don't skip but mine are scheduled anyway since I run with others. I did do a bonus weight lifting session  one day but that was only because I got Ella to nap in the crib and after I did a million things I started to lift. I only got 10 minutes in before Ella woke up though.

The coach wants me to do a 21 day challenge now. I don't want to because the most stress and pressure during this challenge weren't from trying to eat or exercise but were from trying to respond to the homework posts. Then there was even more pressure with how I answered.  I also felt like response comments were more of a here's what you are still doing wrong instead of actually motivational which is what they should have been. For example the one day I wrote about how I had breakfast before I ran. Later in my response I put how later I was lightheaded since I was still sick. Instead of saying "good job on finally eating breakfast before a run for the first time ever she said "sounds like you aren't eating enough. You need to eat x, y, z 60-90 min before you run." And yes I did note that I never eat breakfast before I run not even when I ran my 50k.  So that all kinda made me mad.

What's better than any of this was that I got Ella to nap in her crib 3 of the 5 days. I probably only got her to sleep in her crib 3 times the previous month! I think the crib naps are why my mood was so good and it had nothing to do with the success at the challenge.