3 Day Refresh - Results and Review

I was feeling like I had fallen off a bit food wise lately. Then the wife made a comment about wanting to do the 3 Day Refresh and I figured I'd give it a shot with her. So we ordered up a couple and decided to start it this past Sunday. We weren't really sure what to expect but were willing to give it a shot.

For those that aren't total Beachbody whores like me, here's a little breakdown of the refresh according to the web site:

WHAT IS THE 3-DAY REFRESH™? 

The 3-Day Refresh is a scientifically designed program that helps you fast-track your weight loss, kick-start healthy eating, and get a clean break from bad nutrition habits. 3-Day Refresh is a simple, straightforward program that will help cleanse your body and improve the way you feel— without starving yourself. Unlike juice cleanses or liquid fasts which tend to be high in sugar and low in protein (leaving you feeling weak, hungry, and sluggish), this easy-to-follow program helps support your metabolism while nourishing your vital organs. For 3 days you’ll follow a program of 3 shakes a day, a fiber drink, plenty of filtered water, plus a wide array of fresh fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats throughout the day to keep your energy and metabolism going.

So Sunday morning I jumped on the scale and took a quick measurement around my stomach - it was at 41 1/2 inches (ugh. I know). Weight checked in at 192 (hard proof that I had in fact fallen off a bit): 

Then it began. The program has you take in about 900 calories per day, which is much lower than I'm used to eating. Throughout the program I felt hungry pretty much constantly. But while I was hungry, I was never absolutely starving. Here's a breakdown of how the day goes. This was our Sunday:

Wake up - drink a big glass of water.

Within an hour of waking up - breakfast is Shakeoloy with water (I normally use almond milk) plus 1 serving from the fruit list. I opted for half a banana and blended it into my Shakeology. 

BREAKFAST!!!

At least an hour after Shakeology - morning green tea, which is optional.

At least an hour after tea - comes the pleasure of this:

Fiber Sweep. Sounds tasty, right? Surprisingly the taste isn't horrible. At least I didn't think so. The consistency is a little weird though. I had read in some reviews that some people actually had to chew some of it. That sounds gross. Thankfully no chewing here. I know how to use a shaker cup like a mutha.

Another hour after the Fiber Sweep is lunch time. Lunch is the largest meal of the day and consists of a Vanilla Fresh Protein Shake, 1 serving from the fruit options, 1 serving from the veggie options and 1 serving from the healthy fats options. My lunch of choice over the 3 days was the Vanilla Shake (which is pretty tasty), 1 cup of cantaloupe, 1 cup of sliced cucumbers and 2 tbsp of hummus. I realize you just read that and thought 'that's seriously the largest meal of the day?'. Yes, it is. And while it's not a lot, it's surprisingly filling.

The afternoon consists of another optional cup of green tea and the afternoon snack which is just 1 serving of veggies and 1 serving of healthy fat. What does that mean? It means 5 baby carrots and 2 tbsp of hummus. Yeah, that's it.

 By the time dinner rolled around we were pretty hungry. But we also tried to eat a bit later since after dinner you get nothing else but another optional cup of tea. The dinner menu consists of another Vanilla Fresh Protein Shake, 1 serving from the list of provided dinner recipes and if you're feeling crazy you have the option to throw in 1 cup of organic vegetable broth (which we of course did).

There are 9 different dinner recipes in the guide that you can choose from. We happened to find one we both really liked on the first day and we just made the same damn thing every night. The one we went for was Coconut Steamed Veggies. It's super simple, it's just 1/2 cup of broccoli, 1/2 cup of cauliflower and 1/2 cup of carrots all boiled and then tossed in 1/2 tsp of coconut oil (which is my new favorite thing) and 1/4 tsp of sea salt. Then Courtney had the brilliant idea of adding the veggies to the vegetable broth and making a soup which ended up being really good.

I give you dinner:

As I said, after dinner the only other thing you get is that optional evening cup of either green or herbal tea before you go to bed early so you don't have to stay up late thinking about how friggin hungry you are.

There are a good amount of options for fruits, veggies and dinner but we like routine so we pretty much did the same thing all 3 days. I got nuts one day and had half an apple with lunch instead of the cantaloupe, but for the most part that was our 3 days.

So what about results you ask? We got them.

I jumped back on the scale on Wednesday morning after going through all 3 days and this is where I was:

That's 8 lbs on the dot gone over the 3 days. I will admit that I hadn't waited until Wednesday to check. I wanted to see how I was doing and I actually weighed myself all three days too. After day 1 I had dropped 5 1/2 lbs, after day 2 another 2 lbs and then 1/.2 lb on the last day. So I'm assuming there's a good amount of water weight in there, but that's fine.

Then I measured my stomach again and it had gone from 41 1/2 inches to 39 1/2. I managed to take 2 full inches off. The pics are a little blurry and not sure how well you can see the difference, but here's 2 inches difference:

So what are my overall feelings on the program? I think it's something that clearly gets results, but that everyone is going to react to differently. Having two of us do it together we had the pleasure(?) of seeing it from two different angles. I felt pretty good throughout all three days. Yes, I was definitely hungry. It's 900 calories per day. If you say you're not hungry you're a damn liar. But I was never completely starving. Never felt like I couldn't make it through. Never wanted to stab someone.

Courtney, on the other hand.....I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments that I feared for my life. She was miserable. She felt nauseous pretty much the whole time. She seriously doubted she could make it all the way through. And I'm pretty sure she did, in fact, want to stab someone (me). However, on Wednesday when she saw her results, she said "I'd do this again." Her results were pretty impressive too - she lost 5 1/2 lbs and 1 1/2 inches each off her waist and hips. She also jotted down her own feelings on the program here so go read this too: http://whenyouwishuponastars.blogspot.com/

So that's it in a nutshell. Ultimately I'd recommend the program for anyone looking to just flush their system out and start fresh or anyone that has some kind of event coming up and wants to drop a few quickly. It's certainly NOT EASY, but it does get the results if you follow it properly.

FIBER SWEEP! 

I'm back bitches

It’s been way too long since I updated my blog. I don’t really know why, but it just kind of fell off. I’m not going to get into everything that’s gone on since August because I just don’t have the patience to write it all out, but I will say that lately I’ve fallen back into some bad habits and I’m really trying hard to get past them. It’s made me start thinking about the accountability I had to myself when I was writing blog updates so I’m going to get back into it.

I have been keeping up with my workouts. I just started month 2 of Insanity Max:30. Great program, it’s kicking my ass. But the problems I’ve been having all revolve around food. Keeping on track has always been difficult for me. What happens is I do great for a while and then I have one bad day and then that snowballs into a couple days and you get the idea. It’s not always unhealthy food, but I just eat too much. And I keep it to myself, because I get this crazy feeling of guilt afterwards. It’s tough to explain. I know it’s all mental, but it’s so tough to get through. Basically, if I have a small bag of chips with lunch I feel incredibly guilty about it, but then in my head it becomes “well, I already had the chips so today’s shot, might as well have (insert whatever I’m craving that day)” and then once that happens the whole day goes to hell. From there it usually carries over into the next day too. Ugh.

Then the other day I opened up the email newsletter I get from MyFitnessPal and there was an article about binge eating. I read through it and realized that was exactly what I was doing. Actually I realized I’ve been doing it my entire life. And it sucks.

This is from the article and describes what exactly binge eating is:

What’s the difference between binge eating and overeating?

Binge eating is not the same as overindulging during a special event, the holidays or on vacation. Binge eating is typically a recurring behavior, not an occasional one and will typically have some, if not most of these characteristics:

1.       Consuming large amounts of food even though you are not physically hungry

2.       Eating more rapidly than normal

3.       Eating until you are uncomfortably full

4.       Eating alone or in secret

5.       Feeling disconnected during a binging episode (also referred to as a “zombie” feeling)

6.       Feeling disgusted, depressed, and/or guilty after overeating

The key difference between binge eating and conscious overindulgence is the distinctive feeling that the food is more powerful than you.

Yeah, all 6 of those – CHECK. Every so often, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had really bad periods where I’ve gone through this and it takes serious dedication to get out of it. That’s why I’ve decided to get back to blogging. It’s a way to help keep me on track and vent when I need to. So far the past few days have been good. I’ve been eating nothing but healthy food and eating the right amounts of those foods and I’ve had some really good workouts. It’s all connected but it begins and ends in the kitchen.

Honestly, it’s not easy to admit this – hence why it usually happens alone. But I feel like if I don’t write it down and put it out there it’s just going to continue to haunt me. So there ya have it. And now we move forward….Back at it.

And here’s the article I mentioned in case you’re interested:

http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/how-to-break-free-from-binge-eating/

Lessons Of The Week

I'm finishing up my first week of Body Beast and I've learned a couple things this week.

1) I never knew how to lift weights.

I mean, yes, I know how to physically pick things up.But with as much weight training as I've done in my life, this week I realized that the reason I never got the results I was looking for was that I wasn't putting a good program together. Body Beast uses Dynamic Set Training, which means every workout is full of a mix of single sets, drop sets, super sets, multi sets, giant sets, etc. I like to refer to the giant sets as holy shit sets. I've never trained like this before but so far I'm loving it. The workouts are tough as hell and by the end you're pretty much at muscle failure. I'm already starting to see results and now I think I might be becoming addicted.

2) Eating a lot of food is hard work.

That sounds weird to say. I guess if you're just eating whatever you want without a care in the world, you can really throw some food down. But with this program the nutrition plan calls for a serious increase in the amount of calories you eat. But in order to help the muscle growth, it can't just be more calories, it has to be the right kind of calories. They've got me with a calorie goal of 2,884 per day. That's a lot of food. But let's face it, there is a difference between 2,884 calories of fast food and potato chips and 2,884 calories of healthy food. So I've been logging all of my food in the MyFitnessPal app. It's really pretty awesome. If you haven't checked it out, you should.

As I mentioned, this extra food needs to be the right kinds of food. For the first two phases (Build and Bulk) the macro-nutrient breakdown goal is 50% Carbs, 25% Protein and 25% Fat.This can also be tracked in MyFitnessPal. I actually did pretty good with keeping this balance this week. My weekly breakdown ended up being 44% Carbs, 28% Protein and 28% Fat. I guess that's not bad for still trying to figure this thing out.

I'm officially on vacation and heading to the beach with the family in the morning. Really looking forward to getting away for a couple days. We need it. Going to try to keep up with the eating plan, but I know we'll be eating out a lot so we'll see how this goes.

Weigh In Sunday - So, about that plan...

As I mentioned before, I had started a hybrid schedule of Focus T25 and Body Beast. I like both programs, but after about a week and a half I realized something just wasn't feeling right. Basically, for me anyway, I think they're just too different to do together. The goals are too different. T25 is heavy cardio and a fat burner, awesome for weight loss. Body Beast is a pretty hardcore weight lifting program for serious muscle building. And so having such different goals, they also have VERY different nutrition plans. And I think that's what was causing the issues for me. See, according to the T25 plan, I should be eating around 1,600 calories per day to lose weight.But on the Body Beast plan I should be eating much more, around 3,000 calories per day, to support the muscle growth and prevent the body from burning up muscle if it doesn't have enough fuel. So what was happening was I tried to balance my calories but I just wasn't eating enough and by the end of the day I was totally burned out and I felt like I was being counterproductive.

So I've decided to make a change in plans. I'm now focusing fully on the Body Beast program. It's a 90 day schedule, just like P90X3 was. I'm doing the Lean Beast version which includes a bit of cardio to help burn fat. So nutrition-wise, it means I need to up my daily food intake. My target calories are 2,884 which is a lot more than I've been eating over the last 6 months. So it's going to be a bit of a challenge just to make sure I eat enough, which seems weird. Also need to make sure it's the right food so I'm packing on muscle and not putting fat back on.

So yesterday we went shopping. With the increased food, I'm trying to do it as cheaply as possible, buying stuff in bulk and going for some inexpensive but really good food like Tuna. And Produce Junction right near us here in Jersey has super low prices for a lot of fruits and veggies (got 5 lbs of bananas for $2).

And here's the schedule I'm following:

My numbers for this week pretty much show exactly what I was feeling. Everything stayed basically the same. Aside from my weight being .5 lb lower, I had no change. So hopefully that changes with this new program. 

Weight -

Starting Weight: 213.8 lbs

Current Weight: 179.4 lbs

Total Change: -34.4 lbs

Body Fat Percentage -

Starting Percentage: 27.7%

Current Percentage: 18.1%

Total Change: -9.6%

Starting BMI: 31.5

Current BMI: 26.5

Total Change: -5

Time to get Beastly.

Weigh In Sunday - Beast 25

I need to get back to posting more often. The past few weeks I've pretty much just been posting on Sundays. I'm totally slacking I know. Things just get busy during the week so it's tough, but I'm going to make an effort to post more about stuff other than just my weigh ins.

Here are couple of quick updates.

One of the cool things that Beachbody does is after you finish a program you can submit your results and they send you a free T-Shirt for the program that you completed. These shirts cannot be purchased anywhere. The only way to get them is to earn them. And yesterday I got my P90X3 shirt. I earned this one and I'm pretty proud of that.

This week I started a new program. I had been doing Focus T25 and I like it, but I also felt like I was missing out on strength training. So the solution to that - I picked up a copy of Body Beast. If you're not familiar with Body Beast, it's a pretty hardcore lifting program with trainer Sagi Kalev, a former Mr. Israel. What I did was combine the two into a custom hybrid schedule. Basically I'm alternating between the two programs each day. For the first month I'm using workouts from the Build phase of Body Beast and the Alpha phase of T25. So far I love it. It might be a perfect combo. I'm also throwing in X3 Yoga from P90X3 one day a week to take a break from the really high intensity stuff and work on flexibility and balance. 

My goal at this point is to cut body fat and build muscle. I'm thinking this hybrid progam could help me do just that. After the first 3 days, I weighed in this morning and saw my weight go back up one pound but body fat take a nice drop. Here's where I stand right now:

Weight -

Starting Weight: 213.8 lbs

Current Weight: 179.8 lbs

Total Change: -34 lbs

Body Fat Percentage -

Starting Percentage: 27.7%

Current Percentage: 18.1%

Total Change: -9.6%

Starting BMI: 31.5

Current BMI: 26.5

Total Change: -5

Weigh In Sunday - Wasn't Expecting That

This week has been crappy. And that's putting it lightly because my mother will probably read this. I was on the road for work and one night while out to dinner one of my new contact lenses irritated my eye and I woke up the next morning with my eye crusted shut, totally bloodshot and sore as all hell. I had to go back to glasses for the rest of the week because my eye was just throbbing for days. So that was fun. Then I came home and took my son out to this event at the Garden State Discovery Museum here in Jersey. That was fun and he had a great time, but then he tells me he wants to race me. I don't like to turn down a challenge so we went over to this open area of grass to race. We start running along. Yes, I let him win. I mean he's 4. I'll wait until he at least hits double digits before I take him down. But just as we get to the end of the race I step down directly into a hole in the ground and completely rolled my ankle. It was really painful. The pain just shot straight up my leg. I have barely been able to put any pressure on it for a few days now, which means I've also had to skip some workouts. Yesterday it felt better when I woke up and I was going to test it out, but the more I walked on it I realized it still needs another day or so. So I've been feeling a bit frustrated not being able to work out. It makes me afraid that I won't get back to it again. So if I'm not back into my programs within the next 2 days you all have full permission to come to my house, throw the DVDs in and tell me to get my ass off the couch. And to top it all off, the past couple nights have sucked on a whole different level. But that's another story for another time and place.

So when I got up this morning, knowing it was weigh in day and that I probably wasn't going to like what I saw I was hesitant to even do it. But then I got on the scale. And saw that I still dropped another 1.8 lbs since my last weigh in!! BAM! Thankfully with all the crap that's been going on I haven't let my eating plan slip so I've at least managed to keep myself on track somewhat. And the crazy part of that - this 1.8 lbs puts me at exactly 35 lbs that I've lost since February. 35 POUNDS! That's awesome. So even though this week hasn't been the best, I've got a renewed focus today....in several areas...and I'm ready to get back to it.

Weight -

Starting Weight: 213.8 lbs

Current Weight: 178.8 lbs

Total Change: -35 lbs (YEEEEEEAH!!!)

Body Fat Percentage -

Starting Percentage: 27.7%

Current Percentage: 18.8%

Total Change: -8.9%

Starting BMI: 31.5

Current BMI: 26.4

Total Change: -5.1

And today's final thought:

Weigh In Sunday - Hold the Weigh In

I'm on the road for work this week and don't have a scale or my body fat monitor with me so I'll be holding off weigh in until next week. I do have my Shakeology and my T25 DVDs with me and have been working out in the hotel room. But it's probably good I'm not weighing in this morning. Last night we went out to a big group dinner at this pretty amazing Italian restaurant called Ciao Bella in Baltimore's Little Italy. The food was incredible, but the healthiest thing on the pre-arranged menu was the Chicken Parm so I got that. I haven't eaten like that in months and my body doesn't quite know how to handle it anymore. I woke up not feeling so good this morning. I didn't eat the whole thing and I know it was only one meal, but the reason I really don't do cheat meals is because even though it was just one plate of Chicken Parm I feel like I did this:

But I just have to keep telling myself that it's OK to have one bad meal. This is the mental part of this that I've always struggled with. Still trying to get my head right I guess.

I'm just going to keep thinking about The Rock's Legendary Cheat Day and maybe this will make me feel better. I mean he did this and he's the friggin' Rock, right?

On another note, before dinner we went to the Opening Reception of the conference I'm at which was at Camden Yards and we got to do a tour of the ball park which was pretty cool. It's a beautiful park. Here are a couple views from the field.

Ok off to another 10 hours of trade show booth duty. Enjoy your Sunday folks.