GUYS AND GALS! We are almost there with our kitchen. Just some finishing touches, colorful accessories and we get to close the book on our year long kitchen remodel. I will have an in depth blog post for you coming soon once I hit up Marhsall’s and Home Goods and find some pretty colorful accents […]
You might have noticed that I haven’t posted anything recently, and well, that’s because I’ve been doing the things I love to do! The past few months have been filled with visiting with friends, going back to my Alma Matter, traveling to Tennessee to see my family, some house projects, raising our crazy puppy, starting new workout programs, and working hard at my job – which I love. All things that take time, and require all of my attention. So, blogging about those things has kind of taken a back seat.
BUT I now have so much to write about and to share with you! Over the next few weeks I will have lots of fun home project posts (we finally got our countertops and backsplash YAY), fitness updates and information to share, and I hope that you enjoy all of it! Here’s a start:
UPDATES AND HAPPENINGS
In September
we went to Smith Mountain Lake for our annual Labor Day Weekend trip. It was a beautiful weekend full of laughter, tears, and flip cup. We coined a new phrase for what happens when we all get together after not seeing each other after so long: “Tears and Tequila.” Once we got the sentimental catching up out of the way, the weekend was great and we had a fun time boating and hanging out. It was also fun to have a bunch of added puppies this year!
Then we went up to DC for Matt and Alex’s wedding. It was GORGEOUS and we had a great time dancing the night away in celebration of some great friends!
The rest of September was really spent relaxing. We did a lot of small home improvement things like replacing some ceiling fans, putting the french doors in the sunroom and some yard work. Yard work is literally so easy to underestimate as both a task and a workout – happy we don’t have to do it in the winter months!
In October
I started off with another round of 21 Day Fix Extreme. I was loving the harder program, feeling good and getting excited for the fun month ahead that I had planned.
Mid-October I was all set to fly to Houston to see one of my best friends, I knew the trip would include lots of indulging in delicious mexican food, and consuming lots of wine and whiskey.
It did, and it was so so so much fun. But the last day I was there I started feeling like death. I had an awful migraine that I thought was a result of a weekend of drinking and having an allergic reaction to Kelsey’s cats (who I could not resist petting), but in reality it was a nasty viral infection that resulted in me having to fly from Houston to Richmond with a 102 fever. It sucked. I realized that the Houston trip was the longest I’d gone before without drinking my Shakeology. Coincidence? IDK but I DO know that I won’t be leaving it behind on trips anymore.
Then Goodman and I had my cousins wedding in Tennessee the following weekend. Their wedding was beautiful, and it was so great to see family after so long.
Kendra & Lia’s Wedding Reception
It was also June’s first long road trip! She did great, and even had some remarks on Goodman’s driving as you can see in my snap story.
The weekend after that I had planned to stay with friends and go to JMU’s Homecoming game. The weather was beautiful, I got to see and hug so many old friends and meet some new ones!
I can’t believe I’ve waited so long to go to a JMU Homecoming game after graduation, and definitely won’t be missing any in the future. My friends and I already have a list of things to do next year that we learned lessons about this year. Hint: get a dang hotel room, bring two outfits depending on the weather, and make sure that you get to the parking lot before the officer randomly decides it’s too full (even when you have a reserved parking spot).
JMU Homecoming Tailgate
It was a very busy month, and full of so much fun and seeing lots of friends, but it was also really stressful and totally knocked me off of my normal schedule: Sunday grocery store trip and meal prepping, working out in the mornings before work and around lunchtime on the weekends, and drinking my Shakeology for breakfast every morning. I felt WAY off track and like I needed to reset.
were filled with lots of great food, a 5k with my friends, a new workout program that I am in LOVE with (Shout out Core De Force!), finally getting our kitchen finished (blog post to come!) and Goodman and I planning and purchasing our first trip to EUROPE! 2017 is set to be an amazing year!!! Stay tuned!
So, I went ahead and purchased Beachbody’s 3 Day Refresh before I left for a fun weekend of eating tailgating food and drinking lots of beer. I planned to do it when I got back.
It’s a three day cleanse that is gluten, sugar, coffee, meat, and dairy free for three whole days. *Cue fear of missing carbs and lattes*
It includes a very detailed timeline full of fruits and veggies, protein shakes, and a fiber sweep each day in order to cleanse your body of everything to the best of it’s ability in just 72 hours. Here’s what happened.
PREPPING AND PLANNING:
The kit comes with all of the shakes you need and the a planning guide that helps you plan out exactly when and what you are supposed to eat and drink for all three days. It also had recipes for dinner for the three nights and ingredient lists… pretty straight forward.
I planned to just go ahead and make the same thing all three days/nights so that I wouldn’t have to buy so many ingredients and made a list, went to the grocery store, came home and packed my lunch for day one.
DAY ONE
The HARDEST thing was starting off the day with no coffee. If you know me, you know that black coffee with a little stevia in it is ESSENTIAL to my everyday life….like 3 cups of it. The refresh said only tea, so I was slurping down big mugs of tea in the morning trying to get all of the caffeine that I could.
I found it REALLY hard to finish all of the liquids I had to drink in the morning: Water, Shakeology, Tea, Fiber Sweep, Tea, More Water… I made so many trips to pee during the day it was ridiculous.
The fiber sweep is literally DISGUSTING, and on this first day I couldn’t even finish it. They mean it when they say that you have to chug it immediately because it basically turns into a sand + water consistency after 3 minutes. I ended up drinking as much as I could without throwing up and then drinking a bunch of water right after. Not fun.
Then it was time for my Vanilla fresh shake. I brought my NutriBullet to work so that I could blend it and felt really awkward loudly blending a shake for lunch. A couple people asked me if I thought it was happy hour – HAHA I wish – pretty much the opposite. But, the shake was actually pretty good with the strawberries blended in.
By about 12:30 I had finished the shake and eaten my first “meal”, consumed all of those liquids and was feeling surprisingly full. Then, when it was time for my lunch (peppers and hummus.) I ate the snack and felt even more full which was a pleasant surprise considering I was expecting to feel like I could eat a horse by that time during the day.
But at about 4:30, the hunger really set in. I was definitely hangry. Not to mention that I decided to start this cleanse THE DAY AFTER halloween. There were so many snacks and so much candy everywhere, so I just want to say I’m really proud of myself for not cheating and having any. I literally did not even eat one M&M. I persevered.
As soon as I got home I made dinner. I was so hungry, I had to eat before my scheduled time. I followed all of the instructions, and cooked the veggies (Broccoli, Carrots and Cauliflower cooked in water and coconut oil) and added my own seasoning. It was delicious.
My coconut veggie dinner
Turns out I used lemon pepper seasoning that did actually have a little bit of sugar in it, but hey, I still stuck to the meal plan 100% otherwise… so I’m not counting it. 🙂
After literally licking my bowl clean, I drank some La Croix, which helped make me feel full for a little while. Around 9pm, I felt super tired and like I was going to end up snacking, so I just made myself prep the next day’s food and then went to bed.
DAY TWO
I overslept, and felt SO groggy. Almost hungover – It was really strange. I drank the water that I was supposed to drink as soon as I woke up, and went downstairs to make my shakeology, drank it, hopped in the shower super quick, and then tried to rush to work.
This day ended up being an abnormally busy day for me with meetings, so I found it SUPER hard to stay on schedule. BUT I think it was a little easier on this day because I was really distracted with work. I had to compromise on the schedule a bit, and consequently had a feast of a lunch (comparatively): fiber sweep (chugged it this time and drank all of it), vanilla fresh shake, combined the strawberries with my spinach and oil, and then tea.
Around 3pm I had my peppers and hummus, and I think having it later helped me not feel so hangry at the end of the day.
Got home, made my meal, felt SO tired, and fell asleep on the couch around 8:45 HAHA. Not having coffee and limiting my calorie intake really impacted my energy levels, obviously.
DAY THREE
I had to meal prep in the morning in a rush because I had fallen asleep on the couch the night before, so I ended up cutting everything as I ate it at work this day.
Day three was also a really busy day at work, which, again, helped distract me, but I will say that this was probably the easiest day of the three. My stomach didn’t growl, I started to get used to everything, and I knew how to space out my meals as a result from the days before.
After the busy day, I went home, had my final veggie skillet meal, and debated celebrating early with a drink or snack, but decided not to.
I weighed myself that night and was really bloated so I weighed more than when I started. That was disappointing, but expected, given that my body was still digesting and getting all of the bad stuff (cough, Halloween candy, cough). I thought I’d weigh again in the morning to see if there was a big difference after I had actually digested everything.
There definitely was. In the morning I weighed in at 113.4!!!!! That was three pounds down in three days. I took after pictures and compared them with the ones I took the night before I started the three days and noticed a pretty big difference. The bloat was gone and I just felt really clean…dare I say REFRESHED! Here are the pictures for proof.
RECAP
I would totally do this again. It was pretty great to do it right before starting a new program, because it was great motivation to KEEP eating well and not have to start over again. That being said, I definitely indulged in a nice big chicken sandwich the next day for lunch (I don’t think I could ever say goodbye to chicken…or bread), but it’s about moderation and educating yourself of the foods you put into your body.
If I have a special event in the future (vacations, weddings, etc.) I know I will be doing this in prep for it. It was a great way to keep my mind focused and determined and it felt good to know that I had completed the three days wholly, and and in a healthy way without cheating!
If you want to try it, let me know! The 3 Day Refresh only costs about $60! If for nothing else, do it to challenge yourself and learn about your body and better appreciate the food that you put into it! I certainly look at labels and ingredients much more closely now.
Reach out to me to learn more via Facebook, text, or email at kristenmduke@gmail.com! 😃
An Aspiring Abode 