I have fallen off the holistic gut health and fitness wagon! If you’re familiar with my journey, you know that after committing to a 30-Day Candida detox program to finally gain control over the health issues I had been experiencing for 20+ years (resulting from a high-carb vegan and also plant-based diet), I finally started healing my body.
I made so many improvements with that program!
I didn’t stop there though because I tend to have an all-or-nothing mindset (not always the best but in this case, we all reaped the benefits of my experiment). I dove into an extreme elimination diet where I ate nothing but meat, butter, salt, and eggs.
The complete opposite of the plant-based diet I had consumed most of my life. That came with an identity crisis!
But, I never felt better after ZERO digestive issues and real bowel movements. My skin looked great, my endometriosis symptoms mostly disappeared, my anxiety was non-existent and I never felt hungry!
The only problem was the social aspect of food. Just like I had experienced when I was on the vegan diet, it was harder to go to restaurants or family gatherings without drawing attention or offending people. Plus, I knew that this wasn’t my forever diet. I loved fruits and vegetables. So I began adding in onion, pickles, carrots, blueberries, avocado… little by little just to test out what my body would react to.
This is the point of the elimination diet! You cut out many foods and then start to add certain things to pinpoint your sensitivities and triggers. It’s priceless information.
So what’s the problem now? Well, I moved in with my significant other and his teenage daughter who until I moved in, always ate fast food, Doritos, cookies, ice cream, frozen dinners, and convenience foods. In other words: junk.
Also my weakness.
I took over grocery shopping but there was always complaining about never having anything good to eat. Or we’d be rushing here and there and need to stop quickly for fast food…
Little by little, over the past 3 years I added in foods that I hadn’t let myself eat in 20 years! But, I managed to keep most of my issues at bay because I was sticking to keeping my diet mostly animal-based and watching that I don’t eat the biggest personal offenders for days in a row (ahem: PASTA! BREAD! COOKIES! Oh my!)
However, living this way has had negative side effects of course! I was hoping that it wouldn’t catch up with me but I have slowly gained about 18 pounds! I am also getting migraines again as well as anxiety bad enough to induce breathing issues that caused me so much fatigue, tingling, and numbness, that I ended up going to the ER out of serious concern.
By the way, I’m “fine” and it’s “just anxiety.”
So, I started going to the gym and was proud of myself for making that commitment because I had always HATED the gym. I started seeing that I was getting stronger every week by adding more weight to the machines but I didn’t feel that I was losing fat. Maybe I was? But I wasn’t sure how to eat anymore. It became so difficult to tread this line of eating what I felt was good for my body versus meal planning, cooking, and shopping for everyone else.
I was lost and desperately needed some structure and guidance.
That leads me to my new adventure!
I just started the 90-day V Shred program last week, and let me tell you, it has been frustrating.
I filled out the questionnaire to help my coach give me a meal plan that I would stick to for the 90 days. I mistakenly told her my favorite foods that I had been eating recently thinking that I’d eat them only sometimes.
Please don’t do it this way.
What I got was a plan that repeated foods that I love but have sensitivities to. Remember, I had been eating these foods but only sparingly, not days in a row. So of course, during my first week, I developed constipation, midnight indigestion, bloating, hemorrhoids, and acne!
All my familiar issues were coming back quickly!
I fixed my mistake by emailing my trainer and she was happy to adjust the plan to eliminate grains and switch to low carb to help ease my digestive issues. I learned they are very flexible with the foods that you want to eat. Even if there is a food you don’t like included in your plan, (or you just don’t have certain ingredients on hand that day) you can simply switch it out because they give you a list of foods that can substitute others called the Food Swap Bible.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I’ll tell you about the plans and products I purchased because they do have a lot and my plan is pretty basic.
Toned In 90 Days for $57.00
Custom Diet Plan – 4 weeks for $49.00
Ok, first:
Toned In 90 Days!
This exercise plan comes with 2 different choices: gym workouts, and at-home workouts. I have yet to try the gym workouts and may never need to! I was surprised at how short they were (only around 20 – 25 minutes each) and yet, I was so sore the next day. If you follow along you will get a great workout, burn fat, and build muscle.
I just completed the first 30 days of this exercise plan and I’m excited to announce I can now do a knee-push up!
Yes, that’s the “cheat” push-up.
But hey, I could never do one properly and a bad elbow kept me from progressing in the past.
I started with a wall push-up. Now, they did not tell me to use this modification but when the modification they gave (the knee push-up) wasn’t even possible I turned to the Facebook group for help. I saw that other people started with this and then worked up to the knee-push-up. It works!
If there are days you’d rather go to the gym you just click on the gym workout for that particular day and do that instead.
So far, I’ve been doing the recommended 4 workouts per week and 3 rest days. On your rest days, there is the option to do cardio. I’ve been going on walks or hikes on about half of my rest days this month about 3 miles each time.
I am impressed that I’m able to get through the specific exercises a little easier now at the end of the month. Some of them are challenging! You do what you can and if you need further modifications, ask the Facebook group and then maybe head to YouTube for the proper form.
I only learned after the fact that Toned in 90 Days is considered an “advanced” weight loss program while they have other beginner programs like the 30 Day Move: At Home program, Fat Loss Extreme For Her, Fat Loss Extreme For Him, and Six-Pack Shred.
They also have beginner programs that specifically focus on strength building like Booty Builder, Clean Bulk, and Big Arms.
During the checkout process, they ask you to upgrade several (and I mean several) times so I did go for the Booty Builder and Six-Pack Shred but have yet to try them out. I’ll probably get to those after the initial 90-day challenge!
Overall, I’d say that this exercise routine is just what I needed for some structure to my workouts. Before I’d go to the gym but didn’t know what exercises I should be doing for which muscles on which days for how many days etc. This takes all the guesswork out. I’m happy someone is finally telling me what to do each day. lol.
Now for the Custom Diet Plan!
This part was more difficult for me to get the hang of.
When you buy this plan you get a trainer that will give you a questionnaire asking you which type of diet you’d like. Some of the options are carb-cycling (which was recommended to me based on my body type quiz) paleo, keto, vegetarian etc.
So I chose carb-cycling thinking it would be low carb most days and higher carb other days. I thought I could handle that.
There’s also a question that asks you to list some foods that you really love and some that you absolutely will not eat or are allergic to. I thought I could actually include all the foods I love even though I know I am sensitive to them.
I was wrong, wrong, WRONG.
And I got pretty upset when all the health issues I used to struggle with started coming back! There were just too many carbs and too much fiber for my digestive system to handle. After the first week, I was frustrated and felt like I was going backward. And it showed up on the scale as well!
I started at 153.2 pounds, and by midweek I was up to 155.4 pounds!
This along with constipation, midnight indigestion, and other things creeping back into my life took me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.
My Misunderstanding
I reached out to my trainer and let her know what was happening and even went into a few details about my past struggles resulting from veganism, plant-based, fiber, and carbs. When she responded with shock in a somewhat dismissive way I became a little angry.
Or a lot angry.
It brought up feelings around not being believed by so many health professionals and random know-it-alls who seemed to know better than I did about my own body.
Unfortunately, this clouded my ability to clearly understand her overall message. In one sentence she is talking about how most other people don’t have issues with too much fiber and need more in their diet, and in the next sentence, she’s telling me we are going to stick to the diet plan.
But I missed the sentence in between that stated she could adjust it to a lower-carb plan.
And THAT was the one that we’d supposedly stick to.
Oops.What I think happened is, that because these trainers have so very many people (it’s a popular program) they need to make plans for and check-in with, they heavily rely on scriptwriting for their emails understandably. She just used that script and then inserted a few original thoughts that didn’t flow well and caused me some confusion.
So I assure you, they WILL change the meal plans for you if it needs adjusting. I take responsibility for letting my triggers prevent me from understanding the full message.
The trainers really do want to help you and we just need to be open to that help even though changing your diet can be frustrating.
If you would like to know more about this new journey, please come back! I will keep you updated.
Nicole