30 Days of meal planning?
I’m so fed up of gaining weight or maintaining the same weight! I stopped feeling good about my body or looking in the mirror and feeling great about 18 months ago and no matter what I was wearing I couldn’t get rid of the voice in my head saying “you look fat”. Now I know that negative self-talk isn’t good for the mind but at the time I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t see how I could look anything but fat. I felt tired all day every day especially after working for 8-10 hours in a work from home job. I just didn’t feel alive health-wise.
I decided that simply drinking a few cups of water and having 3 meals wasn’t going to cut it. Lets ignore the fact that every time I was on Netflix my mind would wander and think “hmmmm what can I eat now after such a stressful day?!”
I needed something much more structured and regimented. BUT I had seen way too many meal plans on the internet that just did not look fun or practical in real life. I had also spent way too much time googling things like “healthy snacks for weight loss” of even “how to lose weight fast” and also “best fruit and veg to keep fat off”. All of them were instant fixes with long term results and NOT what I was after.
Then I remembered that my favourite fitness YouTube vlogger, Cassey Ho from Blogilates, had done her own 90 day challenge a year ago and blogged about it. I went to her blog www.blogilates.com and binged (on blog posts – the good kind of binging obviously!). She was raw and real and blogged about everything – the highs and lows and also wrote about she kept a log of everything in her own 90 day food journal.
What I also found impressive was that she lost over 17 pounds! (7 kilos) from a sustainable way of living and eating. It wasn’t extreme and wasn’t about restriction. It was about looking at your current weight, height and activity level and working out your daily calorie need to maintain or lose weight. Seeing this and how much she treated the journey like a science experiment made me realise what I had lost along the way – a connection to the love of food and how my body felt deep down. I felt inspired and needed to take action. I knew I wanted to change my body 100%. I just didn’t know how or what it would look like.
Step 1:
I decided to try out a 90 day challenge for myself. Not just odd days here and there and then going back to eating rubbish. I wanted to be ALL IN for the journey to a better version of my mind and body.
I went onto the Popflex Active website where Cassey sells all her products and ordered a 90 day journal. It arrived a week later (for overseas delivery that is impressive in itself!)
I flipped through the pages of the journal and absolutely love how the pages are beautifully designed. Cassey has thought of everything like weekly grocery list pages and tracker pages plus note space for writing down feelings. I couldn’t wait to start filling in the pages. I felt nervous because I have never done anything like this before. I’m not entirely sure it could work for me the way it worked for Cassey. I’m no fitness instructor and office life has drastically changed my physique. The nerves have definitely kicked in but I’m deciding to do my best anyway. I have nothing to lose! Except maybe some weight LOL.
I started filling in the journal to see what I was eating and putting everything down. By seeing how much I was originally eating I realised I was eating way too much compared to how little movement I was getting by being in an office job.
Whilst I did lose a few kilos by tracking my food I found that I then plateaued around the 60-62kilo weight mark. I needed to do something different to shift more weight and get to a comfortable/healthy weight.
-------------------------------------------------------------
That was a few weeks ago.
I’ve since then been researching meal plans and meals to eat for health programs etc. I then received one of Cassey’s newsletters. I found out that Cassey was working on a meal/nutrition plan!!! AND it was going to have different variations like omnivore, vegetarian and even vegan! There were 2 choices – you could get either a 30 day or a 90 day plan. I went with the 30 day plan because as it fit my budget and my experience. I didn’t want to commit to anything long term without being familiar with the basics. It also meant I would have the chance to try out the world of meal planning and meal prep.
SO I decided I would have a go at this meal planning thing. I’m going to see how it goes!
Step 2:
Review and read the meal nutrition programme: I’ve downloaded and printed off the meal plan for 30 days. I’m about to embark on a fitness journey like nothing I’ve ever done. (The official 90 day journey begins in October)
I’ve decided to do a practice run this coming week by following the meal plan and tracking my experience.
Want to come along for the journey? Be sure to subscribe to my blog and you will get a notification for each new day’s blog post. I will take you through my whole week in terms of the meals and how I’m finding it. I will finish the week by doing an overview of what went well and what was challenging. Watch this space!
Step 3:
BEGIN!! It’s Sunday night and I’ve just finished prepping tomorrow’s lunch and dinner. It took me one hour and 15 mins in total from start to finish and I am drained now! BUT I now have tomorrow’s meals prepped and ready to go. I’m actually looking forward to them as I tasted bits of them as I was cooking and I’m definitely intrigued by the mix of flavours. Also I had a go at making zoodles!!! So fun! Shopping for the ingredients online was super easy as Cassey provides a weeky by week groceries list which took the stress out of knowing what to buy. More on this and day one coming in the next post.
That was a very long entry and if you made it this far………THANK YOU! :)
Tomorrow’s entry will be a quick update on how day one is going to definitely check the blog for the latest updates on my new adventure into meal prepping.