#28FitDays - Week One is a Success!

I'm happy!

Recap

My motto for the 28-Day Challenge is "Healthy Weight by Day 28!"  Down three pounds in week one; with three weeks and seven pounds to go. I think I should make it!  After a few false starts this year I may have finally turned things back around!

I fell behind on posting my daily recaps.  Here are some highlights:

• I invented the Luscious Purple Power Smoothie (recipe here)!  Great breakfast with a hard-boiled egg, but it's so thick and cold you can't drink it fast!  You might even need a spoon!

Allow extra time to avoid
brain-freeze!

• Marinated Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta for lunch, Days 5-7 (recipe here).

 


• A whole week with no cheez-its and no peanut butter snack crackers!  (You'd have to have been a bug on the wall in my office to know how overboard I was going with this, and if you did know I would be very embarrassed!)

• Four out of five work days without visiting the office peanut bowl.  Again, that wouldn't be an issue if I could do like everyone else and eat one or two at a time.  I take handfuls, and make multiple trips!  (Or should I say, "I used to . . .?)

• Four out of five work days without potato chips.  Unfortunately, I visited the peanut bowl and ate the potato chips on the same day, but thanks to my long run on Saturday I had the activity points to spare! 

• Only one serious after-dinner binge - at least all those pistachios were unsalted!

• Plenty of cardio (but that's never been a problem for me):  226 minutes running, 150 minutes walking and 120 minutes of aerobics!

• Workout of the week 4X and several workouts from The RUNiverse 30-day Bodyweight Strength Challenge.

Week 1 WOW!

Coming Up in Week 2

• Still trying to wait until lunch time to eat lunch!  Might make it easier to stay away from the peanut bowl and vending machine mid-afternoon - LOL!

• 15K race on Saturday, and then a break from running.  Hoping to do some early morning lap swimming!

This challenge seems to be just what I needed! 

Thanks for reading!

Luscious Purple Power Smoothie

I like my smoothies thick and cold like a milkshake.  This one is so thick it's almost more like soft ice cream!

 Luscious Purple Power Smoothie

 

8 oz unsweetened almond milk - coconut milk blend

1 frozen banana

1 oz vanilla-flavored protein powder

1 tbsp oats

a handful of frozen blueberries

4 ice cubes

 

Blend until smooth.  You might have to spoon it out of the blender into your glass!

WW Points Values for the #28FitDays Transformation Challenge Recipes

Here are the points values for the recipes listed here, in the same order listed in the document.

Breakfast

Breakfast Pizza - 11 points
Mini Ham and Cheese Quiches - 7 points
Kris Carr's Smoothies & Juices - 7 points
Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Goddess Smoothie - 8 points
Chris Freytag's Green Energy Smoothie - 5 points
Sausage Frittata with Mushrooms -  7 points

Lunch & Dinner

Chicken Lettuce Cups - 11 points
Chicken with Walnuts and Spinach - 5 points
Citrus-Sesame Chicken Salad - 9 points
Fiery Buffalo Wings - 4 points
Giant Mushrooms Stuffed with Greens and Mozzarella - 9 points
Grilled Pork Tacos with Avocado-Radish Salad -10 points
Grilled Tuna Nicoise Salad - 8 points
Italian Bean and Vegetable Soup - 5 points
Lemon-Pepper Shrimp - 6 points
Linguine Bolognese - 8 points
Kris Carr's Super Simple Wok Veggies - 4 points
Marinated Tomato & Mozzarella Pasta - 7 points
Savory Salmon Brunch Skillet - 12 points
Spice-Rubbed Roast Chicken and Potatoes - 7 points
Chris Freytag's Shrimp with Cilantro-Lime Rice - 12 points
Summer Rolls with Peanut Dipping Sauce - 3 points
White Chicken Chili - 9 points
Chris Freytag's Meatless Spicy Black Bean Burgers - 8 points

Snacks

Artichoke Hummus - 2 points
Spinach Pesto Dip - 4 points
Chris Freytag's Southwestern Red Pepper Nachos - 4  points

Dessert

Apricots with Yogurt & Honey - 2 points
Savory Grilled Peaches - 2 points
Whoopie Pies - 3 points
Chris Freytag's Hunger Busting Peanut Butter Cookies - 4 points

WW Points Values for the #28FitDays Fast and Easy Meal Plan (Breakfast, Lunches and Snacks Only)

For anyone doing the Prevention Magazine #28FitDays Challenge who is tracking Weight Watchers points, here are the values for the breakfasts, lunches and snacks prepared as described in this meal plan.  Note that I used the nutritional values given for each entire meal, including the fruits and veggies that WW now counts as zero points.  I use these calculations to choose meals based on their relative points value, but then I calculate the actual points (which are usually 1-3 lower) for "official" tracking purposes.  Note also that the breakfasts and lunches listed below aren't in the same order as shown in the plan documents because I listed them by points values instead of by day!

 

Breakfasts

5-POINTS

High-Protein Multigrain Pancake

9-POINT BREAKFASTS
Open-Faced Egg Sandwich
Power Smoothie
Eggs with Toast

10-POINT BREAKFASTS

Scrambled Eggs with Tortillas
Granola-Berry Bowl
Lox ‘n’ Bagel
Cold Cereal
Yogurt with Fruit

12-POINT BREAKFASTS

Hearty & Healthy Oatmeal

Lunches

5-POINT LUNCHES
Garden Salad with Chicken

6-POINT LUNCHES

Turkey-Slaw Wrap
Turkey Breast on Whole Wheat Pita (Listed as a snack on Day 7 but sounds more like a lunch to me.  Will probably use a sandwich thin instead of a pita.)

7-POINT LUNCHES

Open-Faced Tuna Sandwich
Spinach Feta Salad
Taco “Burger”

8-POINT LUNCHES

Hearty Bean Soup
Curried Turkey Wrap
Tuna Salad Bowl (Day 9)
Chicken Soup ‘n’ Salad
Chicken Barbeque Wrap

9-POINT LUNCHES

Lentil Soup ‘n’ Salad
Ranch Chicken Sandwich

10-POINT LUNCHES

Asian Chicken Soup
Veggie Flatbread
Hummus Pita
Hamburger
Turkey-Salad Sandwich

11-POINT LUNCHES
Grilled Chicken Salad Bowl
Grilled Veggie ‘n’ Feta Wrap
Chicken Salad
Veggie Burger
Tuna Salad Bowl (Day 23)
Black Bean Tostada

12-POINT LUNCHES

Soup ‘n’ Sandwich

13-POINT LUNCHES

Turkey-Pecan Salad with Balsamic
Turkey Wrap
Turkey Burger

Snacks

1 oz string cheese + small apple:  4 points

6-oz 0% plain greek yogut w/ 1/2 cup blueberries:  3 points
1/4 cup (30 pieces) unsalted pistachios in the shell:  5 points
10 whole unsalted almost + 10 yogurt-covered raisins:  5 points
2-low sodium stoned wheat crackers+5 baby carrots+2 tbsp low-fat ranch dressing:  5 points
1 med tomato, 1 oz low-fat mozzarella cheese, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp olive oil, 4 fresh basil leaves: 5 points (I’ll save this snack for later in the summer when we get good garden tomatoes)

 

#28FitDays - Day 3

Day 3

Day 3 of the Challenge and one week to go before my 15K race!  I got up early to try to do everything the same way I hope to do it on race day, so here is my morning in the order that I did it:

Breakfast:  A banana and two whole-wheat bagel thins with the tiniest amounts possible of Olivio spread and low-sugar orange marmalade.  This isn't like any of the breakfasts in the plan, but I always eat a bagel on race days!  (BTW, in terms of Weight Watchers points, two bagel thins equal two-thirds of one Bruegger's bagel.)

Pre-Cardio:  One-mile walk and 20-minutes of yoga, just to get the muscles warm and loose.

Cardio:  Ten-mile run, with walk breaks, ratio 3:45 running/0:45 walking.  Covered ten miles in almost exactly 2 hours.  Look at all the "activity points" I got for that!

Almost a whole day's worth of extra points!

Lunch:  Tuna salad made with light mayonnaise, on a whole-wheat sandwich thin.  Two large strawberries.

Snack:  Apple slices with 1/4-cup of fat-free ricotta cheese as a dip.

Dinner:  Half of a Newman's Own Thin & Crispy Margherita Pizza, salad with a light garlic-balsamic dressing and 8 oz. of red wine.  It's Saturday night and I earned it!

Dessert:  A banana.

I don't have a plan for tomorrow.  Breakfast at my sister-in-law's house will probably be some kind of pastry, Danish or muffin, and dinner will be whatever DHR decides to make.  Might not be a clean-eating day, so portion-control will be important.

No cardio scheduled tomorrow - I think I did enough today!

Is anyone else training for or doing a race during the challenge?

#28FitDays - Day 2

Day 2

Day 2 of the Challenge was a success!

Cardio:  The training plan for next week's 15K said "Easy Run, 40-50 minutes."  Running is hardly ever easy for me no matter how much I do, and my feet were sore because (as I finally figured out) the most recent shoes I've been wearing are all wrong for me.  I ran outside in the morning before work and completed 3.9 miles in 47:30ish, with no walk breaks.  Did the walking lunges from my 30-day runner's challenge and "running the tires" from the WOW as part of my cool-down walk because I didn't think of it on time do them with my warm-up.

Toning:  Did the remaining three WOW exercises (Skiers Squats, Bird-Dog Push-Ups and Pilates Roll-Up with Forward Fold).

Breakfast:  Planned an egg sandwich, but felt more like a smoothie.  The Power Smoothie on Day 3 looked good, but I made some substitutions based on what I had on hand and ended up with this:

 
Power Smoothie, Hobby-Runner Style

 

1 frozen banana

8 oz unsweetened almond-coconut milk

1 oz vanilla protein powder

1 Tbsp rolled oats

4 ice cubes

 It was delicious - thick and cold like a milk shake, just the way I like it - and it filled me right up (until 10:30, anyway)!

 

Lunch:  Tuna sandwich, same as Day 1.  Based on the Open-Faced Tuna Sandwich from Day 3, but on a whole-wheat sandwich thin to make it easier to wrap and take to work!  Once again, my sandwich called me before 11:00 and I didn't resist.  Strawberries instead of cherries.

 

Snacks:  1 Sargento reduced fat sharp cheddar string cheese, 1 apple, 15 unsalted pistachios in the shell - all of which I ate before noon.  Mid-afternoon, I had a mini-bag of 94% fat free microwave popcorn.  Around 4:00, I had my biggest success of the day as I walked another bag of popcorn to the microwave, and then turned around and walked it, unopened, back to my desk!  Yay, me!

 

Dinner:  My husband had made whole-wheat linguini with a clam sauce during the week, and we had the leftovers with salad.  I'm tracking Weight-Watchers points, and I was under the target minimum, so I ate extra.  I thought that worked out well since I was planning a long run the next morning.  Didn't have any wine, again because of my running plans for the next morning.

 

Dessert:  I'm actually trying to break the habit of eating after dinner, but I was hungry even after the extra pasta so I had a banana.

 

How is everyone else doing with the meal planning?  What substitutions have you made?

 

#28FitDays - Day 1 Recap, Day 2 Plan

This morning I weighed in and confirmed that it's feasible to fulfill my motto for this challenge:  Healthy Weight by Day 28!  Based on the BMI chart, I'm 10 pounds above the upper limit of my healthy weight.  I should be able to take care of that in 28 days!

Day 1 Recap

Successes

• Made it to the gym by 6 am for a one hour workout! 

Used the Speed Interval button on the treadmill to set up my Fartleks. Run speed-7.0 mph; Jog speed 5.3 mph 20X 1/1
With 5-minute warmup and cooldown, total treadmill time = 30 minutes.

A plank minute has both beat!

Next I did 15 tricep dips and 2 60-second planks. 

        Took a selfie during my stretch break.

Then moved on to the WOW exercises.

 See me reaching for my feet for the final Pilates roll-up/forward fold.  Then, finally, my favorite - the True Stretch cage!  Done by 7 am!

• Stuck to my menu plan, with the addition of a mini-bag of 94% fat free microwave popcorn mid-afternoon.  Not the cleanest food there is, but it's my emergency alternative to Cheeze-its or multiple handfuls of salted peanuts.  Maybe I won't need a mid-afternoon snack if I don't keep eating my lunch and all my planned snacks before 11 am! 
• Dinner was a palm-sized piece of grilled pork loin and half a plate full of cooked spinach.  I skipped the rice and allowed myself a 4-oz glass of red wine.  Nothing after dinner.  I'm hungry!

What I Can Do Better

I've already done half of it!  It's to get my morning workout clothes and my work clothes ready before bed.  The workout clothes are ready; the work clothes not so much but since tomorrow is casual Friday, it won't be hard.

 

Day 2 Plan

Menu:  Breakfast, lunch and snacks the same as today.  I'll try to eat my lunch later, drink more water and maybe skip the popcorn.  Yogurt with breakfast instead of ricotta cheese.

 

Cardio:  40-50 minute "easy run."  Hoping to do it outside.  It's lighter in the morning now, will be about 45-degrees, and if I'm lucky it won't be raining!

 

Toning:  Will do the WOW again, along with Day 22 of the Runner's Strength Challenge:  35 walking lunges and 2 sets of 11 pushups.

 

Happy Friday!  If you're in this with me, leave a comment about your Day 1!