21 Day Fix Results and Review

My 21 Day Fix Challenge ended last Tuesday and although it has taken almost a week I wanted to share my 21 Day Fix results and review of the program with you!

What is the 21 Day Fix?

The 21 Day Fix is an exercise and healthy eating plan from fitness trainer Autumn Calabrese. It focuses on short, but intense 30 minute workouts and clean eating in healthy portions for 21 Days. I also completed my challenge using Shakeology, a superfood and nutrient rich protein shake. Each day you have a 30 minute workout assigned such as cardio, strength, pilates or yoga. There are modifiers for each exercise and you don’t have to be an experienced exerciser to do these workouts! They are intense though! The eating plan is built on color-coded containers that help you control your portion sizes and eat the proper amount of macronutrients. Green container for veggies, purple for fruits, yellow for carbs, red for protein, blue for healthy fats, orange for seeds and dressings, and teaspoons for nut butter and oils.   You are assigned a daily number of containers to eat according to your caloric needs. So not only are you eating clean and healthy foods you are eating the right amounts (<<a very tricky thing to master even for the healthiest eater) to fuel your weight loss and workouts.

What are the workouts like?

You need an exercise band or a set of weights (light & heavy recommended) for the workouts. There is a modifier for each exercise. One tip I have is to mute the music behind the workout and play your own workout playlists! I have a Country playlist, Top 40, and Christian ones that are really fun and upbeat!

• Total Body Cardio – This is a scorcher of a workout! Probably the hardest one for me and has lots of cardio work and weight work. It is divided into work sections of 1 minute and rest sections of 15-20 seconds. Lunges, skiers, twists–this one is tough, but you will feel totally triumphant when finished.
• Upper Body – My personal favorite workout! You use light and heavy weights to work your entire upper body plus a good amount of ab work thrown in. (Because I have a bit of disastis recti I subbed in my own ab exercises)
• Lower Body – Your legs will be burning at the end of this one! Lots of lunge and squat variations in this one and the seated work at the end is killer too!
• Pilates – This wasn’t my favorite dvd, but it does a lot of “slow burn” ab and booty work. I ended up modifying a ton of the ab exercises so I probably won’t do this one often until my abs are totally healed from pregnancy.
• Cardio Fix – Holy burpees! You will be drenched in sweat at the end of this one! A great cardio workout that I love to hate. At the end you will know you worked hard–my tip for this one is to just keep moving and take short (10 second) breaks if you feel like you are going to die and can’t go on. Just take a short rest and then get back with it. Also, no shame in following Cat (aka the girl demonstrating the modified moves and everyone’s favorite!) during this one.
• Dirty Thirty – I LOVE this one and it will be for sure on a constant rotation for me! A total body strength workout that just seems to go quickly and is a lot of fun while still being a lot of work.
• Yoga – Truthfully I didn’t do the yoga dvd…ever. I just took the last day as a rest day. My sister said it was a good stretch but kind of boring. (If you want to try yoga that is NOT boring and I love check out Piyo!)

Overall I loved the workouts! Autumn is a great motivator–I also didn’t want to kill her at the end of my workouts like I do some trainers so that is always good. She’s challenging, but not annoying.

What does a typical day of eating look like?

Here is a sample of my typical eating day. Keep in mind that I was breastfeeding so my calories were higher to account for that. I had 6 greens, 6 reds, 4 purples, 4 yellows, 1 blue, 1 orange, and 6 teaspoons.

Breakfast: 3/4 cup oatmeal (1 yellow), 1/2 scoop protein powder (1 red), 3 teaspoons peanut butter (3 teaspoons), and 1 cup blueberries (1 purple)

Snack 1: 1 cup carrots, celery and snap peas (1 green) with 1/2 blue container hummus

Lunch: 2 cups lettuce (2 greens), with deli turkey (1 protein), dressing (1/2 orange), and a cup of chili (1 purple, 1 yellow, 1/2 green)

Snack 2: Shakeology blended with almond milk and 1/2 banana (1 purple, 1 red)

Dinner: Burger on wheat bun (2 yellow, 1 red), roasted veggies (1 green, 3 teaspoons), salad with dressing & cheese, (1/2 blue, 1/2 orange).

Snack 3/Dessert: 1 cup Greek yogurt and fruit or berries (1 red, 1 purple)

Eating clean was challenging, but doable. It really is a mindset shift that gets easier as you go! Once the desserts, doughnuts, etc are just turned off in my brain I do better than if I just have “a little bit here or a little bit there” which turns out adding up quickly! I used Pinterest a LOT for recipes and resources! I even came up with 21 21 Day Fix Approved Dinners-which was so helpful!

What were my results?

I lost 4 pounds and 6.5 inches! The most significant inches lost was in my waist! #thankyousweetlordjesus My body really (really!) clings to weight while I’m breastfeeding so I was happy with what I lost weight-wise and SUPER happy about the inches I went down and how much better my tops and pants are fitting. I’m planning to continue using the workouts this next week and using the Cize program (dance based cardio–IT’S GONNA BE FUN!) starting next week for another type of workout! If you want to join in my Cize challenge group, just let me know in the comments and I’ll send you more info! Also, until July 1, 2015 the 21 Day Fix Challenge packs (dvds, plus month of Shakeology, plus bonus dvd and shaker) are on sale for $140 down from $160! So if you want to do this program starting now or in the future the next few days is a GREAT time to take advantage of that discount!

I am planning on doing another group 21 Day Fix Challenge in August. Doing this with a group was so motivating and I would highly suggest it! In our group people lost between 4-9 pounds and an average of 5 inches! Awesome! If you want more info on being part of a 21 Day Fix challenge group, just let me know in the comments!

The 21 Day Fix is an awesome exercise and clean eating program! It’s definitely worth it to me, especially because you can buy it once and repeat it as often as needed AND you can share the program with your spouse! I also love that the workouts were only 30 minutes–I could squeeze them in during naptimes or just bust out the moves with my toddler while the baby was in the swing or play mat!

Have you tried the 21 Day Fix? What’s your favorite type of workout-strength or cardio?