3 Day Diet - the Aftermath

     Well the three day diet is done. I actually went down 3 pounds and am somewhat glad I did it. First, here's the last day of food you're allowed to have:
Day 3
Breakfast:
1 Cup black coffee or tea
5 Saltine crackers
1 Slice cheddar cheese (1 ounce)
1 Small apple
Lunch:
1 Hard boiled egg
1 Slice toast
1 Cup black coffee or tea
Dinner:
1 Cup plain tuna
1 Cup carrots or beets1 Cup cauliflower or green-leaf vegetables
1 Cup cantaloupe
½ Cup Vanilla ice cream

     Each day has gradually less food, so I was very surprised I wasn't more hungry than I thought I would be; my busy work day definitely helped. The diet went pretty well and didn't seem like it was starving myself - if anything, I felt more like I was eating organized meals I wasn't able to stray from. The small print in the diet said to not do too much activity and to watch out for headaches or dizzyness and to eat immediately if you felt you needed it. It's a scary thought but luckily things didn't get too crazy. I did feel somewhat light-headed and dizzy in the mornings but once I got up and moving I felt much better. All in all, I would recommend if someone wanted to do the diet to research it very well first and not get their hopes up before hand.
     Now that the diet is over I don't plan on rushing back into eating terribly; I'm making wiser choices from now on. I did notice as I was eating my first day off-diet that I seemed to get fuller faster, so I think the diet helped somewhat in that regard. In addition to eating better, I've found two of my favourite apps and I've been raving about them to everyone.
 1) MyFitnessPal: I had it before on my old phone and re-downloaded it on my newer more amazing phone (android). It is so much better. The app lets you set a daily calorie goal then add what food you've eaten/exercise you've done and it keeps track of how many calories you've burned vs eaten. You can look up almost any food to add it in (even scanning by barcode), if they don't have the food or something similar you can physically enter your food in. It does so much more, just get it - it's amazing. You can also sign in online track things that way as well. I personally find it interesting to look up the calories in foods/drinks you don't think twice about having; and knowing what you're putting into your body helps you stay accountable for what you're ingesting.
 2) Sworkit: this app lets you choose what kind of exercise you wanted to do (strength training, yoga, cardio, etc.) & a time frame and it will guide you through a workout. The best part is once you're done it adds he exercise directly into your MyFitnessPal workout for the day if you sync them. I've only downloaded this before my 3 Day Diet so I wasn't allowed to do much working out, therefore haven't really had a chance to see what it offers. But I've done the yoga the past two days and I love it.
     So, basically my plan from now on is to eat better and get more active - it's common sense really. Hopefully my new apps and motivation (who knows where that's coming from) I will be able to get in better shape at a nice healthy level.

I wish everyone out there a safe and happy whatever-it-is-you-are-working-on.
k

3 Day Diet - Day 2

     Today marks the second day of the Three Day Diet and everything's going pretty well. The food isn't hard to eat, but the second day definitely has less food so I'm feeling those hunger pangs. Tomorrow looks like it will be even less food but I'm sure I'll get through it with no problem, it's helpful that my will-power is pretty high. As expected, I weighed myself and there wasn't a difference, so I'll continue on with the plan and see what happens. Hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised when this is all over. The thing I'll need to remember when I'm done is that I didn't go through this to go back to my normal eating habits; I can't eat whatever I want and I need to keep with the smaller portions. We just booked our Honeymoon to Cuba so the thought of bikini's will definitely help. 

Here is the Day 2 plan I'm following, if you wish to try it yourself:

Day 2

   Breakfast:

   1 Cup black coffee or tea

   1 Hard boiled egg

   1 Slice toast

   ½ Banana

  Lunch:

   1 Cup cottage cheese or ½ cup plain tuna

   5 Saltine crackers (soda crackers)

  Dinner:

   1 Plain hot dogs (no buns)

   1 Cup broccoli or cabbage

   1 Cup carrots or turnips

   ½ Banana

   ½ Cup Vanilla ice cream

     It doesn't seem like a lot but it's actually not that bad. Helpful note, whenever you feel a bit hungry you just have to drink some water and it passes. I'm not sure about the need of the coffee/tea in the menu; it says you can have it as long as it's black or with minimal splenda-esque substance, or you can even have diet pop if you wish (or soda if you don't speak crazy Canadian). I find it so weird that it's so oddly specific about it, but it doesn't mention anywhere about not having it. One of my biggest vices is pop so I've already tried to cut that right out of my diet anyways which leaves either coffee or tea. And I've been trying to cut back on my coffee anyways, so just I'm sticking with green teas for the time being. I would love to hear about other peoples choices and how this plan has turned out for them. 

If anyone out there is struggling with something difficult; don't worry, I'm right there with you.

Good luck to you all :) 

K

3 Day Diet - Day 1

     I've got a pretty big milestone occurring this year; I'm getting married! So since this year is going to be a pretty big year in my life I've decided to make some changes in my life. I'm trying to make a promise to myself to live better: eat better, get more active, try to be less negative (which proves to be sometimes difficult when you deal with the public for a living) basically I'm only making choices that will lead to a happier and better me. I've made a lot of excuses and I can't keep doing that - it's just holding me back.

     Perfectly timed: a girl at work is going into surgery soon and needs to lose some weight so in a show of support a few of us are doing the "Three Day Diet". It was explained to me as being from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, uses things you have in your house already, it's used before heart surgery because something in the science of it focuses on the fat in your body. And the best part of all - you can lose up to 10 pounds... in just three days. I was excited at first; I needed to kick start getting into shape, especially after the over-indulgent holiday season.. After a quick Google my excitement slowly diminished. It was going well at first, the site said it's safe and effective and let's you download the menu for free. But the small print on the menu itself reads that they're not specialists and advises you to use it "at your own risk". Further, different sites listed different ingredients, said the diet came from different sources, no one on message boards seemed to be that happy with it and it didn't seem to actually be doing anything. Most importantly, the selling point of the whole thing: nothing showed up on the Heart and Stroke Foundation website.  It just proves that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Like most fad diets: it's a lot of high expectations & glitter and if you didn't lose weight, it's probably something you did wrong.
     Now, will I still be doing this crazy diet? Yes. The basic principle of it is simple: small meals of super low calories. All I can hope to gain from this is to curve some of the over-eating I've been doing. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised? From now on I know not to jump into things and to seriously think things through first. 
 

NOW, if you wanted to follow along, here's what fun I'll be partaking in today:  
Day 1

   Breakfast:

   1 Cup black coffee or tea

   ½ Grapefruit or ½ cup fresh squeezed juice

   1 Slice toast

   1 Teaspoon peanut butter

  Lunch:

   ½ Cup plain tuna

   1 Slice toast

   1 Cup black coffee or tea

  Dinner:

   2 Slices any kind of meat (3 oz.)

   1 Cup string beans

   1 Cup carrots or beets

   1 Small apple

   1 Cup Vanilla ice cream

     Luckily, I like all the food on the menu and don't mind boring meals. However, in true fashion - I did chose the worst day to start it. a) Blue Monday: the most depressing day of the year, b) the heat in our office has been wonky for almost 2 weeks (with our Canadian winter, it has not been fun), and c) they've been testing our fire alarms for hours. The annoyance of the situation has not made for a typically perky day, only made worse by everyone commenting my grumpy state is surely from my diet choice: "I'll have to talk to you in a few days once you're all done, I guess." Not. Funny. Also, it's not helpful. I'm making life changes to better myself and you're just making light of it.

Ohhh diets.
Please wish me murder-free success. I'm wishing you the same.

K