Turbo Fire: 4 Week Update

Today marks the finish of week 4 of Turbo Fire, meaning that I am 1/3 of the way through! (Yay!)  If you haven't read why I chose to go BACK to Turbo Fire after finishing of the "21 Day Fix", you can read more on that decision here.

No photos and measurements to go along with this post, just the dirt on how it's been going.  The work outs have been fabulous!  I absolutely love Chalene, I love the routines and I love the sweat.  I feel really really good this go round with Turbo Fire-- I know the routines and I am keeping up with her and following along without ever hitting pause.  It's pretty amazing!  So far in 4 weeks, I've only missed 1 day of working out (such is life), and I actually ended up subbing out 2 days of workouts with 4 mile runs, let's just say Mommy needed some alone time those days. I've also added in the "Abs 10" class on pretty much every Low HIIT day.

The eating end of things.... has been tough!  I'm not going to sugar coat it!  (I'm not even supposed to be eating sugar.) I have been trying to continue with the 21 Day Fix container system while doing the Turbo Fire workouts, and long story short, I bumped up my calories a bracket at the beginning and I've had a hard time.  I love love loved the 21 Day Fix-- I loved the clean eating, the balance between food groups, the results.... I learned A LOT about eating from doing the 21 Day Fix.  BUT the calorie bracket I was in doing the 21 Day Fix was very restrictive.  Of course it totally works for the end goal of losing weight, but now that I have entered more of a maintenance phase, I don't want to be quite as restricted.  I want to be healthy, I want to keep the figure that I have quite literally worked my butt off for, but I also don't want to be that girl who has to pack her own food for every party or gathering, and who turns down every single sweet at the occasional birthday party--- finding the balance in between those things, and being strict, but also being flexible... that has been really tough!

Anyway, 4 weeks in, I think that I have discovered that it is more a mental thing-- for the past year, I have been solely focused on losing.  And I never thought it'd be this way, but I'm learning that losing is easier than maintaining.  Losing is all about the calorie deficit-- easy math, burn more than what you put in.  Maintaining is about giving yourself flexibility and trying your darndest not to gain back what you worked so hard to lose-- because it's definitely easier to put it on than it is to take it off!  SO it's probably going to sound weird to some, but I've decided to bump myself back down to that restrictive calorie deficit, and then if I'm hungrier, then it won't be the end of the world to have a little flexibility and add in an extra veggie, fruit or protein.  Take it day by day and be flexible with the occasional addition.  I just feel like in my mind, the larger calorie bracket and larger number of containers was a little overwhelming to me, and all the extra containers screamed "freedom!", and I was being a little too flexible and a little too free.  I think this new method of going back down will reel me back in but still allow that flexibility to add once in a while.  I told you it's all mental, right? ;)

So that's the end of week 4.  Feeling really good about how it's going-- it's a work in progress and I love that a year into this journey, I'm still learning new things about myself every single day.  8 weeks to go friends!