cleanse – Distilled Jill Health and Fitness

Today, I enter the final week of the Beachbody Ultimate Reset – the Restore phase. During this phase, I’ll be eating mostly fruits and vegetables that are easily absorbed by the body for optimal nutritional value. I think grains are completely cut out of the diet. This phase comes after the detox phase, and it helps bring healthy bacteria back into your “freshly scrubbed” digestive tract by introducing pre- and probiotics to help restore the metabolism to maximum efficiency. This is accomplished through the final supplement – Revitalize. Revitalize comes in a capsule form, and its consumed three times a day.

While I am on the topic of supplements, I ran out of Mineralize yesterday. Since Mineralize is only pink Himalayan salt, I just went out to the grocery store and bought some. But, for those of you who don’t have the luxury of an organic supermarket in the neighorhood and need to send away for these things, make sure to have some extra pink salt on standby in case you run out.

This morning, I decided to try something new. My usual morning routine outside of the Reset is a 30-60 minutes workout, usually something intense, like Insanity, to help wake me up and get my blood flowing in the morning. I’ve never been a morning person, so, to me, this is essential to be minimally pleasant before noon. On the Reset, you are not permitted to workout because your body is receiving such an intense inner body workout. Plus, I don’t think you’re really consuming enough calories to really support your body during intense training. Exercises like yoga, tai chi, stretching, and brisk walking are fine, but no Insanity, unfortunately. This was one of the big adjustments for me, and I was skeptical whether I would be able to survive mornings without the jolt of adrenaline first thing in the morning. Somehow, I’ve been surviving. I’ve been doing free yoga videos that come on Xfinity On Demand. They’ve been great, but I really missed Shaun T. Today, I remembered that there are Recovery workouts that come with Insanity that I could do. It would probably be a step up intensity-wise from the yoga I’ve been doing, but I was willing to try it. Well, when I do Insanity, I normally substitute Core Cardio and Balance for the Recovery workout, because the Recovery workout is just too easy, doesn’t make me sweat, and isn’t enough to get my blood pumping in the morning. Well, this morning, it got the blood pumping, and I was even sweating. My muscles were literally shaking during some of the moves. My legs are already feeling sore from this morning. This makes me nervous about starting Focus T25 after the Reset is complete, but I’m going to jump on it anyway.

Also, this morning, I weighed myself for the second time of the Reset. I’m down 2.4 pounds since day 8. That means I’m down 4.4 pounds in only 15 days! Not bad for a 5’2” tall chick.

During the final week of the Reset, breakfast is fruit only. You’re supposed to choose low glycemic fruits, like berries, and avoid tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples. I’m skeptical of the ability of fruit to keep me satisfied until lunch, but I guess it worked today. One of my raspberries was shaped like a heart, which made this first day of the Restore phase extra special.

Day 15 Breakfast

Last night, I prepared lunch for today – an Asian “cabbage” salad, 1/4 sliced avocado, and miso soup. I put cabbage in scare quotes because I didn’t have cabbage. Unfortunately, the labels in the grocery store produce aisle weren’t accurate, and my husband picked up mustard greens instead of napa cabbage. It’s okay. We’ll make do. We had some extra Romaine lettuce, so instead of cabbage, I chopped up some Romaine and used that instead. This lunch had a lot of onions in it. The Asian salad had both raw red and green onions, and the miso soup had green onions. I had to run to back-to-back meetings in the afternoon, and was so tempted to grab some gum or a hard candy to get the taste/smell of the onions out of my mouth. Well, none of that is allowed on the Reset! I chewed on some herbal tea leaves (it was all that I had in the office), and that helped a little, but I still felt bad for all who I came in contact with this afternoon.

Day 15 Lunch

Dinner was awesome! And by “awesome,” I mean baked sweet potato awesome! Against my better judgement, I’m a huge fan of carbohydrates. I was very happy to see a baked sweet potato on the menu for dinner. I’ve actually never baked a sweet potato before. It was heaven. I’ll definitely be doing that again. The sweet potato was accompanied by garlic veggies – broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and red bell pepper sauteed with garlic, lemon, olive oil, and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. They were fine. The sweet potato stole the show.

Day 15 Dinner

And thus begins week 2!

I weighed myself this morning. I lost 2 pounds during the first week of the Beachbody Ultimate Reset. While 2 lbs. may not seem like much, I am celebrating this for a couple of reasons. First, the healthy recommended safe weight loss per week is 2 lbs., so that puts me right where I should be. Second, I am only 5 foot 2 inches. I’m short. If I can lose 2 lbs. per week on the Reset, that’s 6 lbs. total, and I would be happy to take that. Third, the Reset, to me at least, is not all about losing weight. While losing weight is certainly a side effect of living a healthy life, my main focus is to feel better – better mood, increased energy, more productive sleep – and I am beginning to experience those benefits. Finally, losing those 2 lbs. finally brought me into a “normal” BMI (24.8!). I had technically been considered to be “overweight.” Now, I know, the BMI is criticized a lot for not taking many factors into account (including muscle mass), and that outside of the BMI number, I am a very healthy and active person. Nevertheless, it really means a lot to me that I was able to break past a weight loss plateau and finally get to a healthy and normal BMI. I haven’t been there in years.

Week 2 of the Beachbody Ultimate Reset introduces a new supplement into the day – Detox. Detox, similar to alkalinize, is a powder that you mix into water. You drink it three times a day – before breakfast, before lunch, and before dinner. A lot of people find the taste repulsive, but I actually didn’t mind it at all. It tastes kind of like lemons, though the texture is a little strange (it is grainy). The detox powder has got a number of ingredients, like chia seed, milk thistle, a camu-camu, that helps remove toxins and waste in the colon. In the Reset instructional video, it is described as a gentle colon cleanse that won’t leave you parked by the bathroom. TMI maybe? Well, get over it. You’re reading a blog about a detox program – what did you expect?! While one obvious way to get rid of toxic waste is via the digestive tract, one other way that people experience detox is through our largest organ, the skin, so I am really hoping not to experience breakouts during this week.

Detox Supplement

In week 2, you completely cut out animal proteins, including dairy. This isn’t really a drastic change from week 1 if you followed the scheduled meals in the guidebook. Unless you doubled up on certain recipes, you only have chicken and salmon once in week 1. You do have yogurt several times for breakfast. I feel like I’ve been transitioning gradually to this point, and it shouldn’t be too much of a shock.

Breakfast for day 8 was a fresh fruit plate. One of many fruit plates in store for me in the next 2 weeks (week 3’s breakfasts entirely comprise fruit). Though I considered my diet pretty healthy before the Reset, I was definitely guilty of not incorporating enough fruit into my diet. So, the Reset is really helping me get into the habit of eating more fruit.

Day 8 Breakfast

Lunch was my old friend, the microgreen salad, but with avocado added to it.

Day 8 Lunch

Finally, dinner included pinto beans and brown rice, steamed zucchini, and string beans with lemon and olive oil. It was a lot of food. Pretty good, though nothing miraculous. Though I definitely enjoyed how quick and easy this one was to make (relative to other dinners at least).

Day 9 Dinner

First day of the “Release” phase – Done!

Distilled Jill Health and Fitness

…Because when you look back, you will be thankful that you started. #getdistilled

Tag: cleanse

Day 15

Day 8 – Let the Detox Begin!