5 Things That Changed Doing The '5 Day Detox' By Tone It Up
We did it! Yesterday, we had our last day on the Free '5 Day Detox' nutrition and exercise plan by the Tone It Up girls. As you remember during my post last week about my results and feelings from the BBG workout plan, I was stuck in a bit of a rut and ran right back to my Tone It Up workouts that are constantly changing and challenging. When you sign up online for a free account, they also give you access to their detox program. With Rob wanting something to jump-start his fitness and diet, and me wanting to kick some of my bad eating habits (like not eating at all) we thought this was the perfect plan to try out.
So, what happened during the '5 Day Detox' and what changed?
It Is Easier Than You Think:
As busy parents with two kids to feed, we never thought that we could do a detox while keeping up and cooking for them. Plus, many detoxes are all about pills and crazy foods that cost more than a young family's budget. This is different. Instead of focusing on flushing your system with a pill, it focuses on cutting out all carbs and sugar while eating all the protein and vegetables you need to naturally help flush out your insides. For the 5 days of food for a family of 4, we spent about $150 on everything we needed. That also included a few things for our kids that weren't apart of the detox plan. With a budget of $200/week for our usual food, this worked perfectly. One thing I will say though is that the first day does revolve around the kitchen for meal prep, but the time spent is totally worth it.
You Never Feel Hungry
With other detoxes, we always were left feeling starving and deprived. Tone It Up really focuses on boosting your metabolism by eating 5 small meals a day. We timed these out at 7:30am, 10am, 12:30pm, 3pm, and 6pm. Because you are eating so frequently, your next meal is within minutes away by the time hunger begins again. They also add food to each meal as the days go by to help with the fact that your metabolism is becoming faster. This helped a lot so that we didn't have to think so much about the hunger we could have been feeling, and more on our work and kids.
There Will Be A Detox Period
The first 2 days of the detox are the hardest. We both suffered from total lack of energy and major headaches, taking turns with naps while the other watched the kids. This came as a total shock to us because we didn't realize we were eating enough junk going into the detox to have such a reaction. We also still had to fight the cravings to finish the kids Easter candy and dive for that crust from our baby girls morning toast. during those two days, with the extra servings of vegetables, we were now consuming, we also went through a very bloated period. But, by the morning of day 3, all of that had passed and we all of a sudden had an abundance of energy. From day 3-5 we were walking between 6 to 10 km walks in the morning, as well as the tone it up daily workouts from their App at night. Just stick to it!
You Will Drop Some Weight
Our goal was never to drop weight on this plan, but more to reset our diet. Never the less, weight loss did happen. I lost 3 lbs and Rob lost 10lbs. Now, this isn't fat that we had lost and to be honest our bodies don't even show it (hence no before and after photos)but, the weight was most likely water weight and inflammation due to the food we were probably eating that didn't agree with us. If we now go back to eating like we were, that weight would come right back. But, as you know, having a measurable change keeps you inspired and going. We can see that eating properly is so much better for our systems and want to stick with it to see even more results.
Your Mindset Will Change
This was the biggest thing for us, ESPECIALLY Rob. Since having gone strickly paleo 4 years ago and having amazing results with our mood and bodies, we have always aspired to go back to it. But, in a world made of carbs and sugar in everything, we just kept failing brutally. We couldn't get our mind around or the energy for the food prep portion and would give up. Now that Aubrey is gluten-free, we wanted to get back to clean eating with no processed food and hidden sugars. This 'detox' or as rob is calling it, reset, being carb free ( we chose the gluten-free version) made us realize how easy it is to just eat good food. With Paleo, we were trying to find paleo versions of what we were craving and I think that's why it failed. We now have gotten rid of those bad cravings for all of the Nachos etc and didn't even eat the optional desserts on the plan. Our cravings now consist of tray bakes and fun yummy smoothies in our new Vitamix, and roasted broccoli (my new candy, I swear) We are now ready to continue with the way we ate on the detox as our new way of living, Clean, Lean, and Green.Stay tuned as we continue this path and share some recipes along the way ;)