Last time I posted, I wrote about my new membership at Precision Nutrition. Today’s post is a copy (slightly modified) of a post I made to their Member’s Logs section…
I was very excited to receive the PN package in the mail, and I started very gung-ho: Shopping for recommended foods, cooking up batches of dishes from the tasty recipes, limiting carbs to after workouts, taking fish oil supplements, getting the blender out of storage for shakes…
After one week, I was thoroughly discouraged. The food prep time was very difficult to work into my schedule, and limiting carbs to only after workouts was *really* hard. I was already eating low-carb, and already only having “good” carbs (whole grains, etc.), but, I’m sorry: I *like* carbs. A lovely artisan loaf of bread… quinoa with a stir-fry… my own homemade super-healthy muffins… Plus I enjoy sharing meals with my hubby, but he’s not on The Plan, so we couldn’t comfortably eat together the way we used to.
Also, my workouts are after breakfast, so that means the only time I could have carbs was the mid-morning snack, at work. Changing my workout schedule would not be easy – it took forever to figure out something I could stick with, so I’m not eager to try to change it.
I managed to stick to the Plan for the week, but it was NOT enjoyable at all. And after the week was over: Not one change in anything: weight, body fat, girth measurements… Nothing. Nada. Zip. “All pain, no gain” was how it felt. I was ready to ask for my money back.
I tried to keep it up for another week, but I slipped-up much more often and again saw no change at all. Then, I spent the third week on vacation at a cottage, with lots of fabulous BBQ and excellent beer and wine. Needless to say, the PN Plan went out the window.
But…
While I was lounging on the dock with a lovely “Leffe Blonde” Belgian beer in hand, I pondered what went wrong. I realize now that in my eagerness for change, I took on too much at once. I know you have to stick with something for a while before it becomes habit, and I’ve had success changing habits before, but I’m going to have to take this one a little bit more slowly.
I watched the recent fat-loss course videos offered by PN, and that’s helped inspire me to start with small changes that I firmly believe I can stick to. I’m going to start with:
- fish oil supplements,
- slightly smaller portion sizes, and
- more vegetables.
I have also finally receive my fat calipers in the mail, so I can start logging my stats on the PN site with the ResultsTracker. I’ll check in in a couple of weeks to see how I’m doing.
Wish me luck!