We all need a bit of a reset once in a while, and May is the perfect time for me. All of April, I’ve been a bit loose with my diet and allowing for a lot more treats than I really wanted to. I decided to start with the Fed and Fit 28 Day Plan again. Remember when I did it in January? It made me feel my best, and I didn’t really feel like I was dieting, especially with all the delicious recipes I was trying! With my first week in, I’ve had a similar sort of experience, and a lot of the same pitfalls…

Monday:

The first day of the plan luckily fell on Bank Holiday Monday. I actually got 9 hours of sleep. It was amazing. My hydration level was fine. I usually don’t have any struggle with this. I had some bulletproof coffee with my breakfast of banana pancakes, raspberries, an avocado, bacon, sweet potato wedges and lemony kale. This is my usual, go-to breakfast meal. It powered me through a 2.5 mile run along the river. I was actually trying out Apptive during my run, and I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed with the workout. It really pushed me in places where I normally just coast at a slow, but steady speed. My original plan was to run to my gym, cancel my plan (because my company is moving across town) and squeeze in a tiny workout. Overall, I had about 14,775 steps, and I had high energy and felt great.

Lunch was some leftover ribs from the weekend, and some steamed broccoli, onions, and hot sauce. The ribs weren’t exactly project compliant, but they weren’t too bad because they didn’t have a lot of BBQ sauce on them left, and I didn’t want to waste. Dinner was a beef stir-fry which consisted of beef strips, purple and spring onions, bok choy, broccoli, coconut aminos, salt, ghee and 5 Spice Chinese mix, with a side of sweet potato wedges. It was something I had whipped up and it was tasty! The best part was that I had plenty for leftovers.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was back to work for me! I had only 5 hours of sleep but I started using the Sleep Cycle App to see if that can help me and I felt AMAZING when it woke me up. I was in such a good mood all day, just because I woke up at a lighter stage of sleep. Breakfast was just my version of Cassy’s Plantain Pancakes (read: Banana Pancakes, because England doesn’t have Plantains…). It was basically a repeat of Monday’s breakfast. It is definitely a great way to get me going.

Lunch was the beef stir-fry I had made the night before with the sweet potato wedges. It was a good amount of food for me, and kept me going until crossfire. I had my bulletproof coffee at breakfast and black coffee at work later. After work, I got to Crossfit. This was the workout:

Dinner was very simple. I had some salmon steaks to bake, steamed potatoes with hot sauce, and sautéed Kale and spring onion. I think I had a bit too much salt in my food because I was quite thirsty. After dinner, started getting ready for bed and my final step count was 13,605.

{Classy chipped dishes…}

Wednesday:

I slept about an hour more than Tuesday, but did not sleep as well. I was a lot more restless, but I think it was due to eating quite late before bed. I also did go to bed really late and was on my computer until I fell asleep. Breakfast was another repeat of Monday and Tuesday, and Lunch was a repeat of the beef stir-fry dish with the baked sweet potatoes. Dinner was some chicken breasts, steamed veggies and potatoes and some blackberries. My caffeine intake was fairly high and I was buzzing all day.

I was thinking that I had a Physology appointment, so Wednesday was meant to be my rest day. I left work fairly early at around 4:30. Since I couldn’t get a taxi, I was practically running across town in order to make the 5:00 pm appointment. Turns out, my running wasn’t necessary, because I ended up calling them to tell them I was going to be a bit late, and they kindly explained to me my appointment was tomorrow. At least I got a workout in!

I do have to admit, today was very hard to resist chocolate. Afternoon came around at work, and I saw some people eating in the office. It took every ounce of strength for me to avoid it! *pat on the back Ana*. Although my step count was a measly 10,010 steps, I was happy to have an early night in.

Thursday:

Because I had originally planned to have my appointment on Wednesday, and thus forgo the gym, I had to quickly improvise how I would fit in my Thursday workout in, and still make my appointment. I woke up at 5:50 am to get to my gym at 6:40. That meant that I got about 4 hrs and 49 min of sleep. Once I was there, I did another Aaptiv workout for the treadmill. It was perfect because I ran 2.5 miles on varying hills and ran for 32 min. This was enough time to give me a great workout, but still have time for some other exercises. Then I did 2 rounds of: 15 kettle bell swings using the 16 kg kettle bell, kettle bell held to chest and squatted for 15, wide kettle bell squats for 15. I felt like I had so much energy and my day went by so quickly.

For food, since I wasn’t going to be able to eat before going to the gym that early, I brought 2 hard boiled eggs with me, 1 medium sweet potato, 1 nakd bar, handful of almonds and my bulletproof coffee for breakfast. Lunch was a bit different. I made some spicy chicken, cauliflower rice mix the night before for my lunch, and I added steamed veggies and an avocado. I realized that this was WAY too much food. I was feeling extremely full for about an hour afterwards. For dinner, I had 100g of smoked salmon, steamed potatoes with nanny’s sauce, baked Brussels sprouts, and a tomato and cucumber salad.

Physology was so necessary. I have a lot of back pain in between my right shoulder blade and my spine. I’ve discovered this place late last year, and I’ve been going about once a month to get some treatment and relief for the pain. Ever since I’ve started seeing them, I’ve really noticed a difference in my pain and my body function has definitely improved.

Friday:

I had a bit of a sleep in on Friday. I ALMOST made it to 8 hours. Breakfast was 2 bacon, kale, 2 eggs sunny side up, raspberries and blackberries. Lunch was a repeat of the spicy chicken and cauliflower rice with steamed veggies and potatoes. Dinner, on the other hand, was a special occasion. Since it was Friday and I wasn’t going out, I decided to make myself some steak. It turned out amazing. I had a side of salad and rosemary potato wedges, and my desert was a plain coconut yogurt.

I went to CrossFit after work and this was the workout:

Since it was still light out when I finished class, I decided I would walk home to make up for not having many steps that day. My CrossFit gym is over an hour away. I had great intentions, but then got tired and cold about 30 min away from home, and took the bus. Overall, I had 16,085 steps, which is really not bad!

Saturday/Sunday:

The weekend is where I definitely catch up on my sleep! I slept 9 hrs on Saturday and 7 hrs on Sunday. My Saturday was about relaxing and stretching. I saw a friend  for lunch. One of the bad things was I had too much caffeine, where I got physically jittery, however, I made up for it by drinking loads of water and then calming my nerves before bed with some yoga and stretching.

On Sunday, I went for a beautiful 6 mile hike in the Yorkshire countryside. I’ll post about it soon. My step count for the day was 23,972 steps! Killed it!

Overall:

Some of the lessons I’ve learned this week is that I really need to watch my portion size, limit my caffeine more, and really make time for sleep. This is something I’m going to try this whole week. I think I’m going to resist having any coffee during the week. We will see how long that lasts, but I’m really desperate to fix my sleep schedule!