21 Day Fix, Day 7: Bird Dogs

If you’re tired of starting over, stop quitting.

We’ve made it a week! This is the longest I’ve succeeded at any diet/weight loss program in my lifetime- quitting is not an option!

DAY 7 WORKOUT: YOGA FIX

Today’s workout is what they call “active recovery” so you get to stretch all those muscles that you’ve been pushing all week long. As much as I thought it would be nice to have a day with no workout, a workout like today was critical to my restoring my body.

The first 10 minutes is an intense yoga series very similar to the routine on p90x yoga, but for 10 minutes versus 90, so much better.

The next 10 minutes is a balance series which I really liked. The “superman” pose is fun- and I bet all my money in the world that this will be Josh’s favorite pose. He’s a life-long Superman enthusiast, so I can only imagine him pretending he is flying through the air to rescue the world from General Zod.

Then we moved onto a pose called the bird dog. Now, for those of us who have lived in South Carolina, you are familiar with a food item called the bird dog. I used to go to this place called JC’s in Anderson, SC (the town that neighbors Clemson), and they have probably the best bird dog in the world. What’s a bird dog you might ask? It’s a large fried chicken tender, bacon, and cheese, covered in honey mustard, and stuffed into a hot dog bun- like heaven on earth basically. So, the whole time I was doing the bird dog pose, I was wishfully reminiscing about the food that I used to eat- and the food that probably brought me to the point where I needed to do the 21-Day Fix in the first place. But, if you even have the opportunity to try a bird dog (the food not the pose), it will be amazing. Double a day’s amount of calories, but amazing nonetheless.

Moving on, the last 10 minutes were very familiar to me- all the stretches I did for 20 years in baton twirling. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve been able to sit in a straddle stretch and put my head flat on my knee and reach my toes on both my right and left leg- and I did it today! I contemplated attempting a split on my own, but I think I’ve done enough damage to my legs already this week, so decided not to push it, lol… but maybe next week ;)

One of the poses at the end is called the “corpse pose” where you lay flat on your back like your dead. In fact, my dog came to check on me to make sure I wasn’t ;)… but yeah, pretty much the best yoga pose ever.

 DAY 7 FOOD REVIEW

Well, today was a church day, and it was my Sunday morning to serve in the nursery. Sunday mornings are tough because not only to I have to wake up early and get myself ready, but I also have to get my child dressed and fed before we leave. I’m usually running late because of this *minor* problem I have with my snooze button, accompanied by my underestimation of how long it takes me and my kid to get ready in the morning. And so, I always skip breakfast on Sundays. Today, I was running late but figured I should grab something to eat. I quickly portioned out one yellow container of mini-wheats (you can have whole grain, low sugar cereal, dry) and was on my way. Now, I don’t know why in the world I thought 10 mini-wheats could sustain me for 4 hours when my body is used to me making a substantial breakfast for the past 6 mornings. I felt very motion-sick on the drive home (which happens to me in the car if I don’t have anything on my stomach), so as soon as I got home, I headed straight to the kitchen for food!

At this point, I probably should have opted for a meal that didn’t take so long to prepare. I made omelets because I was thinking this would be a great way for me to restore the substance my body needed and load up on proteins and green nutrients prior to my workout. But, the chopping and measuring, in addition to the cooking, took me about 30 more minutes- ugh. The omelets turned out great, but I can’t go through another morning like this again. I’m already making mental plans for what I need to do differently next Sunday morning to avoid a repeat of this.

I had my shakeology later today and only made half a scoop because I ate so much around 1pm and wasn’t hungry at all around 2:30 when I finished yoga… I just made half a shake around 4:00pm and stuck with plain chocolate this time.

For dinner, I made pecan crusted chicken strips. I took a chicken breast and cut it into 6 strips (3 for me, 3 for josh). Dipped each strip in homemade honey mustard (i.e. yellow mustard mixed with a teaspoon honey), then rolled in a breading mixture of 1 blue container crushed pecans and 1 slice of wheat bread (toasted then crumbled into breadcrumbs). Baked at 400 for 30 minutes and served with zucchini (1 green). Turned out really good. Still miss the flavor you get from salting the chicken before cooking- it just brings out its natural flavor more…and I really wanted to dip my chicken strips in a sauce. Not that they weren’t fine plain (the breading was actually really good), I’m just accustomed to dipping chicken strips. Normally I would find a leftover packet of sauce from Chickfila, but that’s not Fix-approved, so I had to make my own. I had 1 orange container/serving remaining, which was perfect because a dressing/dip is an orange container serving! First, thinking how much I would love some ranch dressing, I tried to remake the creamy herb dip I didn’t like earlier this week using different herbs this time… but didn’t like the way it came out either. So I scratched that and made the asian ginger dressing from the Fix book. Though thinner in consistency, it made a nice glaze over the zucchini and chicken, and especially complimented the flavor of the pecan crust.

OTHER THOUGHTS

I’m mad because I burned my favorite Rachael Ray sauté pan tonight trying to cook zucchini in 1 teaspoon of olive oil- ugh. I’m praying that soaking it in vinegar and baking soda overnight will bring me a miracle. I burnt rice once in another Rachael ray pot (I can cook nearly anything but apparently I can’t follow instructions on the bag of brown rice), and it left this same residue on the bottom and I was able to finally clean it with baking soda and vinegar. Fingers crossed!

On a more positive note, I’m happy because I finally caught up on prepping! Our meal plan and charts are mapped out for the week and I spent the entire night in the kitchen chopping and portioning fruits and vegetables into Ziplocs. I feel so much more relaxed heading into week 2 than I felt in week 1, knowing that I won’t be cutting and sorting produce til midnight every night!

Week 2 starts tomorrow- third of the way done! I’m planning to write a Week 1 Review of some thoughts I’ve collected throughout the first 7 days and update y’all on my progress so far. I expect to post that sometime within the next day or so, so stay tuned!