Month: June 2012

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The Ultimate Reset – Week 3 Recap

I made it all the way through the 3 weeks of The Ultimate Reset. Yeah!

It wasn’t that hard, to be honest with you. This was something I really wanted to do, and that took a lot of the difficulty out of it, especially because I felt that I was doing something good for my body.

Let me make this clear. The Ultimate Reset was not only about dropping some fat pounds for me. Sure, it worked that way, but it was quite nice to clean out my body and challenge myself with a new way of eating.

I mean, let’s face it, I was eating lots of meat, lots of fat, only a few veggies, not too much fruit at all, and I just didn’t feel 100%. I felt good, but not as good as I thought I should feel for my level of overall fitness. I have mentioned before that my eyes burn a lot — that was a big driver for me. Burning eyes are really annoying and mood-altering. Actually, I don’t know if my moods changed because of the burning eyes, or if the burning eyes were caused by whatever made my mood change, but I didn’t like it.

That’s really why I went on The Ultimate Reset.

For the record, I had a couple days during The Ultimate Reset where my eyes were burning, but nothing like before. I am eager to see how I feel in the next few weeks.

Okay, I know you really just want to know the results, so I’ll skip the Week 3 food report, except to say the food was good, but pretty much the same as Week 2.

FINAL RESULTS

I’ll have blood work done sometime very soon, but here are the final results of the other stuff I measured.

  • Weight: down 11.6 pounds
  • Waist: down 2 inches
  • Body Fat %: down 3.7 points
  • Visceral Fat %: down 2 points
  • Body Age: down 6 years

Body Age? What’s that? Honestly, I don’t know how it’s derived, but it’s one of the numbers on my Omron Scale. I dig that scale, which I’ve had for about 6 months, but didn’t start using until The Ultimate Reset, because it does give me those other numbers besides weight. (Well, not waist. I did that with a tape measure.)

How accurate is it? I don’t know, but I think it’s consistent, so if I weigh/measure myself at the same time of day, under the same conditions, I should get an consistent set of numbers to compare, and that is key. As for accuracy, I have a pinch test caliper, and the body fat percentage from that and the Omron are right on each other, so perhaps it is fairly accurate.

With consistency in mind, I stepped onto the Omron scale prior to The Ultimate Reset, and then at the end of each week of the Reset, about a half-hour after waking up, after having had a pint of water. Not, perhaps, the optimal time to check body fat percentage, because I’m still pretty dehydrated from overnight, but that was the best time to measure, i.e. when I would not forget.

What do I think of my results? Pretty good!

I am at a weight — 160 — that I have been trying to hit for years. In fact, when I first entered my information into the Beachbody website back in February 2010, I entered 165 as my goal weight. I have been struggling to reach that weight, stuck around 170-175, ever since. Now I am 5 pounds below that original goal, and, as it turns out, I still have a few pounds to lose. I can see them around my waist.

So, yeah, hitting that weight makes me happy, but what really makes me happy is my body fat percentage. I took 3.7 points off that number, and 2 points off my Visceral Fat number. What’s visceral fat? It’s the internal fat that surrounds your organs, bogging them down, making them work harder, so keeping that number low is good.

Even with all my hard work, however, my body fat is still higher than I want it to be. I’d like to dump another 2 or 3 points. How can I do that?

I already know that adding more exercise isn’t the way. Remember, you cannot out-exercise a bad diet, because it’s way too easy to eat more calories than you can possibly burn.

That’s not to say my diet is bad. It’s controlled. But I think it’s time for a change.

I feel so good on this vegan diet The Ultimate Reset put me on, that I’m going to switch my nutrition plan from meat-based primal eating to modified vegetarianism. That means my primary food sources will be plants, but I’ll also eat eggs, whey protein, and fish.

I am excited by this new direction! No, I won’t be adding sugar back into my eating plan. Sugar is poison, and I am glad my years of low-carb living have broken my sugar habit. I will, however, be eating a lot more fruit, which is naturally sweet, and I’ll have bread to eat again. And pasta. I hadn’t really missed those foods, but I do enjoy them, so it’ll be nice to have them back in the rotation.

And, yes, I’ll be eating only whole grains, no white flour. In addition, I am going to try to stay away from wheat, for a while, anyway, so I’ll be trying out pasta made with alternative grains. After a bit, I’ll add some wheat back in, see how that affects me.

All in all, The Ultimate Reset was a great experience. I lost pounds I had been struggling to lose. I learned about new foods. And I found a new way to eat.

I had not considered vegetarianism before The Ultimate Reset. Sure, I’d eaten like that for a few years back in the 80s, but that was just to break my fast food habit. (It worked, by the way.) I had not really thought I could eat like that again.

Why? Because I was not a fan of fruit or veggies. I eat them, but I don’t like them very much.

Oddly, during The Ultimate Reset, I learned to fully enjoy my fruit and vegetables. Not tolerate them, but enjoy them. So, here goes nothing.

I’ll give this modified vegetarianism a good year, so I can assess how it’s treating my body. That’ll give me a chance to do a lot of reading and research on the topic of plant-based nutrition. I am really looking forward to it, and I’ll keep you filled in every step of the way!

I REACHED ANOTHER GOAL

At the beginning of the year, I set what I thought was a modest goal of losing 10 pounds by June 30th. At the time I set the goal, I weighed 175, up a bit from my normal 170, so I really thought it would be a cakewalk — pardon the sugary metaphor — to get to 165. It wasn’t. The Ultimate Reset was my last hope of hitting that number, and here I am at 160. If I am still there on June 30th, I’m down 15 pounds! Pretty cool. Thanks, Ultimate Reset — Beachbody comes through for me again.

Beachbody came through for me again. Is it any wonder I don’t mind selling this stuff? These products are nothing short of great, well worth the premium you pay over others. Beachbody puts a good deal of time and effort into research and development, so their products stand out in the marketplace. They are literally lifechangers, at least they have been for me.

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The Ultimate Reset – Week 2 Recap

I’m 2/3 of the way done with The Ultimate Reset. Today was a little bit of a challenge, because it was Father’s Day, so that meant dinner, which meant 3:00. Usually I eat dinner between 5:00 and 5:30.

So I ate breakfast early, then lunch early, then dinner early — 3:00 — and here it is 5 hours later, and, yup, I’m hungry. I should grab an apple, but it’s my Week 2 graduation, so ….

(Yes, I say “graduation” with tongue in cheek. I think it’s quite annoying how everything is a graduation. Kindergarten? Graduated! 6th grade? Graduated! Okay, fine, if calling everything a “graduation” makes you feel better about yourself, do it, but don’t expect a gift from me until you do something noteworthy, and that does not include graduation from high school either!)

So, anyway, this being my last day of this phase, I will just have some more water and a cup of herbal tea.

But, let me tell you, the portion sizes on The Ultimate Reset really came into play this week. For dinner this evening I made at least double what the recipe called for, and my plate was still too sparsely populated.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. People go into The Ultimate Reset expecting to lose weight, so I understand why the creators wanted to keep portions small. But when I see people posting on Facebook that they are passing out, wondering if this is normal, I just want to shake them and say, “EAT MORE FOOD!” For the record, unless you are being prepped for surgery with an anesthesiologist standing by, passing out is not normal!

Week 2 was the Release week, but I had no real climactic moment or anything like that. In fact, I felt my bodily functions remained fairly normal during Week 2.

For all the complaints I heard from people about the Detox supplement, I have to say, I enjoyed it. It tastes pretty good, like an earthy tea with citrus overtones. It’s a bit chunky, but not problematically so.

WEIGHT LOSS

I am down another 5 pounds this week, for a total of 10.6 pounds on the Reset. All I can say is that I must have had a lot of toxins in me that needed to come out!

THE MEALS

The meals were pretty good again this week. I had a fruit plate for breakfast every day except one, when I had a mashed garbanzo concoction. The fruits have been green apples, cantaloupe, blueberries, honeydew melon, and nectarines. You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that I am not a fruit person, but I really enjoyed the fruit plates. Probably because they were quite plentiful.

Some of the best meals this week were:

  • Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Pepper Bisque — You probably need to really like sweet potatoes to like this. Fortunately I do. I’ll be making this post-Reset.
  • Quinoa-Lentil Pilaf — Probably my favorite of the week, because it combines two foods I really enjoy.
  • Hearty Vegetable Miso Soup — Better the next day, of course, which is cool, because it was dinner one night and lunch the next day.
  • Mediterranean Roasted Beets — I have no idea why this recipe called for olive oil instead of coconut oil, so I used coconut oil, and it was a great flavor mix.
  • Roasted Acorn Squash with Tahini — The recipe called for kabocha squash, and I still have no idea what that is, so I used acorn squash. I made my own tahini, too. It’s just toasted sesame seeds whirred up with olive oil. I should have added more salt to the squash as it cooked, but this was a really good meal.
  • Acorn Squash and Coconut Milk Soup — I also added the tahini and some cayenne pepper. Tasty.
I read quite a few complaints about the food this week not being as filling as Week 1. I didn’t feel that way, because I just made bigger meals. Makes sense to me. I don’t like to measure stuff anyway when I’m cooking.

HOW I FEEL

My cold-like symptoms are diminishing, slowly. This is supposed to be my body detoxing — maybe it is — but I remain skeptical about such things. Still, it does make a bit of sense.

I have not felt a loss of strength. I did Rodney Yee’s Flexibility yoga routine Monday through Saturday, felt good all through that, but I am really looking forward to regular workouts in a couple weeks.

Does my body feel transformed? I can’t say it does, but I’ll reserve judgment for the end of the program. The end, by the way, is not at Day 21. It’ll be around Day 42, as I work my way back to a normal diet.

Let me say, also, that my normal diet is changing. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll be moving from ultra-low-carb carnivorous eating to modified vegetarianism. Quite a change, but my body has been craving a change.

Okay, I’m off to Week 3. Wish me luck!

Oh, and, by the way, if you are interested in The Ultimate Reset, be sure to click the links on this site, or shoot me an email me at if you have any questions. One of the nice things about Beachbody products is the huge support system of people to help you succeed!

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The Ultimate Reset – Day 10

Yes, I’m still doing The Ultimate Reset, but even I found the day-by-day posts boring. If you managed to slog through them, I think you get the idea.

I’m in Day 10, which is the middle of Phase 2: Release. There is an added supplement this week, which I take 3 times a day. It’s called Detox, and it mixes with water. It’s kinda chunky, but tastes like an earthy tea with a hint of citrus. Not bad.

So, yes, from the name “Release” you might think this is the week of the actual cleansing. So far, nothing irregular has happened, so that’s all good by me.

The food is now vegetarian and also moving away from grains. It’s still tasty. The Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Pepper Bisque last night was excellent.

I am so happy to be doing this for my body. I really needed a rest from all the working out — no strenuous exercise allowed during The Ultimate Reset, so I’m only doing Rodney Yee’s Flexibility Yoga — and it is serving as a transition for me from a meat-heavy low-carb diet to a modified vegetarian diet.

Why the change?

I feel pretty good all the time, but I want to feel better. I believe I’ve mentioned the burning in my eyes before. I don’t like it and I have no good idea why it happens. It’s not dry eyes, which seems like hogwash to me. Something causes dry eyes, and want to see if it’s my diet.

So, after The Ultimate Reset, I’m going to try out a modified vegetarian diet, which means:

  • Lots of fruit and veggies
  • Eggs
  • Whey protein
  • Fish

I really want to keep the animal protein in the diet, because it’s higher quality than what I can get from vegan sources. Plus, obviously, that adds more options for meals.

My post-Reset exercise plan will be:

  • Ashtanga Yoga
  • 2 Days of Insanity
  • 1 Day of resistance training

As I read through the Facebook pages for the 3 phases of The Ultimate Reset, I see a lot of people who are thrilled either by the weight loss or the great way they feel. I also see people who are disappointed with the results.

The Ultimate Reset is not about weight loss! It’s about cleaning out your body and resetting its chemistry as close to zero as possible so you can start over!

And that’s what I plan to do. Start over with a new diet and a new exercise plan as I continue on my quest for fitness!

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Why Beachbody? Here’s my story.

Conversation about BeachbodyToday on Facebook I read a conversation about Beachbody. I took a screenshot and it’s the graphic you see with this post.

The tone of the conversation was not a bit sarcastic, but, although I love me some Beachbody, I cannot necessarily disagree with anything that was said.

  1. Beachbody’s business is in fact set up in the multi-level marketing model.
  2. It is indeed a full-time job if you want to be successful at it. And I am not — I’m really in it for the discount.
  3. I agree that it’s absurd to call the people trying to sell Beachbody products “coaches”. Makes sense from a marketing perspective, but, gauged on a coach by coach basis, it’s not necessarily accurate, because there’s no real “coach” training.
  4. Some people are probably puking on The Ultimate Reset. I know there are people who are feeling light-headed and asking on Facebook, “Is this normal?” To that I say, “What? You need to ask that?”
  5. Some people are also choking down meals and supplements they don’t like during The Ultimate Reset.
  6. People do believe hype, no doubt about that, and Beachbody is very good at creating hype.
  7. There are certainly people who are maybe not actively brainwashed, but are under Beachbody’s spell, let’s say.

I believe I might fall into the category of people who are under Beachbody’s spell, but there’s a good reason for that.

Beachbody gave me a new lease on life.

I was struggling. I’d lost a lot of weight with calorie restriction and I got off my meds, but the pounds were slowly sneaking back on. I was walking a lot, and I mean a lot, shooting for 15,000 steps per day, often hitting 20,000 and sometimes even 30,000. I was doing pushups and crunches.

But I wasn’t eating right, and, really, I wasn’t exercising right.

My brother had told me about P90X, a Beachbody product, but I didn’t believe the hype, or, at least, I didn’t think it’d work for me, even though I knew it had worked for him. Finally, after a few months, in a last ditch effort to get into shape, I asked him to get it for me.

As it turned out, P90x was just the jumpstart I needed.

And it wasn’t necessarily the exercise part of the program that did it for me. Sure, that was important, and I am still in the exercise habit two and a half years later, but P90X really got me on the road to good nutrition. That road hasn’t ended for me yet — I’m still searching — but P90X is what instilled in me the desire to search.

Because, you see, P90X is not just an excellent exercise program, but it also comes with a complete nutrition plan, and, as I now know, 80% of our body composition is dependent on what and how we eat. As they say, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet,” so it all starts with what we eat.

I didn’t know. I should have known, but I didn’t.

I don’t knock the guys engaged in the Facebook conversation. Not one bit. One of them is actually a world-class body builder and a very nice guy — the other one I don’t know. And, really, I could have easily been part of that thread, had I chosen some other path to fitness. That’s because it’s easy to get into a trap of thinking everyone knows and understands something that we ourselves think we know and understand. I fall into that trap fairly often.

I mean, it’s obvious to me that when I see someone eating a donut, that he is consuming primarily simple carbs and a good amount of fat, and that it would take an hour-long run to burn off the calories of that one cream-filled Krispy Kreme. It seems to me that if I know that, then everyone should know that, right? Not even close.

Not that it’s a difficult concept. People just need to be exposed to the information and maybe that will be the key to change for them.

And that’s where Beachbody products come in. They helped expand my understanding and increased my desire to learn about diet and fitness. P90X was the key to change for me.

I do not use Beachbody products exclusively. In fact, all this year I have been all about yoga, which Beachbody has not yet fully embraced. (I’m betting there’s something in the works, and I’ll be one of the first to check it out when it hits the streets.) But you know something else? I started yoga because of Beachbody. Without Beachbody’s P90X, I probably never would have tried yoga. I’d bought yoga books and DVDs before, but P90X creator Tony Horton was the one who opened my eyes and body to yoga with his Yoga X and then his two One-on-One yoga DVDs.

So, anyway, yeah, if at times I seem a bit evangelical or “on my high horse” about Beachbody, it’s because I truly believe these products may be able to help you the way they’ve helped me. They are not perfect by any means, but they — at least the ones I’ve used — are well-thought out and very helpful.

That’s why when The Ultimate Reset hit, I bought it almost right away, because, as I said above, I’m still searching. While my body is in much better shape now than it was 5 years ago, I do not feel 100% most of the time, and I attribute that mostly to my diet. I thought The Ultimate Reset would give me a good little tweak and get me on a different path, because I am currently stuck.

After all, The Ultimate Reset is not one of those quickie 3- or 5-day cleanses that hits you with laxatives and calls itself successful. It’s not a crazy cabbage-soup or all-rice diet. This is a 21-day program that attempts to cleanse and rebalance the chemistry of our bodies, while also introducing us to a new way of cooking and eating,

And for me, anyway, it’s working.

I had been in a pretty hardline low-carb rut, and that has worked well for me for a couple years — it got me off the sugar for good! — but, as I said, I don’t usually feel 100%, so I think it’s time to change things up.

The Ultimate Reset has moved me into vegan territory. I won’t go that far with my diet — I think it’s too difficult to get the enough protein for an active person who is trying to build muscle — but I may end up in the vegetarian ranks, with some fish, whey protein, and eggs added, because I need good animal protein sources.

We’ll see. [UPDATE: After learning more about protein in plants, I did, indeed, go completely plant-based for about 9 months. After that, I added eggs — because my body seemed to be asking for them — and I’ve been an ovo-vegetarian, consuming only plants and eggs, ever since.]

So, yeah, I paid $200+ for The Ultimate Reset from Beachbody. And, yeah, it’s definitely been a bit hyped. And, yeah, I thought it’d be a cool extreme thing to put my body through.

And, yeah, I only bought it because it’s from Beachbody. But you know what? I haven’t been burned by Beachbody yet, so it’s all good.

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The Ultimate Reset – Week 1 Recap

Week 1 is over, and The Ultimate Reset has not been too bad so far, but there have been some challenges.

It’s not the food or the supplements that create a challenge. Those are fine.

I mean, yeah, the Alkalinize packet is kinda nasty — it’s very green — but I only have to ingest it one time a day. I just found out that instead of water I can mix it with no-sugar-added cranberry juice, so I’m going to try that.

And the food, for the most part, has been really good. I do not like kale or tempeh, but I would never have known that, had I not tried them. (Now, what am I going to do with this extra package of tempeh?) I love the quinoa salad and the zucchini-cashew soup.

The schedule and food preparation have been somewhat problematic for me, and I work out of the house, so for those of you who leave the house to work, planning is definitely required. I should have substituted more meals — it’s allowable to substitute similar meals from the same week — sticking with the simpler ones, and I’ll do that going forward for weeks 2 and 3.

My primary issue has been with the way I feel. The massive headache the first day was expected, but these severe allergy symptoms were not. I hope they go away soon, because I am running out of Breathe Right strips.

By the way, I have to admit, in preparing the meals I didn’t pay all that much attention to portion sizes. I didn’t go full glutton, but I’m sure I overate. Nevertheless, things seem to be going well.

WEIGHT LOSS

For those of you looking for weight loss, the news is good. I am not overly fat and I am down 5.6 (yeah, I have a digital scale) pounds the first week. Seems from the message boards I’ve been reading that there are mixed results for others. I’ll continue to monitor.

SURVIVAL TIPS

  • It’s okay to swap meals during the same week. So if there is a dinner meal you are pretty sure you won’t like, just substitute a different dinner meal from the same week (except for the salmon and chicken meals — we are weaning off meat).
  • If the Alkalinize is really nasty to you, try mixing it with no-sugar-added cranberry juice. Note that this is not “sugar-free” cranberry juice, but “no-sugar-added”. R.W. Knudson makes one, and I got the housebrand at my local supermarket, HEB, here in San Antonio. Also note that it is not cheap, at about $7 for 32 ounces.
  • If you miss taking the supplement capsules at one meal, take one extra before each of the next two meals.
  • Remember not to drink anything a half-hour before, during, and a half-hour after a meal. This is to ensure you are not diluting your stomach’s digestive juices. I did not know this, missed it in the reading, but picked up on it from the message boards.
  • Drink lots of water. I have filtered water on my fridge, but I am buying and drinking distilled water with Mineralize and a couple ice cubes.
  • It’s easy to get confused where you are in the book and make the wrong meal — been there, done that — so use a paperclip or bookmark of some kind to keep your place.
  • Look ahead to the meals — some dinner meals, for example, are repeated the next day for lunch — so you know if you can prepare extra to save prep time the next day.
  • They say add a “pinch” of Mineralize to each glass of water. I put 10 to 12 shakes of it into my pint glass. Or you can add 1/4 tsp to each gallon.
  • The idea is to get your body as clean as possible, so stick with the plan as much as you can, but don’t be discouraged by small deviations. Shake it off and get back with it right away.
  • The Ultimate Reset’s creators recommend no strenuous workouts during the Reset. Your body is already going through a lot, no need to make things more difficult by forcing it to heal and build muscle tissue. With that in mind, I have only been doing Rodney Yee’s Flexibility DVD. Feels really good.

If you are interested in The Ultimate Reset, be sure to click the links on this site, or shoot me an email me at if you have any questions. One of the nice things about Beachbody products is the huge support system of people to help you succeed!