Hey Jeff,
So I'm finally done! First vegetarian to do so? ![]()
I've already posted already on some of the changes I've felt throughout the course so I won't repeat them here.
However I will touch upon my sleeping patterns again. I used to sleep 9+ hours and still wake up often feeling not fully energised but after a month on Thrive and squeezing out sugar from my diet this dropped to 6-7 hours and I would feel fully rested. No alarm clock needed either. When you bumped the sleep up to 8 hours minimum I struggled to sleep that much as I just wanted to get out of bed and get going with my day. The only time I could naturally sleep 8 hours without waking is if I had a heavy training day prior. It took me a couple of weeks to get adjusted. If I woke up I had to fight the urge to wake up by closing my eyes again and just taking deep breaths. It worked and I usually slept another 1.5 hours bumping my overall sleep up to around just under 9 hours. Surprisingly I noticed the difference the extra time asleep made during the day in regards to mental clarity and enthusiasm during training.
Another thing is the 2L water. At first I spread it out as equally as I could throughout the day but I noticed that drinking more or less at certain times paid better dividends. Firstly, I had to get up during the night to pee. Sometimes two times. Now this affected my energy the next day with a noticeable dip later on in the day where I started feeling sleepy. So basically I quit drinking anything 1.5 hours before sleep. That put an end to the night time toilet visits. I take a pint glass(about 1/2L) of water up to bed with me every night though in case I wake up feeling thirsty during the night which will be highly likely as summers are quite hot here. I drink 1/2L immediately upon waking as I feel much better hydrated first thing in the day plus it helps flush all the crap out from the night. I also find that drinking less water for first couple hours after lunch helps with reducing the afternoon energy dip. I believe it may have something to do with the food digesting slower with less water in the gut. I am not sure about the science behind it but that is what I have experienced and what I have seen works for me.
Finally, as a vegetarian I am restricted in the choice of animal products I use so being on the program was a bit more tricky than for most. So I basically found myself eating a lot of eggs, cheese and yogurt. Fortunately I love all 3 and found various methods to prepare them so that it wouldn't get boring. I eat a crapton of eggs daily. However highly I regard the program and yourself Jeff I still believe Thrive isn't suitable for vegans. Might want to put a warning sticker somewhere. Hell, even one of the steps requires one to eat animal protein. As a vegetarian I have the option of the 3 things mentioned above. A vegan doesn't. Actually could you tell me if Level 2 will work for me? I am looking forward to it but it's better to know now if I will always be a Thrive padawan or if I have a chance to be a Jedi knight.
Overall Jeff you have changed my life, and the lives of all the people on the program and so much for the better. Really we owe you more than $99. I never realised how much lack of proper nutrition would hold me back on my training. Coach had provided us with great programs to get us to being studs yet I was spinning my wheels as I either wasn't recovering properly or didn't have the energy/enthusiasm for the hard training. It was the missing link and I'm just annoyed that you took so long to team up with Coach!