Long post alert! Buy yourself an ipad/tablet before reading, it'll send you crazy scrolling on your phone...
Team,
Thought I’d join in on the Thrive journey experiences.
-
I started thrive when I was injured so at first my motivation was just to be accountable to something so I wouldn’t go off and eat myself silly while not training. And ticking a box/picture really makes all the difference – it kept me honest and accountable. This gave me success – I’ve gained no perceivable body fat and actually lost some weight but that’s probably muscle with 2 months of no training
.
- I actually knew some of the things covered in thrive 1 as my CrossFit box ran a clean 30 day programme. It taught a little about what to eat and what not to eat. At the end everyone celebrated by eating all the things they had given up for 30 days (cake, alcohol, pizza in a big binge) – now I look back this, it wasn’t a lifestyle change programme, this was a test of will for 30 days – can you fight temptation for that long? That’s no good for laying foundations and habits, it was a good idea but doesn’t have the long term view that thrive takes.
- I used to spend a bit on carb and protein supplements, they gave me the macro nutrients in a fast digesting form at the “right time” peri workout and also gave me that hit of sweet flavours. They also were very expensive, full of artificial flavourings and gave me none of the other benefits of real food, like nutrients and mood control. I was low carb apart from around my workout when I took vitargo S2. This didn’t give me even energy throughout the day. I look at my macro’s now (I log every so often a day or two to check I am not fooling myself) and they are very similar to pre thrive but without all the expensive supplements and I have better energy levels throughout the day and feel better during my workout. Win win!
- The “on hand” measurement of foods is great. I used to log everyday in myfitnesspal and well I don’t carry scales around and while you get good at guessing weights of food it’s not worth it generally compared to this simple portion sizing strategy.
The only thing that lingers really is the “treat day”. I yearn for nothing above my thrive diet for 6 days a week – I feel completely satisfied by this. When it comes to day 7 however I go a little overboard and eat chocolate or cake or whatever, not because I’ve yearned for it all week, but because I somehow feel I must use or lose it before I return to thrive for the next 6 days. There is something psychological about having it “fixed” as day 7. I know its just a rule of thumb and it was important to start off with to build the habits. (quite like the workout scheduler in the revised foundation interface ha!). But I don’t need or even want the treats really. When I do have them now my body tells me afterwards how much it dislikes them compared to the clean diet – it tastes how processed they are, gives me reflux etc while trying to digest them and makes you feel sluggish. I think from next week I will stop having the treat day. I think the thrive habits are strong enough now that if I am at a social event on day 3 of the week I can have some cake if I want and I won’t undo thrive’s good habits and I can dissociate myself from this “use or lose day 7” mentality.
Basically this has been great, life changing, habit building and taught me some new recipes from the forum. I am back training now and coupled with thrive I feel like I can take on anything given time!
Jeff one last question… what’s your views on Dr Siegals Cookie diet? ...Just kidding!
Can’t wait until Thrive 2…
PS where do we upload after photos, I don't want to subject you all to it on this forum, but I can't even find my before photo on the website after the recent interface changes!
