A New Start: The Digest Diet

Today is day 1 of the Digest Diet.  I’m starting a little later than the rest of the bloggers on Team Digest Diet due to business travel.  That’s over and I’m raring to go!

It’s time to start releasing the fat and moving forward on my journey to health.

Starting Point and Goal

The scariest part of sharing my experience as part of Team Digest Diet is talking stats.  I’ve shared lost pounds before but no actual weights.  It’s time for total transparency; it’s just a number.  Knowing the number won’t make you like me less (or more).  So without further ado:

Starting Weight: 206 lbs.

My goal during the next 21 days is to lose 12 pounds.  That’s a lot in three weeks but I think it’s attainable.  That’s over 5% of my body weight and enough to leave a person looking and feeling better.

Getting Ready for the Digest Diet

After arriving home I went out shopping for foods I will need on the phase 1 of the 21 day plan. Thanks to the handy shopping list on the Reader’s Digest website, it was easy to know what foods to buy and make sure I didn’t miss any.  There’s nothing worse than preparing a meal and finding out you’re missing an essential ingredient.

Here’s my crumpled list after I shopped.  I had never bought Swiss chard before and wasn’t even sure what it looked like but I found it.  There were a couple of other ingredients like this on the list but that tells me I need to mix it up a bit.

It’ll be fun to try new foods and seasonings.  We might even develop a few new family favorites!

Phase 1 Overview

The 21 day challenge is split into three phases.  Phase 1 lasts for four days and is designed for fast release.

The daily menu consists:

2 shakes–  These are not your ordinary shakes but rather filled with specific nutritious ingredients making sure I get daily food requirements but also maximizing fat burning.  I’ll have one for breakfast and the other for lunch, but it’s an option to have it for dinner instead.

1 crunchy snack – The crunchy snack combines a vegetable, nonfat dairy and seasonings to satisfy nutrition needs and give me satisfaction from chewing

Soup – Tonight I’m making Hearty Chicken Mexican soup.  It looks and sounds delicious from the recipe in the book.  I’ll take a picture of it and share on my next post.

Exercise – Movement is part of any good plan and it’s definitely included in the Digest Diet.  I am supposed to do 45-60 minutes of walking each day and three 1 minute activity bursts which I’m looking forward to.  What’s more fun than jumping jacks or dancing?

Join me and the other bloggers over at the Facebook page  or follow #DigestDiet on twitter for more information, conversation and hopefully inspiration!