21Day Fix

I am currently doing the 21-Day-Fix... but not their "diet." I am restricting my calories, logging my food in MFP, etc. I am just using the workout DVDs - and in the order they recommend - which I LOVE. They are challenging, but not over the top. When I feel like I have mastered them, I will probably purchase the 21-Day-Fix Extreme, because I love the instructor & the modifier & the way the workouts are structured. Good luck!

I've done it in the past and I think the nutrition portion is okay for someone who is very large and overweight and completely overwhelmed by approaching a calorie-counting diet, or who doesn't understand macros/nutrition at all.

If you're small, it's easy to wind up unintentionally going over your calorie allotment using their method. It's also not easy to cook using their plan, so you'd better enjoy eating servings of single ingredients, especially at first.

I was pretty close to my goal weight and did not lose a significant amount of weight on the plan, although I enjoyed the workout DVDs, which are very challenging if you haven't been in the habit of exercising lately. I didn't gain, and I felt pretty good at the end of the 21 days, but I don't think the results were worth the amount of effort the plan requires in terms of food prep.

Overall, I'd say it's okay, but you can't do it forever (I mean, I guess theoretically you could, it's not a nutritionally dangerous plan, but you'd go crazy carrying around little cups and only eating fistfuls of single ingredients for years on end), so you're going to have to learn about CICO on your own eventually to maintain anyway, so why not start right away? If you already know about CICO and have successfully tracked a reasonably balanced diet for a while, the 21 Day Fix plan won't give you anything new except some awkward restrictions on what you can eat.

kommodevaran wrote: »

You are still executing portion control, but on a higher level of abstraction. Just like 21 Day Fix is about calorie control, without focusing on the calories. The process is universal, the preferred method is personal. Both tools will work if you use them correctly, both will fail if you cheat. I like both, am using something inbetween. What I don't get is why the proponenets crop up here on MFP, where one of the cores is a food diary based on calorie counting.

I totally understand that there are similarities. The thing I don't get is that if you're just limiting portions, and you feel "cheated" on those portions, why not try the calorie counting approach? They're both about creating the needed deficit to sustain weight loss. If one doesn't work for you, find a new one that does. As long as you're not going VLCD, or trying to make an untenable solution like shakes-as-meal-replacements work in the long term, or sprinkling magic powder on your 800 calorie per day food allotment, it's all good.