21 day challenge review…and the next challenge

Upon reflection, cleaning up the 21 day diet of processed and mostly-industrialized foods didn’t gain me much (I ended the challenge with a 3 day binge). My hormones kicked in during the last week and my skin began its dreaded breakout cycle. Avoiding added sugars only lessened the severity to one or two patches, but it’s annoying nevertheless.

What was beneficial was again the eye opening revelation about some of the junk that goes into store-bought food. Preservatives, industrialized seed oils, high fructose corn syrups, and gluten ingredients are in there to cheapen the quality of the final product and negate any nutritional benefits that food might have. In cases where individuals are particularly sensitive, these fake ingredients can be harmful. My man, who washed out in one week, was enjoying some normal blood sugar readings. When you’re diabetic, maintaining glucose levels are absolutely important.

Jan 31 marked the end of my 5 assisted pullups daily. I’ve been doing 1 set every morning to gauge my upper/core strength. While I switched to a new set of bands for the latter half of the month, I realize I still have a long way to go. And dropping some poundage will hopefully aid in that endeavor.

Feb 1 to Feb 15 challenge goals:

  • Stick to a calorie plan: 1221 kcal non-lift, 1526 kcal lift. with 1 free-feed day a week, and Feb 14 free day
  • 100 pushups daily
  • 2×5 assisted pullups daily
In addition, I am sticking to my 3x weekly StrongLifts sessions.