Monday I started a new fitness routine.

Since the baby I’ve “gently” watched what I ate, attempting “soft-start” diets, and pushing off exercise as much as possible. But remember when I was preggers and I told you my Beach Body coach-friend, Nicole was going to whip me into shape? Well, she gave me 7 months to warm up to it… and now? It’s sweating time. We started walking 3 miles, 3 times a week. Then after a conversation with another Beach Body coach friend, Vanessa, who also had a baby fairly recently and looks freaking ah-mazing, I decided to take the leap and start a 21-Day Fix Challenge with a group Nicole had organized to start on June 9th.

What is the 21 Day Fix?

In short, it is a fitness plan that includes a rotation of  30 minute daily DVD workouts (including Yoga and Pilates– which for the record? I SUCK at), a meal plan and 7 cheerfully colored small plastic containers, that quite frankly I initially looked at and thought– This is a joke right?

Print-outs my coach created for our group and they are seriously invaluable!!

Nicole was on top of me the week before to meal plan for the week, which I reluctantly did… mostly because I kinda fear her (ha), Annnnd then I ate my way through my friend’s wedding the night before we started, fully prepared to be starved and crying for 21 days.

Well here I am 1/2 way through day 5 telling you that I am forever thankful I was pushed to meal plan because A.) There is no way I could have done this without planning ahead and B.) I am STUFFED, you guys.  Stuffed… and sore.

I’ll share more about my experience with the workouts (that are intense but so far “manageable” 60 second reps), as well as my progress as we go through the weeks, but in the meantime I wanted to share 2 of the amazing meals I made this week and shared on Instagram. I swear I am eating better-tasting meals than when I wasn’t on a diet.

21 Day Fix Recipe: Shrimp Taco Salad

(1 1/2 red container, 2 green,  1 blue)

Ingredients:

• Frozen & cleaned shrimp
• Bell Peppers
• Onions
• Shredded Cheese
• Taco seasoning (or Cajun seasoning)
• Greek Yogurt (1/2 red container)
• Cilantro
• Smoked paprika
• Jalapeños (diced)
• Romaine lettuce
• Lemon Juice
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

• Coat pan with non-stick spray
• Season shrimp with salt, pepper, cilantro and smoked paprika
• Saute shrimp with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice until pink.
• In a separate pan sauté onions and peppers (1 container of green)
• Chop up Romaine lettuce (1 container of green) and jalapenos
• Mix sauce ingredients: Greek Yogurt (1/2 red), 1/2 tsp taco seasoning, 1 tsp of lemon juice
• Add all ingredients to bowl, mix and top with shredded cheese (1 blue container)
  

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