JCore - Day 1

Against my better judgement I let a good friend talk me into trying a fitness/diet plan for 40 days. It is the JCORE plan and since my friend knows someone who successfully completed the program and is featured as a "Success Story" I was even more interested. Things have been going well with Carly, my RD, and I really don't want to mess with a good thing. But I ordered the program anyway and was relieved to find that besides a few minor tweaks, the JCore program and my program from Carly are almost identical. Both diets focus on a goal calorie range for your goal weight, and then creating a balanced diet using an exchange system. It is a balanced plan including protein, carbs, fats, fruits, and veggies.

The biggest differences in JCore from what I'm currently doing are 1) cutting out ALL processed foods, artificial sweeteners, added sugars and alcohol. 2) Removing bread and cheese from 10 days of the 40 to see how sensitive your body can be to those items and 3) Having slightly larger portions of protein. I've decided not to mess with Carly's numbers and exchanges so I will not be following #3 for JCore, but I will attempt numbers 1 and 2. I think finally trying to wean myself off of diet soda may be a good thing in the long run (though I'm not sure on my willpower to actually stop). Removing bread and cheese for 10 days isn't terrible, and you are free to add them back in after the 10 days are up. Diets in Review did a pretty decent review of the JCore diet plan.

Fitness wise the plan comes with 5 DVDs and the program calls for 4-20 minute workouts a week. The program comes with a calendar and shows you how to rotate the DVDs. The other 3 days of the week are open for "Optional Exercise" or adding in another JCore DVD. This will work well with my current fitness routine and 20 minutes a day is doable even with my crazy schedule.There is also a fitness test DVD which you do a few times over the 40 day period to track progress.

Today is Day 1 for me, so after I get home this afternoon I will do the Intro/Fitness Test DVD and get this ball rolling. Let's just see how I do this morning without a coffee with splenda or a diet cherry pepsi to get me through! Tomorrow I will update with a "Before" picture and some stats so we can see how much can really change in 40 days.