Have faith in the plan...

The plan dropped in my inbox last Tuesday, it is ninety pages long.  NINETY! I read it three times on Tuesday night, I started making shopping lists, there were things on the list that I didn't even know what they were let alone where to buy them. There are quite a lot of eggs on the plan, eggs and me do not get along, it's a long story and I may tell it one day, suffice to say I won't be having at least four of the recipes included. I keep looking at the recipes whilst making my lists, for quantities.  I look at the quantities on my list and back to the recipe, look at the quantities again, surely not, that is only two servings.  I have a feeling Joe Wicks AKA The Body Coach is having a laugh at my expense, his 90 Day shift, shape, sustain plan is supposed to turn my body into a lean machine. Re-programming my badly formatted metabolism to enjoy healthy carbohydrates and protein and burn fat.  But this plan right here, with these HUGE portions, three meals every single day, two snacks and enough water to keep a whale afloat is absolutely terrifying to me. I can not even comprehend how eating this amount of food can do anything other than shape me into a small bungalow.  There are however, noticeable omissions from my plan, apparently chocolate is not a good fuel for my body, neither are milk or cheese, I am allowed two coffees per day if I must and fruit flavoured and green tea are go!

Your plan and it's quantities and exact measurements of macro nutrients are tailored specifically for you, you have a coach who is right there at the end of an email, ready and willing to answer even your must banal questions, and to offer support. You have to complete 4 or 5 thirty minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions per week and on a training day you have to tailor your meals to include this and therefore have a high carb meal straight after training, it's the sheer amount of food though. I've always been a one meal a day girl, well one meal and some toast...one meal,  some early morning toast and a mid afternoon bar of chocolate, and a biscuit, or two biscuits, maybe three, but, BUT I only ever have one meal.

I have had to get organised, I am going to have to take perfectly weighed and huge portions of food to work for my lunch, not forgetting my mammoth snack. I have to weigh out, prepare and cook low carb meals for non training and carb meals for straight after training, I am used to cooking from scratch, I have never eaten processed foods or ready meals, however this is another level completely, it is so precise, none of my favourite "let's just chuck everything in the slow cooker and see what happens"  I am slightly OCD although this has relaxed over the past few years so I spent six hours in my kitchen yesterday preparing meals, weighing, cooking, portioning, freezing. Today I've made my own Granola (Joe's Granola Recipe) and boy do I feel smug about it. So tomorrow I start the plan, day one of cycle one and my kids? They will be living on boiled rice for the next ninety days and they will smile about it while mother gets lean.