This past week I started my journey, 80 Days to a New Me with 80 Day Obsession! I was both excited and nervous to do this program, mainly because this is the LONGEST program I’ve EVER done, and it requires planning and preparation- which are two P’s that are hard for this queen of another P… PROCRASTINATION to accomplish lol!!! Anyway, I got the idea to share my journey with you guys, not only so I can share my story, but also as a form of accountability for myself. So with this first post about this new chapter of 2018, I’d like to share with you how I prepared for this program, and how my first week went!! That means sharing my BEFORE photos and measurements, and I’ll even show you guys some of my meal prep (along with when I’m eating what meals, and how I went about picking what I’m eating)! My plan is to do a weekly update for you guys, to share my experiences the previous week (wins, losses, challenges, progress, thoughts about the food, etc.) and to also share with you what I’m planning to eat for the upcoming week! So! With that being said… Are you all ready? Let’s begin!!!
Before I began
Here are my starting stats and before photos!!!
Weight: 216.2lbs
Chest: 41.5
Right Arm: 12
Left Arm: 12
Waist: 33.5
Hips: 45.5
Right thigh: 26.5
Left thigh: 26.5

The Preparation Stage
So! Before 80 Day Obsession came out, Autumn had created a 5-day program called A Little Obsessed. It’s basically a less intense introduction to the actual program, and it was advised that we complete this at least once to kinda get the hang of things, and get an idea of what we would be doing. I had enough time between when A Little Obsessed launched and the actual program launch to complete 3 rounds!! It was hard work, and when I first started I didn’t have resistance bands or the real sliders (I used paper plates). I do believe I had the sliders and bands for the last 2 rounds though, and that made a HUGE difference!!!
When it came to planning my meals for the first week of 80 Day Obsession, I’ll admit to being a little overwhelmed at first. This is because we were introduced to something called “Timed Nutrition” where Autumn has us eating certain containers at certain times of the day, with a workout block of nutrition and then 3 meals after that to eat every 2-3 hours. There was A LOT of information, but it’s literally ALL the information you would need. The workout blocks were something to get used to, because you have a pre-workout meal (which is eaten depending on when you do your workout: morning, middle of the day, or the night time), then your Energize (or pre-workout of choice), you workout, have your post workout supplement, and then later on your post workout meal.
The meal plans are split into 6 groups, going from A-F (there are also Vegan plans). You find your meal plan by following the formula provided! I am following Plan D, so I printed off the meal plan information for this particular letter. Each meal plan is allowed a certain number of our Portion Control containers, and that is what you use to build the plan you’ll follow to eat your meals! It took me about 3-4 tries to get my meal plan how I liked it, mainly because I kept changing my workout times, and wanted my foods to match the time of day that I would be eating them. Below I’ll share the final copy of my meal plan that I followed for the week! When it came to picking what foods I was gonna eat, I kept it simple by following the layout of the blank meal planner that was included, and filled in the containers with recipes from our Fixate Cookbook, or just pulled foods from the container food list! As you can see, I kind of wrote out a schedule of my day, so I could get a better idea of the times I should be eating. Since I was getting up so early (3am), that meant my last meal was in the afternoon; so sometimes I would go 3-3.5 hours between meals just to stretch it out a bit.


(Below is where you’ll see that I switched all the workout stuff to the morning, instead of at night like in the above pictures. The one on the bottom is the final copy. Also, what’s not on here is that in my post-workout meal, I also had eggs!)

(And now, a look at food and my fridge/freezer set up!)



At this point, I had my resistance bands and sliders for the actual program, so I was ready to go on that front!Right now I’m using 3 different weights; 5lb., 8lb., and 10lb. dumbbells. Since I workout in the morning, I wear the clothes I’m going to workout in to bed, so that’s one less excuse to not push play! Something else that I’m doing to help me during this program, is to have alarms set for when I need to eat, and what meal I’m eating. This way I don’t forget to eat (and I haven’t yet, unless life or work gets in the way- which honestly happens sometimes). It’s like 5 or 6 alarms total, I believe!

Week 1: Holy Moly!
This first week was definitely a challenge! I’m SO thankful for those rounds of A Little Obsessed that I did, otherwise I don’t think I would’ve survived the first day! Working out with Autumn and the rest of her cast is AWESOME, because their suffering isn’t edited out! You’ll see them adjusting their bands, getting their form corrected, taking unscheduled breaks because they’re dying…Basically being REAL PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND I! It’s refreshing, I think, and makes the workouts more bearable. The length of the workouts usually go between 30 minutes-1 hour, but you can hardly tell with the hour long ones, because you’re so focused on the moves and it really seems like you’re there sometimes! So far, I’ve enjoyed all the workouts EXCEPT Day 6, which was Cardio Flow. DO NOT let the name fool you, it’s not a gentle kind of flow! It was SUPER hard for me to keep up and do some of the moves correctly; there were even times I had to modify the modifier! And I know I got discouraged on some of the moves, because I couldn’t get the hang of them (I’m talking to you, donkey kicks frogger jumps!). I think my favorite day would have to be…Arms, Abs, and A** (aka AAA). I can’t pinpoint what I liked most about that workout, aside from the fact that it focuses on all the areas I’m trying to tone up!
Now, about this meal plan… I followed it about 90% of the time. I would do fine in the morning, but come mid-day, I was itching for junk food snacks, and I’ll admit that I indulged a little there. There were times at home where I went off plan a little bit, and maybe had more than what I was supposed to have or something not even on the plan to begin with. And while I didn’t follow it 100% this past week, the areas that I struggled with gave me insight to take intothe following weeks (like ways to help curb that unhealthy snacking habit, and how I can make my last meal one that will tide me over for longer)!! I’m not going to beat myself up for falling off the wagon a few times; I’m going to take them as lessons learned, and apply that to next week! I know I said that I’d share my Week 2 meal plan with y’all, but I’m still putting it together (sorry!). However, I think I’ll share it on my Instagram and Facebook pages so y’all can see what I’m eating for the next week. My workout block meals will be the same, because the Fixate Breakfast Sausage was THA BOMB, and mixing it in with kale and eggs made it the PERFECT breakfast! What was the most interesting this week was my Butternut Squash Parfait- I didn’t know that you could make sweet butternut squash (seeing as it’s a vegetable), but that’s whatI did and it came out SO GOOD mixed in with the greek yogurt and granola! So those two meals will stay for sure, and I still have chicken, tuna, kale, and salad greens in my fridge (along with snacking cucumbers and baby carrots), so this next week will probably include some salads.
What I’m looking forward to in Week 2
Heavier weights, and the blue resistance band! I don’t want to go up to 12s just yet, but I have a feeling I’m gonna have to get 12lb. dumbbells this week! And I noticed last week, that with some of the moves, I probably could’ve done them with blue bands, but went with green because I wanted to get the form right since most of those moves I’d never done before. Autumn made a comment in their behind the scenes show, that if you’re having issues with your resistance bands, and you’ve already made the necessary adjustments but they’re still rolling up on you, you need to go up a size!! So this next week I’m gonna challenge myself to (safely) lift the heavier weights, and use my blue band more!
I’m looking forward to 6 days of different workouts. Something that sold me on this program is that each day will have a different workout. Some of the moves might get repeated, but the workouts won’t be the exact same for each theme day. That was my main problem with some of the workout programs that I did in the past, I’d get bored and want to move on to something more exciting. Not to mention, the people I’m working out with are pretty fun and relatable 🙂
Food-wise, this week I WILL stay on plan 100%!!! Last week was my “adjustment” week; this week is my “okay Shenise now let’s get in formation” week! I’m going to get this meal plan done and prepped, and the only issues I should run into is maybe missing an alarm or 2 while at work (because my job can be unpredictable like that sometimes)!!
That’s all I’ve got for now, but stay tuned for another update next week!!!
Love, Peace, and Elbow Grease 🙂