Week 1 is over, and The Ultimate Reset has not been too bad so far, but there have been some challenges.
It’s not the food or the supplements that create a challenge. Those are fine.
I mean, yeah, the Alkalinize packet is kinda nasty — it’s very green — but I only have to ingest it one time a day. I just found out that instead of water I can mix it with no-sugar-added cranberry juice, so I’m going to try that.
And the food, for the most part, has been really good. I do not like kale or tempeh, but I would never have known that, had I not tried them. (Now, what am I going to do with this extra package of tempeh?) I love the quinoa salad and the zucchini-cashew soup.
The schedule and food preparation have been somewhat problematic for me, and I work out of the house, so for those of you who leave the house to work, planning is definitely required. I should have substituted more meals — it’s allowable to substitute similar meals from the same week — sticking with the simpler ones, and I’ll do that going forward for weeks 2 and 3.
My primary issue has been with the way I feel. The massive headache the first day was expected, but these severe allergy symptoms were not. I hope they go away soon, because I am running out of Breathe Right strips.
By the way, I have to admit, in preparing the meals I didn’t pay all that much attention to portion sizes. I didn’t go full glutton, but I’m sure I overate. Nevertheless, things seem to be going well.
WEIGHT LOSS
For those of you looking for weight loss, the news is good. I am not overly fat and I am down 5.6 (yeah, I have a digital scale)Â pounds the first week. Seems from the message boards I’ve been reading that there are mixed results for others. I’ll continue to monitor.
SURVIVAL TIPS
- It’s okay to swap meals during the same week. So if there is a dinner meal you are pretty sure you won’t like, just substitute a different dinner meal from the same week (except for the salmon and chicken meals — we are weaning off meat).
- If the Alkalinize is really nasty to you, try mixing it with no-sugar-added cranberry juice. Note that this is not “sugar-free” cranberry juice, but “no-sugar-added”. R.W. Knudson makes one, and I got the housebrand at my local supermarket, HEB, here in San Antonio. Also note that it is not cheap, at about $7 for 32 ounces.
- If you miss taking the supplement capsules at one meal, take one extra before each of the next two meals.
- Remember not to drink anything a half-hour before, during, and a half-hour after a meal. This is to ensure you are not diluting your stomach’s digestive juices. I did not know this, missed it in the reading, but picked up on it from the message boards.
- Drink lots of water. I have filtered water on my fridge, but I am buying and drinking distilled water with Mineralize and a couple ice cubes.
- It’s easy to get confused where you are in the book and make the wrong meal — been there, done that — so use a paperclip or bookmark of some kind to keep your place.
- Look ahead to the meals — some dinner meals, for example, are repeated the next day for lunch — so you know if you can prepare extra to save prep time the next day.
- They say add a “pinch” of Mineralize to each glass of water. I put 10 to 12 shakes of it into my pint glass. Or you can add 1/4 tsp to each gallon.
- The idea is to get your body as clean as possible, so stick with the plan as much as you can, but don’t be discouraged by small deviations. Shake it off and get back with it right away.
- The Ultimate Reset’s creators recommend no strenuous workouts during the Reset. Your body is already going through a lot, no need to make things more difficult by forcing it to heal and build muscle tissue. With that in mind, I have only been doing Rodney Yee’s Flexibility DVD. Feels really good.
If you are interested in The Ultimate Reset, be sure to click the links on this site, or shoot me an email me at if you have any questions. One of the nice things about Beachbody products is the huge support system of people to help you succeed!