The 5-day reboot is a sequence of adjustments that I make to my eating and drinking whenever I’m coming back from a time period where I haven’t been laser-focused on my health.
Some examples would be after the holiday season when it’s been a series of parties and buffets, after a vacation where I’ve eaten out a lot or even after that glutenous time period that seems to immediately follow an Ironman race. The last time I went through this was actually right after we prepped for, fled from and cleaned up after Hurricane Irma. So it can be a variety of situations. Or it could even just be when you decide that you are ready to make a change.
This is not a diet. This is not even nutrition advice. I’m not a doctor or a dietician. These are common sense things that I focus on to get myself back on track.
Why is the 5-day reboot 5-days?
It’s 5 days because that fits with Monday – Friday. I find that on the weekends with my workouts and my life it’s hard to regulate certain things as well. So rather than set myself up for frustration and failure I just set it for Monday – Friday.
The other reason it’s 5-days is because that’s very doable. I can do pretty much anything for 5 days. If you told me I could only eat bananas for 5 days I might be able to do that. Nothing in the 5-day reboot is that extreme but the idea of 5-days I think is a good start.
What is different about the 5-day reboot?
I am very active. This isn’t a plan that says okay … for 5 days only eat lettuce because I personally wouldn’t be able to do that.
My 5-day reboot doesn’t demonize any foods. I do restrict or minimize some food groups for a few days but not forever because I think that’s impossible. There are some people who have great success with that strategy but it doesn’t work for me.
There are no supplements suggested as a part of my plan. I think supplements are fine. I take a multivitamin everyday but anytime I read a meal plan based on supplements for every meal I just shrug because I love food. Delicious food. I do not think protein powder is delicious. I do not.
This is a set of 5-steps to look at what you are doing now and take more control over your daily eating habits.
How does it work?
The 5 day reboot focuses on adding in good things to your day.
Personally, I am intrinsically motivated by happiness and by having good things in my life. I don’t enjoy a feeling of being deprived. Many reboots and resets that I tried immediately started with no coffee. I love my coffee. I LOVE my coffee. So I failed over and over again. They didn’t really work for me. I would take several of the ideas and apply them in my own way and it seemed to work. That’s what you see here.
The story behind the 5-day reboot actually comes from a realization that I had which was that many people thought that I was and could eat whatever I wanted because I exercise a lot. To a certain extent that’s true. But what’s more true is that I learned a long time ago that in order to enjoy the exercise that I do I needed to fuel my body properly. I can do some of my exercise on a diet of beer and fast food but it feels terrible. I feel terrible when I do that. So it’s really more true to say that I’m able to do all the exercise I do because of the way I care for myself.
Once at a dinner party I said this in a discussion. I said, “really, I’m able to do all this exercise because I take care of how I eat and sleep.”
My husband challenged me on that. It’s crazy but while we live in the same house we have extremely different eating and exercise habits. I didn’t confront him at the dinner party (because that would have been a scene for sure) but a few days later I said – listen I want to talk to you about this again.
Eventually it ended with me writing out what the steps were in a simple 5 day sequence. He didn’t love the process and he ignored some of the steps for sure when I wasn’t watching but he also admitted that he felt much better pretty quickly.
There the reboot stayed just as a little list in my book of notes until recently when after Hurricane Irma I was in the passenger seat of my car heading home having been totally derailed for about 10 days. I used that downtime to really write down my plan to get back on track. That’s the 5-day reboot.
It’s not super sexy and I don’t promise amazing results. You won’t lose 10 pounds or look like a runway model (unless you already are a runway model). These are common sense things that we tend to forget or ignore in our busy lives. It’s perfect for real people who live busy lives, eat real food (including eating in restaurants) and who want to swim, bike, run or lift weights daily.
The 5 day Reboot is Free
There’s no cost for the 5-day reboot. It’s a 5-day email sequence that takes you through these small lifestyle changes. Most are diet but not all.