I was incredibly excited to join the 6-week challenge at the Centennial CrossFit gym - primarily to improve my nutrition and learn ways to eat healthier. Overall - I was successful in meeting the goals of the program (losing more than 5% body fat in those 6 weeks, which ultimately meant I got my money back for the program)!
The workouts were AWESOME. I genuinely enjoyed them and felt that most of the coaches were very supportive. Not all of the coaches understood my limitations with diastasis recti or how to recommend safe modifications, so a word of caution to know what is safe for yourself if you too have that. The workouts never got boring and definitely felt challenging for me - even though I'd already been working out 3-4 times/week for over a year. It was a nice change of pace from my own workout routine for sure. Truly loved the workouts.
The real challenge, for me, was the meal plan. Not only is it an incredibly restrictive plan for 6 weeks without modifications, but it pushes protein very heavily and didn't come with any real explanation for WHY it was designed the way it was or any details on good nutrition (what's a lean protein? what's a healthy fat? how do you pair a balanced meal or snack?), which is what I needed most. The prescribed meal plan worked, but I came here to learn HOW to eat better in general and I wasn't getting that. When I reached out with specific concerns, namely around the protein snacks/protein options/total protein intake, I was often told to "stick with it" rather than being given real guidance to understand it and modify in a way that was healthy for my body.
Overall I found the nutrition portion of this program to be lacking significantly throuhgouht the program - and when I asked about how to proceed with my nutrition at the end of the 6 weeks, I was told that I needed to enroll in the monthly membership to get any further nutrtion info, which was the next level/step up plan -- that was never mentioned to me at the start of the pgoram (and again I thought I was getting education throughout and wouldn't be left to just figure it out on my own at the end of the program). I was put off by this approach - and quite frankly disappointed and felt a little scammed.
Ultimately, the program works if your only goal is to lose weight and you follow it to a T -- and you're NOT interested in understanding good nutrition from it. But that's not for me, I was expecting to walk away with the education necessary to make life-long sustainable dietary changes for better overall nutrition and health - so I cannot in good faith give this 5 stars as I feel like this was a bit misleading. read more
