Advocare 24 Day Challenege: Days 3, 4, 5, and 6

So I decided to lump all these posts in together because I have been doing pretty much the same thing everyday. I am SO EXCITED that when I get up in the morning starting since day 4, I don't have to drink that fiber sludge. I can just drink my little energy drink and take my supplement and be done with it. The fiber drink and I will meet again starting on day 8...yippppeee :(

Variety I am finding is key when doing this cleanse. I keep having to get creative with how to make eating veggies fun.  I seem to like tuna in a can even without all my Best Foods mayonnaise slathered all over it. People at work think I'm ridiculous when I bring my green polka-dotted can opener to work with me but I don't care.

On day 3, I actually made the Hubs go get me a burrito bowl from Chipotle, however, I didn't cave and get the normal stuff on it like I usually do. Day 3 had been a very hectic day at work and I just did not have the energy to cook myself something. Yes, that burrito bowl was a lot different then the one I made on day 2 but each tasted good in their own way. I was starting to notice that I am actually able to taste my food and different favors better. I consider myself a major food person and have a good palette but I think when you cut out crap, whole foods just taste better.

Day 4's dinner was not planned out and I had to get savvy quickly. The Hubs brought home McDonald's. I have to say it was absolute torture. There the bag was, staring at me and I think it even had a smile. I knew there was delicious salty and fatty foods in there but I wasn't going to cave I had to be strong. Instead, like a crazy person, I went over and grabbed the bag of french fries out of Hubs' hand and just began to sniff them passionately. I think I took enough wiffs to get me through to the end. That night I make taco meat out of lean ground beef and served it over lettuce and added some bell pepper and black beans.

Day 5: I can't believe how salty I used to make my foods. When presented with either a cookie or a bag of chips, I would take the chips. I've never been one to like sweets very much but I love salty snacks.  I had a grilled chicken breast for lunch that had great seasonings on it but I found I wish it had more ooooommmph. I added some lime juice to it but really what I wanted to do was douse it in sodium! Why have I been doing this to myself? On the flip side, who knew sweeter things like peanut butter could taste so yummy and sweet as well.

Day 6: Today was the true test, would I be able to get through a weekend off without caving and going out for chicken wings and beer? I am glad to report that I was successful.  I learned today, however, that consuming 8 egg whites is a bit of a challenge. I could only muscle through a little bit of my breakfast. For the first time while being on this cleanse, I wanted to gag.  Well, aside from that fiber drink.

The Hubs and I went for a run and I couldn't believe the energy I had. I am getting better at running and hopefully will be able to make it the whole way around the track without having to stop like I do now. That energy I had kept me going so much, we went out again this evening and played tennis.

Ok so for dinner: The Hubs' favorite meal is spaghetti a and meatballs. I can't have real spaghetti right now so I decided to roast a spaghetti squash and make my sauce with ground turkey instead of meatballs. OMG!!!!! MIND BLOWN. I can't believe how good it tasted and more importantly, I couldn't believe the Hubs went for seconds! I will show pictures of the roasted squash and the finish product. I think I might need to go back to Fred Meyer and buy more squash because this is going to be a weekly special.

Advocare 24 Day Challenge: Day 2

I don't know if I am feeling super sluggish today because I couldn't sleep well last or what. It's hard to get a good night's sleep at my house in the spring and summer time. We don't have air conditioning and can't have the sliding glass door to the balcony open. The reason being, my giant baby, i.e. my kitty, likes to pry the screen door open with her claws and go out and party with her other kitty friends. That's not allowed. It could have also been that the Hubs took snoring to a new level last night and I felt like I was sleeping next to a freight train. I already wear earplugs at night and I couldn't figure out what more to do last night for comfort. I decided to just kick him and poke him until the snoring stopped.

Anyway, the alarm went off and the was the massive trek down the stairs to go drink my favorite fiber drink...not. For some reason it did not go down as easy this morning and I kind of wanted to gag. I still felt sluggish and could not move quickly enough to get a good breakfast going so I decided to drink a meal replacement shake again. I think tomorrow I will drink a Spark energy drink in the AM too, in order to avoid anymore crankiness.

Snack was the same again, hard boiled eggs and some mandarins. The whole day I had been dreaming about tonight's dinner...I was attempting to make my own Chipotle Burrito Bowl. I found a bunch of copycat recipes and could not wait to give them a shot. I will post pictures of tonight's creation below. 

At lunch, I had to get fancy again with tuna. I decided to just eat it cold out of the can and mix it with a little pepper. It wasn't as bad as people thought...I know, I just wanted to slather it up with some Best Foods but that will have to wait. I found out today also that there is only so much celery one can eat. I was supposed to eat a cups worth of a veggie with lunch and I had to finally push it away. No wonder skinny models are so...skinny, with the amount of time if takes you to chew up one fibrous piece, you're already tired from all the work you've put your jaw to.  Bitches.

So dinner: I am quite pleased with myself. I marinated the chicken over night so it would be flavorful and ready to grill when I got home. I made black beans, some sautéed peppers, and even the brown cilantro-lime rice they make! Hubs was quite impressed with my creation and it tasted decent. I am excited for tomorrow's lunch because I'm taking left overs.

After day two I am not really feeling deprived or like I am on any type of strict regimen which is good for me. I do not, however, feel any skinnier right now but I'm hoping that will come in time. I will report on Day 3 tomorrow!

Advocare 24 Day Challenge: Day 1

Ok so I decided that I will blog about this cleanse adventure. If anyone else out there is on the fence about trying it, maybe this will help them either make the decision for, or against. All in all, today was a good day, I didn't keel over, and surprisingly enough I am not ravenously craving chocolate chip cookies or anything like that. The Hubs, however, did a really mean thing and brought himself home a nice big, fat, juicy, tasty, yummy, slutty...ok I'm sorry, enough adjectives... Chipotle burrito and it looked so good! I think if I could handle watching him devour every bite without trying to eat my own foot I should be good for the next 23 days.

So here's how it went:
Wake up: I had dreamt the night before that I had done everything wrong, I had taken the supplements too early with the day and in the wrong order, causing me to blow up into a big purple ballon like Violet Beauregard in "Charlie in the Chocolate Factory." Who knows why that image decided to come into my mind.

Lucky for me, it was just a dream and the nice fiber drink was waiting for me downstairs. After typing this out, I don't think "lucky" is the term most people would use when I'm about to describe to you what I got to consume pre breakfast. Aren't you just so excited to hear about it!? I bet you are.

So in "cleanse phase," the first 10 days of the challenge, you have to drink this thing called fiber drink in the morning before your first meal right when you get up in the morning as a way to get the body ready to start digesting. So you mix this packet of what looks like finely ground oats with 8 oz of water and there is your beverage. Seems easy enough. I had done some sleuthing pre cleanse on Pinterest for some tips and tricks on the challenge. Most of what I found involved this fiber drink. Someone suggested mixing it with a bit of Crystal Light to help it to go down easier. Another couple of people and even my friends (thanks JB and Mizzle) just said to chug that beast quick or you'll be sorry. So I mixed it up with a little bit of fruit punch powder and down the hatch it went. It tasted like eating straw with a hint of fruitiness. I had to stop mid gulps because I was starting to choke, I now understood why phrases like "chug it like you're chugging a beer" and "don't stop till you reach the end of the glass" came into mind, I could see it start to thicken and seize up, kinda like Jell-O mix coming to life and being gelatinous. I stirred it up some more and finally polished it off. It was probably the most unappealing part of my day but I got over it. I decided tomorrow's flavor of Crystal Light mixed in is going to be cherry pomegranate.

Breakfast/Lunch/Snacks:
I won't bore you with every detail of my eating. Basically, you have to eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism burning up the food. It's amazing though, after 2 hours would pass I would need to eat and once I did, I immediately felt better. The other thing I don't like about this cleanse is I can't have coffee. Yes...it sucks but I am finding its not a total deal breaker. In order to not have a massive headache today I started weening myself off it on Saturday.

I also won't forget to put in that you need to drink at least a gallon of water per day. I should just become the janitor in the ladies lounge at work so I don't have to keep sprinting from my office every 20 minutes to the facilities. That or I should move my desk and computer into the bathroom this week, but that might get awkward for some people. Just think of how efficient I'd be though! Well, maybe not. Don't think about me in the bathroom please.

Finally we came to dinner: my most favorite meal when it comes to normal food and the true test tonight for my ability to stick with it. Here I am face to face with Hubs eating his luscious burrito and I get to have for dinner, a protein, a vegetable, and a carbohydrate...sounds absolutely riveting doesn't it.

After debating for what seemed like hours but was only 5 minutes on what to have for dinner, I remembered a thing I saw someone post on Instagram about Paleo Egg salad. I had a can of tuna fish which sounded decent but of course, couldn't slather it with mayonnaise and make all delicious like normal. On Instagram, someone i follow used avocado as a way to bind their hardboiled eggs instead of using mayonnaise. It was worth a shot and at this point, my foot was also starting to look really good so i had to act fast. Yes, avocado, which is considered a healthy fat here, was not in the list of ingredients for dinner but this chick just couldn't figure out what to do instead. If anyone is reading this and starting to judge, I made it up to myself by jogging 3 extra laps around the track tonight. It's all good! Once my tuna mix was all yummy, I sliced up some bell pepper into wedges and spread my tuna salad on top. I was shocked at how much food there was on my plate and it actually tasted really good. I will post a picture of my creation since I was damn proud of myself.

So that's all for today. I have everything packed and ready to go for tomorrow. Something tells me, however, I'm gonna be dreaming about burritos tonight.

Thinking about doing a cleanse

I'm finally coming out of hibernation mode and feel like the springtime air makes me want to eat more healthy. Some of my other motivation happens to come from the glittery, shiny beacon showing itself from my closet. Her name is Trina and she's a mini skirt that I haven't been able to wear in ages. Trina's gold and black chevron patterns sparkle and shine and make my ass look fantastic. The only problem is, Trina has a nice little 8 under her name tag and she's massively outnumbered by double digit named tagged friends. I want to show her off, her place in being on me, not in the closet!

So I bit the bullet and bought the Advocare 24 day challenge bundle. Usually I don't do we'll with massive calorie restriction diets but I need a big jump start. I have seen others be successful with it so I hoping that I can be too.

Along with my intent to be healthier, Hubs and I have tried jogging nightly. I keep getting teased by him though because I barely pick up my feet and I don't know if the jog/ hop I do around the middle school track by our house counts even as exercise. My heart and lungs seem to think so since I stuff huffing and puffing after only a minute of this little number. Yes...I'm probably the most out of shape person you've met in your life. I just have to keep remembering the words my friend JB tells me all the time, "Fit not fat! Fit not fat!" However, the fit-not-fat mentality that I repeat in my head gets muscled out by "MOTHER OF GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?" At any rate, my legs and butt hurt like an old lady's so I hopefully am doing something right.

So here's to being fit, not fat, this summer!

Why Can't My Outfit Be as Cute as My Video Game Character's Outfit?

True story: When the Hubs and I first started dating, he confessed to me that he loved playing video games. I said I liked playing them too, thinking that we were talking about the same type of game. Turns out "Super Mario Brothers 3" was not the type of video game he was talking about. Hubs was obsessed with "World of Warcraft" or WOW as most people call it and played in something called a guild and wore a funny headset with a microphone so he could talk to his cyber buddies.

In an effort to have him think I was truly interested in his game playing, I would go over to his place and sit there and watch him play. This was before the use of a smartphone was the in thing and you could easily check your email or check Facebook while trying to seem interested in what your significant other is doing at the same time. I could only play so many games of bejeweled on my hot pink Motorola Razr before it crapped out and died. It just so happened that the same year we started dating, my sorority had a Halo 2 tournament to benefit our Choose Children philanthropy. We stacked TV's in the living room of the sorority house and created teams. To be honest, I don't remember what the winning fraternity took home for a prize, perhaps it was just the title of "Massive Ownage."

Oh look, video games, something I should show interest in! I thought to myself since I was dating a walking, talking Gameboy. Once after everyone had gone home after the tournament, I decided to take a seat on the couch and take a crack at Halo 2 for myself. What seemed like 30 minutes turned into 5 hours and the sun was coming up, I may have even had a test in one of my classes that day too...My God, what have I just done? After telling Hubs about my all nighter of playing the MasterChief I think he may have realized he found the perfect girl for him and he needed to keep me forever. "What'd you think?" I remember him asking me? My reply was, "I liked it but I don't like that you can't customize the MasterChief's ensemble, I need more choices to make it my own." The look I got accompanied by an instant face palm led me to be sat in front of a computer and the WOW icon was double clicked to start.

"Here, you can make a character on here and start playing it." I don't think Hubs realized the Pandora's Box he opened after that. "Ooooo I could be an Elf with a pretty dress, or a cow with a jeweled nose ring! Look at this Orc! She can wear a purple loincloth!" I think I may have spent an hour trying to figure out what character I would be and what dress and shoes she was going to wear. Shockingly enough that's not much different than how I get dressed in the morning now. Once I decided what to be in the game and what to wear, fashion choices didn't stop in the virtual dressing room, no! The more quests or missions you did, the more chances to get new clothing and shoes you had....Ahhhhhh! Fashion!

If any of you have seen the "Big Bang Theory" there is an episode where Sheldon introduces a WOW like game to Penny to try out. I'm not going to say I got as bad as finding Cheetos in my hair and then eating them, but I may have not gone to class for a whole day and needed an intervention...sorry to any UW professor of mine who may be reading this right now.

Sometimes I wish I could quest more in life in order to get new items and trinkets to adorn myself with. Most people would categorize that as working but I choose to see it differently. I guess I am presented with a new quest each day that I go into work: try not to buy anything and navigate safely through all the fashion. The fantastic outfit you have on right now gives you all the strength and stamina points you need to survive this day.

For those of you who didn't realize how much of a gigantic nerd I am...you're welcome.

Sun Drunk

Something has me in an odd mood lately.  I don't know if it's the changing of the seasons- all of a sudden the weather is warmer and people have a reason to wear cute sun dresses and shorts sans tights and hosiery.  Or if all this great produce is coming into my grocery store which makes me want to actually eat healthy and not just pig out on chips and wine.  This oddity, while it's not necessarily a bad thing, is something I realize comes around every time around the Spring and Easter.

I think what it boils down to is I grew up in So Cal  where the weather was perpetually warm and sunny and rarely did I ever have a reason to own a pair of rain boots.  I remember wanting to wear my sweaters and boots that I had bought during the summer for back to school, only to be discouraged because it was usually still 80 degrees on the first day of school.  Being the stubborn bugger that I am, I chose to wear a new wool sweater and trousers on the first day of school even though the forecast called for sunshine and a high of 90.  My Mom warned me but I was determined to wear my outfit which was my interpretation of something I had seen in an issue of Teen Vogue.  Needless to say, I paid for my bad decision by sweating to death.  I think I may have even chose to wear my gym shorts and red school shirt from PE and gave up on changing back into my sweat box for the rest of the day.  I'm sure my outfit choice choice for the latter part of the day looked great with my black Mary-Janes and argyle socks.  If by chance someone owns a picture of that look, do yourself a favor and burn it.

After living in Seattle for 7 and a half years (as I type that I can't believe it's true!) once the sun begins to shine in Spring, people, including me get what I like to call "Sun Drunk."  If I were to put the term, Sun Drunk into the dictionary it would have this definition-
Sun-Drunk: 
adjective
1. Being overcome with giddiness and happiness for no reason but for the sheer fact that the sun is out and shining.  Actions that might occur from being Sun-Drunk include: smiling even when someone cuts you off on the freeway, being excited about the day-even if it's a Tuesday, and going to a store such as Home Depot or Lowe's to buy your gardening supplies for the season even if the next sunny day isn't until 3 weeks from now.
2. This emotion is usually felt by those residing in the Pacific Northwest or somewhere where one does not ever see the sun.

Today I had a dose of being Sun Drunk.  The Hubs suggested we go on walks now that the weather is starting to come around...again, it's the first sunny day in a month and we're not supposed to have another sunny day for a couple more weeks.  We may have been a little over-zealous and walked a total of 4 miles, my hips and legs are killing me right now.

Along with making ridiculous plans about fashion choices for the weather and figuring out new dishes to create, I start to reminisce about my friends and family.  For me, I want to all of a sudden go out to brunch and enjoy their company more.  Not that I don't like to in the other 7 months of the year, but the lack of sunshine and overall gloom in the sky puts me in a crappy crabby mood where all I want to do is hibernate in my bed and not be bothered until it's time to eat again.  I am a pissy pants during this season and I feel bad about it.  I am the first to admit that I flake out easily and make excuses...for that I am making a public apology to friends and family about it.

The best of the best on my wedding day

My two absolute faves from college!

Love her!

JB- One of my greatest friends and mentors

My Mommy

All the people in the above pictures are people I treasure and care about deeply.  They've impacted me in many forms and I am fortunate to call them either friend or family.  They've been there to tell me when I had makeup on my face that needed blending or a shoulder to cry on. So in honor of Easter and new beginnings, I am saying I'm thankful to have all of them in my life and hopefully all of them know that.

Happy Easter and Happy Spring to all.  I hope the warmer weather has you planning what you're going to be doing with your favorite people this season too! Maybe get a little Sun Drunk as it can only be good for you.

What Makes Me Feel Better? Carbs

Today I wasn't feeling so hot so I decided to stay home. After sleeping for most of the day I thought I would take a stab at a French Bread recipe I found on Pinterest. I don't know what it is about bread but I love it and all its different forms.

Hubs and I will be enjoying it as garlic bread to go with spaghetti...if we can stop eating it plain.

I have pictures of my bread making journey. You'll see with the finished product I have two loaves, I took the one pre-oven brad picture when another loaf as in the oven. One of them also got bent funny in the pan so it looks like a weenie to me ;)

Post a comment if you want the recipe. It's super easy!