Results of My 24-Day Challenge

I did complete the full 24-days of the challenge, however the last 3 days was spent on vacation.  I did not have a scale and did not measure myself, but before I left for my trip I was down just 1 pound.  I know that my body changed shape as my jeans fit differently now- looser in my thighs and buns, and one pair of jeans I loved that never failed to give me a muffin-top isn't so offensive now.  :) I think that since my diet was already so similar to the challenge's diet rules (eat clean, low carbs, low/no sugar) that is why I didn't see as drastic as a change as my husband and other did.

My husband spoke with the Advocare help line (whatever their official name is, I'm not sure) and they said that most people who are already lean and are looking to tone more than lose body fat should be taking the Catalyst supplement in addition to the challenge.  Talking with others who have done the challenge and taken Catalyst, as well as doing some research online, I think that would have helped my results along a little better.

So in summary, I loved how I felt on the challenge and it brought back some good eating and meal-prepping habits.  I have just ordered Catalyst that I will begin taking to help with my workout regimen, and I love Spark!  I have never found anything that takes away that pesky brain fog and keeps me awake and alert throughout the day without feeling jittery or that my heart was going to explode (think 5-hr energy).  I love the Advocare community and their foundational morals and desire to help other reach their health goals.

Shameless plug:  If you are interested in trying out the challenge, you can check it out and order it online here- www.havefunliving.org 

Challenge: Day 15 & 16

Day 15:
Lunch: Rosemary baked chicken breast with broccoli and green beans. (work's cafeteria)

Dinner: Garlic Beef Stew with Savory Cauliflower Mash
This dinner was amazing!  So much flavor and my house smelled amazing.  The cauliflower I seasoned differently than the recipe as I HATE Turmeric.  I used my homemade Johnny's seasoning, a little pepper and garlic powder. 

Day 16:
Lunch: Big salad and a small vegetable soup (work's cafeteria)

Dinner: Egg scramble with tomatoes and a slice of Ezekiel Bread toast with peanut butter

Snacks: Popcorn with stevia and cinnamon, banana

Challenge: Day 14

Lunch: Salad topped with cucumbers, carrots, black beans and hard boiled egg.  I used a balsamic vinaigrette for the dressing.

Dinner: It was a pretty warm day, and I didn't have much time to make a big meal, so I whipped out my George Foreman grill and grilled up a natural burger patty.  I laid it on a bed of lettuce, with tomatoes, avocado and grilled onion.  I used mustard as it is low in sugar and fat (and I'm obsessed with mustard!).  It was much better and fulfilling than I expected it to be, especially since it didn't have a bun with it.  On the side I sliced up a fresh organic pear.  MMmmm!

Snacks: Mixed fruit cup, mixed nuts, brown rice cake with thin layer of peanut butter.

Challenge: Day 13

Lunch: I made a delicious fresh salad (lettuce fresh from my mom's garden), with black beans and half and avocado.  I had this with some of Trader Joe's Goddess dressing.  To reduce the amount of dressing you use (to reduce calories) you can just dip your fork in the dressing first before stabbing into that salad. 

Dinner: We did a repeat from last week since it was so tasty.  Black beans and rice from the challenge cookbook.  I serve it with brown rice and this time mixed veggies.

Snacks: Mixed nuts and a banana.

Challenge: Day 12

The rest of the challenge's breakfasts is the meal replacement shake, so I won't be including breakfast in these posts any longer.

Lunch: Leftover Country Captain Chicken. 

Dinner: I had marinated overnight some chicken breasts in the zesty chicken marinade from the challenge cookbook.  I had BBQ'd these and served them with a fresh side salad.

Snacks: I had a hard boiled egg, mixed nuts, brown rice cake w/ a thin layer of peanut butter.  I also worked out (Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred) and had a protein shake afterwards. 

Challenge: Day 11

First day on the MNS phase!  I've been excited to get off the cleanse phase and start seeing some results. Not just physical results, but also energy and mental clarity results.  Don't get me wrong, I have felt AMAZING during the cleanse.  My focus, mental energy, physical energy, alertness...all that is so much better. No longer am I falling asleep on the drive to or from work...or at my desk for that matter.  YEAH!

Here's how my day transpired food-wise-

Breakfast: Chocolate Meal Replacement Shake (nummers!)

Lunch: Leftover spaghetti

Dinner: Homemade Country Captain Chicken from the challenge cookbook. Let me tell you- despite the strange combination of ingredients this was so GOOD!  Definitely a repeat meal here.

Snacks: Carrot and Celery Sticks, Organic Apple, and for "dessert" we had a banana peanut butter smoothie.  I like to use PB2 for the peanut butter.  Less fatty!

Challenge: Day 10

Today is the last day of the cleanse phase, which means NO MORE FIBER DRINK!  I don't think it tastes horrible, it's just a lot to do in the morning and still eat breakfast.

Breakfast:Two fried eggs and a slice of toast.

Lunch: We went to Applebee's for lunch.  I had their 7oz garlic steak with veggies on the side. 

Dinner: I made Grilled Salmon with Avocado salsa.  It was amazing!  Here's where I found the recipe: http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/06/30/grilled-salmon-with-avocado-salsa/.  For the sides I made quinoa and a fresh salad. 

Snacks: Banana, trail mix

Challenge: Day 9

I had an epiphany yesterday as I realized that I haven't had to buy lunch all throughout this challenge and neither has my husband, and we won't be going out to dinner.  That makes what we paid for the challenge not much more than what we would be paying for eating out. Awesome!

Breakfast: I made up a 2-egg scramble with diced zucchini and summer squash that was left over from last night's paleo pizza. 

Lunch: Leftover paleo pizza and a hard boiled egg.

Dinner: Spaghetti with Barilla Plus multigrain spaghetti noodles and the lowest sugar spaghetti sauce I could find on the store shelves.

Snacks: Throughout the work day I had my homemade trail mix.  Dessert was a Choco Loco bar that is vegan and gluten free. 

How I felt: Today I had my energy back, so yesterday's day of rest must have done some good.  I'm excited that tomorrow is the last day of the cleanse.  That fiber drink is getting old.  :)

Challenge: Day 8

Breakfast: Fried Eggs & Peanut butter Toast

Lunch: Chicken and avocado salad on slice of wheat toast.  Apple slices.

Dinner: Paleo Pizza from the Everyday Paleo cookbook.  It was super good!  A no-wheat crust, topped with some marinara, zuccini, summer squash, tomatoes, olives and roasted red peppers.  I also cooked up some antibiotic, no added hormones chicken italian sausage.

Snacks:I forgot my mid-morning snack. That was a big mistake.  By the time lunch rolled around I was feeling so jittery and hangry!  After lunch we went to a local seafood restaurant with my parents and split an appetizer of steamer clams, so that served as our snack. 

I also did our week 2 meal planning since my last meal plan ended at today.  Here's what I have planned for the next week:

There are a couple of repeats of our favorites from last week, like black beans and rice and the spaghetti. 

Challenge: Day 7

Today I felt pretty tired around 1:30, and was struggling to stay awake around 3.  I was also having cravings for things like cupcakes (someone put a container of them on the table behind me at work!), ice cream, chocolate, beer, and a big juicy burger.  this is the first day since starting the challenge that I have had any of these junk food cravings.  Jacob mentioned that he had some cravings about day 8.  
Tomorrow is the 4th of July, so no work.  I'm wondering if a day of rest will help rejuvenate me as work has been pretty tiring and I have done a little overtime.

Here's what I did for food today:

Breakfast: Egg bake and slice of peanut butter toast

Lunch: Chicken salad w/ about 3 tsp Goddess dressing

Dinner: I made the Saucy Salmon from the challenge cookbook.  This salmon was baked on a bed of chard (which I've never had) and covered with a tomato sauce you cook up before baking. 

It was good, however my husband and I LOVE salmon, so this seemed like it was covering up the taste too much.  Too much work and ingredients for something that is so good when baked with just a basic seasoning and some lemon.  I think this recipe would be great for someone who doesn't like salmon all that much as it covers up that "salmony" flavor.  I served it with asparagus and brown rice.

Snacks: Homemade trail mix, a banana, carrot sticks, and a strawberry banana smoothie made with coconut milk.

It's a Wine Party! - The 30th Birthday of Two Friends

I have always wanted to host a wine party - where my girlfriends can get together sans kiddos, bring a bottle of wine, enjoy good food (and chocolate!), and unwind a bit.  With my 30th birthday fast approaching, I wanted to do something special and knock something off of my life's to-do list.  It also happens to be my bestie's 30th birthday a week prior to mine, so why not join our birthdays and do something we both have been wanted to do for a while?

After lots of dreaming, pinning (view our pin board), planning, and googling, we came up with a menu and ideas. We would provide the food, which would be mainly finger foods and chocolate.  Our guests would bring a bottle of wine.  We would all judge the wines together and whoever's wine won the most votes would bring home a prize.

Here's how we did it:

When a guest brought in their wine, we would promptly take it and wrap it up with tissue paper and a custom designed label.  It helps having a bestie that's a talented graphic artist (Check out her FB page: Rachael Reynolds Artistry).  Be sure to write down somewhere on the bottle what it is (cab, merlot, zin, etc) and who brought it. That will help you out later.

Notice that we have also created printables that explain about the tastes of wine as well as how to taste wine.  Most of the people coming are all wine newbies, so we wanted to teach them all how to taste wine at the party.

While we were waiting for others to arrive, we had a table set up for guests to make their own wine charm.  This doubled as a help in identifying our glasses throughout the night since I don't have enough to go around as it is.  It was a great way to use up my ever-growing cork collection too.

I purchased silver head pins from the jewelry section at a craft store, bent the ends so they would "clasp" into the loop-hole.  My friend had beads galore, so we added some of that.  I sliced the corks with a sharp serated knife, they were about 1/4" thick.  I purchased little screw-in hooks, also from the jewelry section, and screwed them into each cork.  I had pre-assembled these, but left the cork blank so that everyone could make their own design.  I had some stamps and ink pads in a few different colors, but black turned out the best.  Everyone loved making them and that they could take them home!

We made lots of food.  Too much maybe, but it was GOOD.

 Foods we had were:

• Grapes
• Assorted cheeses including smoked gouda, aged white sharp cheddar, colby-jack, monterey jack
• Almonds, walnuts and mediteranean olives
• Water crackers (great palate cleanser)
• Strawberries and peaches
• Baked Brie En Croute w/ Apple Compote from Williams Sonoma
• Baked Herb Ricotta w/ Roasted Tomato Crostini from Ravishing Hunger
• Red Wine Truffles from We're not Martha blog
• Individual cheesecakes in jars w/ optional cherry topping

Everything was so good!

Notice the cute food labels, also custom-designed by my friend.  I used more of my cork collection to make the stands. I just cut a slit in the cork, stuck a tack in the back so that it would stand up, and voila!

Here are the score cards we made for the guests to fill out while we were taste-testing:

I just added up the scores after we were done and the wine with the least points (1 = Outstanding, 5 = Awful), won the prize!

The night was tons of fun, and us besties were blessed to be surrounded by family and friends and to try out lots of pinterest ideas.  :)

Challenge: Day 6

Breakfast: I made one of my favorite breakfasts ever!  An egg bake. 

Here's how to make it:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Grease a ramekin (or small oven-safe dish) with coconut oil.  Add 2 eggs, 2 tbsp salsa and salt and pepper if desired.  
3. Bake for 8 - 12 mins depending on how you like your yolks. 10 or 11 is usually perfect for me (firmer yolks)
4. Take out of oven carefully and enjoy!  It's great with a piece of whole grain toast.

Lunch: I made a salad with last night's leftover chicken, along with avocado and black beans.  Delicious!

Dinner: Grilled steaks with a homemade creole seasoning.  For the side, I made a vegetable hash from my Paleo cookbook - Everyday Paleo.  It had sweet potatoes, zucchini and shallots in it seasoned with curry powder and cinnamon.  It was super tasty!

Snacks: Carrot sticks and homemade trail mix.

How I felt today: After yesterday's best energy day ever I was a little disappointed that I felt more drained.  I woke up a lot last night, so all that interrupted sleep probably didn't help.  This is the first day that I drank Spark twice (once in the morning and once before lunch).  I still love how alert and awake I feel on the Spark.  So much better than coffee! 

Challenge: Day 4

This is the first break from the fiber drink! Hopefully my gassy bloated tummy will go away now. :(

Breakfast: egg scramble with mushrooms and green onions. I also baked some paleo apple cinnamon muffins. They are made with almond flour, baking soda, cinnamon, eggs, banana and diced apple. Nummy!

Lunch: this was amazing and my husband liked it too! I made the chicken avocado salad from the challenge cookbook and had it over a bed of lettuce. Jacob had it on a slice of toasted bread. This is a keeper!

Dinner: I made the crockpot chicken burritos recipe from the challenge cookbook. We decided to serve it over lettuce like a salad. I added black beans and slivered almonds. We had it with trader joes Goddess dressing. Fruit on the side. We both agree that this recipe is a keeper. Mmmm

Snacks: brown rice cakes with peanut butter. We also had a paleo muffin. 

Challenge: Day 5

Today is the best I have felt! Energy, clarity of mind, good mood. This is also the day Jacob mentioned he felt the best too.

Breakfast: 2 fried eggs, whole grain toast with peanut butter. (And Spark of course!)

Lunch: Used the rest of the leftover chicken from last night's crock pot chicken burritos for a salad topper. I picked up trader joes Goddess dressing as it looked like it had all clean ingredients and wasn't too fatty. I just dipped my fork in the dressing and then stabbed into the salad. It was the perfect mix of black beans and avocado with the salad. 

Dinner: I made chicken breasts cooked in coconut oil. Made a sauce of chicken broth, coconut milk, basil and mushrooms. I put that over the chicken and quinoa with a side of corn. 

Snacks: Fresh fruit salad, had a protein shake after my workout, and a paleo apple cinnamon muffin.