Advocare...Until We Meet Again...Maybe

Now that we (read: Jace) have finished our Advocare 24-Day Challenge I'm transitioning my running commentary from a 'page' to a 'post' so you (read: I) don't have to see it permanently anchored to the top of our blog anymore. :) Feel free to ignore this post if you're receiving this via email. -- Happy Valentine's Day Eve  

Look how excited I am. SO excited. And
no, I can't control my eyebrow, either, Tierra.

Jace & I are about to embark on a clean-eating adventure. On Tuesday the 22nd we're starting Advocare's 24-Day Challenge and I'll post updates here on how it's going.  The first 10 days are a cleanse followed by 14 more days of a lean protein, fruit & veggie-heavy diet. Our goal is to transform our diet from the steady flow of Cheez-Its, Red Vines & Diet Coke that have crept into our pantry over the past six months to one filled with a few more vitamins and nutrients.

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Day 1:  Only a few hours to go and I think we can call this day a success...but I think we could have truly called the day a success when we both managed to gut the nasty arse Fiber Drink at zero dark thirty. I'm not totally sure but I think both of us threw up a little. Changing the strategy tomorrow morning and will try to mix our Spark and Fiber for a more palatable experience. Throughout the day though the variety of foods this cleanse allows keep us both satisfied and full. Our goal during each of the next 10 days is to drink a gallon of water. Not sure how close we both got but we both feel good about our effort :) Now...to The Bachelor!

Our Advocare products!
Spark, Fiber, Omegas, Shakes, Probiotics...OH MY :)

Day 2:  So far so good. Jace is down 6 lbs in 2 days and I've lost 2. Considering the weight loss isn't my motivation for completing this challenge I'll be adding a few more calories to my daily menu to prevent blowing away with the next big wind storm. I've noticed that I don't feel so hot periodically throughout the day (kinda crampy in my gut) and then a bit nauseated around midnight. I'm thinking the crampy feelings are due to the evil one and am wondering if the midnight yuck has to do with the herbal cleanse tablets we have to take before bed. Will continue to monitor but the good news is Day 3 is the LAST DAY FOR FIBER until days 8-10 (dread).

Day 3:  Tough day today...Easton was up twice last night around midnight showing us his dinner from about seven hours earlier. Ew. So M&D are pretty sleepy. Cleanse is going great though. Nothing really to report besides the fact that we're super stoked to not have to drink our Fiber tomorrow morning  (are you sensing a recurring theme here?).

Days 1-3 COMPLETE! Time to turn the page...

Day 4:  It felt so good waking up this morning knowing we got to drink our Spark and take two little probiotics instead of our thick Fiber. Yeay us!  We're both feeling great and have settled in with our daily routines and recipes.  I figure I should probably document what we're eating so you can see that the diet portion isn't crazy...just clean. The primary restrictions include dairy, white flour/starches, fatty foods, cooking with oil (can be used sparingly as dressing), sodas/coffee/energy drinks and Coors Light.

For the week, Jace's snacks (fruit + healthy fat) were apples, natural PB, pear and almonds. For lunch he usually ate some shredded chicken leftovers from the crock pot and carrots (if no veggies in the recipe).  My snacks were berries, walnuts, an orange and 1/4 avocado. For lunch I ate a packet of tuna w/red leaf lettuce, beans (usually edamame and garbanzo), s&p with a squeeze of lemon for dressing. I thought the lemon as dressing sounded disgusting but turns out it's pretty tasty -- not ranch or blue cheese dressing tasty, but tasty enough :)

For dinner we've had oven-baked salmon and tilapia with steamed veggies and one of my new all-time favorite recipes, chicken and salsa in the crock pot. I'm in LOVE with Frontera's Jalepeno Cilantro salsa (thx, Catie Locallo)! Just add that plus chicken plus a bit of chicken broth to increase the juice and fire up the crock -- low 8-10 hrs or so, high 5-6 hours. Just make sure the chicken is cooked and you're golden.

I also made this Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken and it was a huge hit with Jace. He liked how spicy it ended up -- and I only used a teeny pinch of cayenne!!

The Santa Fe Chicken + left over roasted brussel sprouts
(no oil, hence the burnt leaves) and sweet purtaters

Happy customer...probably because there
were no brussel sprouts anywhere near his bowl

Now it's time for a movie then bed...tomorrow's Saturday will probably be our toughest day! Stay away munchies, stay away!!  

Day 5:  So far so good -- the munchies have really been kept at a decent distance away. Feeding eSmallz his "wakkles" with butter and maple syrup was tough to participate in but we managed.  Keeping busy and drinking lots of water has been a huge help.  It was nice to have some extra time this AM so we tested out using the blender for our Meal Replacement Shake (Jace is loving the chocolate while I'm a fan of the vanilla).  The blender option was great -- all the added air and some crushed ice made a pretty filling shake seem even heavier.  I added some fresh berries to mine while he kept his straight water, ice & powder mix.

At this point in the cleanse Jace has lost 8 lbs and I've found the right caloric balance to maintain my weight were I'm comfortable for now. Thank you, avocados! :)

Day 6:  As I write this I'm wondering how many more days I'll be able to last. At the moment I feel like I'm battling first trimester nausea (which I'm not). I'm not sure if it's the cleanse per say or unfortunate timing with this upper respiratory crud I'm battling.  Maybe the combination of cleansing herbs, Sudafed and Mucinex don't really jive in my system.  Whatever the reason for my upset stomach it's unpleasant. I'll spare you the TMI details but the thought of going through a day of work feeling this way has got me thinking I may be "clean" enough.  Jace has no physical discomfort and is happy with his results so far...just wishes he could find enough time to work out in addition to the healthy eating. In the interest of full disclosure we did each cheat a bit last night but it was for good reason. We went over to see some friends and their kiddos and ate chili. We were both good and declined a beer and didn't put cheese on the chili so we felt good about it. Jace also forgot to take his herbal pills before bed but took them this AM and feels fine.

My chicken/salsa crock pot action is cooking away to get us ready for the week!!

Day 7: Nothing interesting or new happened on Day 7 so I won't bore you with my attempt at creating excitement. :) I'll save the excitement for tomorrow and the return of THE FIBER DRINK (duh dunt duuuh) <-- that was supposed to be sound effect that closes out a scary scene in an old movie. not sure why i'm explaining it though because I know you got it.

Day 8:  Day 8 is to be written into the history books as the day Ali quit this ridiculous cleanse. I won't disgust you all with the details but it was all down hill after the fiber drink hit my gut. I've been battling this upper respiratory junk for a little while now and either it moved to my digestive tract or the 10-day cleanse was designed by evil spirits because by the time 5pm rolled around I was in a little ball in my bed too afraid to be far from the bathroom. Needless to say I've had it with feeling weak, tired and hungry...and annoyed by people asking me why I'm "on a diet" or "feel like I need to lose weight". People don't listen. I wasn't doing either but whateves, I'm doneski.

As for my other half he continues to dominate this and I continue to be proud of him :)

Day 9:  Reporting for Jace now -- he'd like you all to know that mixing the Fiber Drink with Spark makes it 100% more tolerable and he's thrilled. Ok so maybe he didn't want you to know but I'm telling you anyway.

Day 10:  Two started, one finished. Congrats, Jace. :) I think his end result was a loss of nearly 10 lbs and considerable inches around his stomach (as I noticed his pants were cinched as he walked out the door this morning).  He's now transitioning to the Max Phase which will swap out the Fiber, Cleanse and Restore pills for the MNS Max Pack.

The Max Pack contains multi-vitamins, minerals, herbal supplements that are supposed to increase nutrition and wellness, sustain energy and control your appetite. I'm just wondering how in the heck we're going to remember to take all these dang pills! One pack goes before breakfast, another before lunch and the other two are taken with breakfast or lunch. I'll probably wait until I'm feeling back to normal to throw all this stuff into my system as I'm still inching my way past saltine crackers...

You take one of these sleeves per day.
The top two portions are taken prior to a meal,
the bottom two with a meal. aye yaye yaye

Day 11: Today is Friday, February 1st!! Whoo hoo and adios January. What a month. But anyway, I digress. Yours truly is still laying face down in the ditch after falling off the wagon but the Jacer is killin this challenge. He's feeling "amazing" and really likes the structure that this challenge provides. We went out for date night with our friends and he stuck with a healthy food choice (the famed Caesar salad w/no dressing [puke] and chicken) and water. He's not loving all the pills but that's to be expected, he hates taking pills :)

Day 12: 12 days down and 12 lbs lighter!! Look at this handsome thing...I like to hug him and he likes to just stand there.

Day 13 - 19: Nothing too significant to report over the last week. If any of you know Jace when he's on a diet he's like a robot. He doesn't require new menu items once he finds something he likes so he's been eating the same foods now for 19 days. Reference Day 4 above for an overview.

Day 20: 20 days down and only 4 to go! Jace weighs 167 lbs now...a loss of 13 lbs. He's a champ. But in bigger news he's mixed up his dinner menu and has transitioned into eating salad...with no dressing. Puke. Barf. YUUUUCK! But he likes it so more power to him. :)

His (above) and Hers (below)

Day 21:  Jace had to start drinking another type of "meal replacement shake" (this shake shall remain nameless) today because we (read "he") ran out of his Advocare mix. The bummer part of this is when we made our initial order (I won't comment on how expensive this mess is) I ordered the 24-Day Challenge times two for both of us. Considering I stopped taking this product on day eight I assumed there'd be more than enough for him to finish out his challenge. Not the case. Lesson learned is buy more shakes if we ever do this again.

Day 23: Final result = Jace lost 13 lbs. He's a "huge fan" and wants to do his best to keep up the same type of diet but won't continue with the Advocare supplements once they're gone because they're so expensive. We are aware that there are price discounts to be had by becoming "distributors" but we're not interested right now. I'll likely try the cleanse again someday so I can see if my less-than positive experience was just due to being sick or not. If that goes well maybe I'll look into it then.

Day 24: Free Day!!! Jace says he's eating Mike & Ikes today. We'll see.  Thanks for following along on our 1st Advocare adventure :)  P.S. And we're going to Flemings on Friday --- yea it's already been decided! :)