24-day Challenge! Time for Change!

It's time to cleanse our bodies and get a fresh start for summer!!!! The emergence of fresh fruits and vegetables will make it easier and easier to make healthy choices in our diets. 

One fantastic way to kick start your metabolism and clean out your system is through the AdvoCare 24-day challenge. This challenge is designed to help you lose fat, not water weight. You might remember reading my blog (I hope you did!) when I did the 24-day challenge in March. It really does work!

You all know I do not believe in liquid cleanses! I think that they just slow your metabolism down. They may have their place, but not for a weight loss goal. This challenge is basically just eating clean. You know, if it doesn't have a mother or doesn't come from the ground, don't eat it! (Thanks Jillian Michaels). 

If you choose to purchase the AdvoCare challenge pack, it includes all the vitamins, fish oil, energy drink, fiber drinks and pills, meal replacement shakes (for later in the challenge) that you will need. Of course, you will need to make the food. The best part if that I have already been through the challenge and have detailed instructions on exactly what you need to eat. (There will even be VIDEO!)

The hardest part of the challenge for me was the preparation. Once I devised a way to have all the food I needed for the day, it worked! 

We will have to take a 24-day break from alcohol, coffee (ekkk, I know), most dairy and wheat products. Instead of coffee you will get an energy drink with some caffeine and loads of vitamins. I actually broke my coffee habit thanks to this. (Never thought that was possible!). 

You can start the challenge whenever you'd like but I would love a group of us to start soon! I was thinking next week! That way we can lose some body fat before the water gets warmer! 

The cost for the challenge is $185 through Advocare. Check out a link to their site at my site, 3RFitness.com. If you have any questions I am always here! Always! 

E-mail me right away if you are ready to take the challenge! It's an exercise in self-discipline. I am committed to sending you emails of encouragement each and every day of the challenge!

New Small Group Training at BSC, Weymouth

Hello Everyone! 

New Kettlebell Small Group Training Classes are starting this week!!!!! There is still some space available. 

A kettlebell-based workout is designed to combine strength and cardio! Each move is dynamic and nature and will work on your "real-life" strength more than any other modality! Take the Kettlebell SHRED challenge. 

Beginner: (For those who have never taken a kettlebell small group) Wednesdays at 9:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Intermediate: Sundays at 11 am

Advanced: Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m.

Also YOGA FOR STRENGTH Small Group Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. 

Classes are for one hour, 8 weeks for only $209!!! 

Email me right away to sign up! Or you can go to mysportsclubs.com.

Get ready for SUMMER!!

Love you all. 

Rachel 

Stress harms body and mind

As the challenge continues, I am reminded that each day is a chance to make a better choice. I have also been thinking a lot about how much stress can physically harm our bodies.

This weekend I was faced with some additional stressors and didn't follow my diet the way that I had been. I let the stress derail me from the challenge. In fact, I was so stressed out that I didn't eat for almost a whole day. This is very contrary to eating healthy and only slows down metabolism! This one day threw me off for the next day and it took until Monday to kick myself back into gear. There is no excuse for this type of behavior but I learned a valuable lesson.

"Stress happens when the mind resists what is." This quote, by one of my favorite authors, Dan Millman, is completely profound in simplicity. Stress is a useless and harmful emotion. When challenges come our way, we must simply face them. Allowing our bodies to react physically only hurts us. While this is easier said then done, remembering this quote has helped me greatly over the years. Even recognizing that you are stressed and making harmful choices can stop you and bring you back.

While I will become derailed at some points, I can always climb back on! I believe the more quickly I can come to realize an outside circumstance that is affecting my health, the easier it will be to return to healthy choices. Please don't let too many hours pass by without getting healthy food choices into your body. This can be almost as damaging as overeating, in my opinion.

On a really exciting note...I discovered the power of KALE. At night when I am starving, and it is too late to eat dense foods, I have been eating kale, cooked in a small amount of olive oil and sea salt. I noticed having left it in the frying pan for a little too long makes this spinach-like vegetable taste almost like chips! I then learned that you can make kale chips, which I will attempt tonight! Future posts will describe this experience!

The other correction I need to make is that while I have been abstaining from coffee, I have been getting some caffeine. This has been coming in the form of SPARK, an energy drink by Advocare. This drink is loaded with vitamins and has 120 mg of caffeine.  

Day 8: Containers! Containers!

It's Day 8 of the challenge and it is going well. I have slept harder then I have in my entire life (that I can remember) and have begun to feel a little lighter. It is certainly a challenge NOT making my coffee each morning. It is my first thought upon waking!

The hardest part has definitely been making sure I am eating a healthy snack/meal every 2/3 hours. With a crazy busy schedule this sometimes entails inhaling hard-boiled egg whites and blueberries! (I recommend not mixing the two!)

There have been some ups and downs but it is getting easier to make sure I have all of my needed food prepared and ready to go before a busy day out and about.

This evening (Sunday) I began preparing food for the week. One of the things that I didn't do last week was to make sure any fruit that needed to be cut up (strawberries, etc.) was ready. This was a mistake because, as we all know, fruit doesn't stand the test of time, or even a week. I really hate throwing food away so this week I made sure to have all that type of fruit cut and into containers for easy access.
I also switched from brown rice to quinoa, for something different. I roasted carrots, sweet potatoes, chicken and asparagus, hard boiled eggs, cut up peppers and celery for snacks. chopped fresh garlic and scallions (to add to fish/chicken and kale cooked during the week), and made a turkey and bean soup.

My refrigerator is also stocked with mixed greens, hummus, egg whites, bananas and oranges. All of this preparation will PAY off and I will be able to attack this clean eating challenge! Each morning I will grab containers (yes...more containers) and make balanced meals from the food I already prepared. For dinner, when I am home, I will most likely make a fish and vegetable. All you need to do is put in the work Sunday to get ready for at least the first 4 days of the week. I definitely had to force myself to do it because MAN I am tired! It is totally worth the effort though.

As for how I did after my "prepared" food from last week ran out... let's just say I ate A LOT of egg whites! I think I had about 8 per day Thursday, Friday and Saturday! Remember this is all trial and error. I also did make a grocery trip Friday because I had a friend over and couldn't serve her egg whites! I made steamed kale and chicken sauteed with onions and peppers. She loved it and felt great that it was SO good for us.

I will admit that I had a glass of wine Saturday with that same friend but after eating my best all week, I made peace with that decision. It is all about living life. We can't be perfect all of the time and no one ever asked us to be. We can only move forward, one day and one moment at a time.

Let's raise our WATER GLASSES to another great week to come! We are so lucky to have this life. Let's make great choices!

Day 5: Think before we eat

Just finished lunch! Spring Mix, 4 oz. chicken, 1/4 of a large sweet potato and some roasted carrots. YUM! Really, I swear!

So, it is day 5 of my cleanse and I  have been able to maintain eating clean (nothing processed) because of the preparation that I did on Sunday. My refrigerator was stacked full of containers filled with all of the ingredients needed for a balanced diet.

Let me be totally honest and say that this is very HARD. It is NOT easy in any way to eat clean every 2/3 hours. You have to be totally prepared and seriously plan out your food each day. Without this preparation, there is no way that I would have been able to maintain this level of strictness. I have certainly been craving wheat products. You know you are cleansing when a wheat pita pocket is calling your name! While this has been difficult, what in life that is worth anything isn't!

I have been eating mostly the same things each day. While many would see this as boring (as I would normally would too) I am viewing this cleanse in a different way. When I am eating, I am thinking about how the food is nourishing my body, not just about enjoying the food. This is making me eat much more mindfully and really appreciate what these whole foods are doing for me.

Here is what I have been eating most days.

Breakfast: 3/4 egg whites, or 2 egg whites and 1 whole egg, scrambled. 1/2 cup cooked oats (that I made Sunday) with 1/4 c. blueberries.

Snack: 2 brown rice cakes with almond butter. Banana or Strawberries.

Lunch: Spring Mix, 4 oz. chicken (baked from Sunday), asparagus or carrots, tomatoes, Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Trader Joes Organic Red Wine Vinegar and Olive Oil Dressing (about 2 Tbl.), 1/4 c. brown rice or 1/4 sweet potato.

Snack: 10 almonds, 1/2 grapefruit or pear

Dinner: Same salad as lunch or 4 oz. fish, steamed spinach or kale, 1/4 tomato (cause I LOVE them).

The food that I prepared Sunday is almost gone, since I wouldn't want to be eating old food anyway. What is left and it totally fine for a few more days are the oats, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce and assorted fruit. I will plan to make some more chicken for the weekend and probably have fish most nights.
With the weekend fast approaching, I am sure I will have some major challenges and will share how I will overcome them!

One way I am going to combat any threats on the horizon is to make plans that don't revolve around food and drinking; yes, hanging out with pregnant friends works great (for the drinking that is)! I am also going to make sure I have plenty of snacks ready to go to have over the weekend.

I had a realization during this past week as well, thanks to Bob Harper of the Biggest Loser. He said during the latest episode that most people over eat/drink to avoid feeling emotions. This was a really enlightening to me. When I began craving unhealthy or just things not in my cleanse, I would ask myself; What are you feeling? It was amazing because almost every time I wanted to say "forget this cleanse" I was feeling unhappy, bored, lonely, etc. I then decided to just sit with that emotion and a while. It was HARD, but as it has been said, "This too shall pass."

Let's take a moment to think before we eat. 

Talk about preparation and dishes! My sink was piled high! Now that all the dishes are clean and my refrigerator is packed with ready-to-go meals, I can breathe.

Here are the things I cooked to make it easier to follow an unprocessed diet.
4 servings of steel cut oats
1.5 pounds of chicken
Roasted asparagus, carrots and a sweet potato
Hard-boiled eggs
2 c. brown rice

In addition to this food I have plenty of fruit, spring mix (my favorite!) and lots of frozen spinach and broccoli. With all of these fail-safe options, I can make a clean and balanced meal without any fuss.

Though I have been eating mostly clean for several years, this challenge takes even more preparation and planning. I mapped out what I was going to eat for tomorrow and even what times I had to get the food in. With my schedule being all over the place, I have to make sure to have all the food I need with me and ready to go!

I had to visit Whole Foods before all this preparation to get a few of the missing ingredients I forgot on Saturday's grocery trip. Normally when I shop I don't even look at the tempting foods. I simply get what I need and get OUT of there. Today I found myself hanging around the cheese aisle, reading yogurt labels and gazing longingly at the hot food bar.

This goes to show that you only really want what you can't have! It was like I had to say goodbye to food I rarely even eat! I thought back about the days when I would eat so much prepared food, because it was easy. I was taking in so much sodium and fat my body was crying out for a cleanse. This was a few years ago, before I got into the business of fitness and health. 20 unhealthy pounds ago! I do not miss those convenient foods anymore when I think of how unhappy and unhealthy I was.

No more Pasta Sides for that girl! It is NOT worth it. In total, all that preparation took about 2 hours. This was also while cleaning up my house, getting work clothes ready for my early morning and catching up on Criminal Minds.

Preparation is the KEY! 

Day 1

The first step in my 28-day challenge was to visit my local grocery store and stock up on all of the needed clean eating foods. Most of my purchases took place in the produce aisle. I also stocked up on chicken breast, fish and eggs for that needed protein.
Returning home I made sure there were no temptations in my house. Removing any cheese, pasta (even though it's wheat) and anything else that doesn't fit into my challenge nutrition regiment. Goodbye for now wine!

In addition to my clean eating, I will be following a meal plan with a few supplements from a company called Advocare. I am testing out these products out on myself to see what their 24-day challenge can really do!

Spring is in the air!

Upon hearing birds chirping yesterday and feeling the itch for warm weather, I have decided to do some spring cleaning in my system. 

For 28 days, beginning Sunday, I am going to eat completely clean, abstain from alcohol, complex carbohydrates and anything processed. 

This challenge will not be easy. I already eat healthy but, as many of you know, I am human and do, indeed, have cheats. I enjoy my wine and cheese on occasion. 

I am not advocating that this “perfect” 28-day “diet” be a plan for life. It is merely a jumpstart and a cleanse to get my body running as efficiently as possible. 

Since I am sure this is going to be a major challenge, I am going to be blogging about this daily. I will include what I am eating and how it’s making me feel. I am going to be completely honest! I am doing this to show all of you that, while I KNOW this is HARD, it can be done. And it can be done with an extremely busy schedule. 

Along with my dietary changes, I am going to be taking at least a 15 minute walk after a meal (dinner would be best but as my schedule doesn’t allow, I am going to take my walk after lunch). During this walk, I am going to simply concentrate on my breath and allow the stresses of life to simply, NOT MATTER, for those 15 minutes. 

Just to clarify, these 28 days are NOT a vacation from exercise. Along with my 15 minute walks, I will be continuing with at least 5 days of exercise. My blog will include comments regarding my workouts and related energy levels. 

I invite any of you to join me in my personal challenge. You can take the entire challenge or take bits and pieces. This is “your ride.” 

Remember, it is not about the end of these 28 days, but about the journey through them.  

Rachel Carta, CPT, NASM
Feb. 25, 2012

• I am not a registered dietician and am only making note of what I am personally eating. Please consult a physician before making major changes to your diet and exercise. 
• During the first 24 days of my challenge I will be testing some products from Advocare. More information to follow regarding these products.