Getting Skinny For The Summer - 24 Day Challenge Part 1: 10 Day Cleanse

The husband put me on a diet… how rude right?!? Actually, he wanted to try this diet to get over a weight loss plateau he has hit during his triathlon training. Since a diet is hard by yourself and I have gained more weight than I care to admit since this time last year (none of my summer shorts fit) I agreed to do it with him. I switched medications at the end of last year and gained almost 20 pounds… yuck! I have been trying to implement my pre-wedding workout and diet routine but it is really hard to be motivated when you don’t have something like a wedding coming up! I am hoping this new diet can also help me see results and keep me going. Speaking of motivation, I took “before” pics… wow now if I want a piece of bread with cheese I just have to look at those!

The diet we are doing was created by my friend who is a Sports Therapist. She is an avid-cross fitter and in the cross-fit community the Advocare diet is really popular. I did a lot of googling and it seems like it does work but it also looks like a multi-level-marketing scheme. Of course the real reason the diet works isn’t because of all the expensive supplements they want to sell you but because of the actual diet part of the diet! So my friend created a diy version of the Advocare 24 Day Challenge consisting completely of things you can buy at your grocery store! It is cheaper and easier!

I decided to share the details because I had to do a lot of searching about Advocare to find recipes and most of the sites included sales pitches and then one recipe… no fun! So here is my plan to get skinny for the summer!

The basic set up is a 10 day “Cleanse” followed by a 14 day “Max Phase”. We are on day 3 and so far the only casualty has been our blender (totally my fault!). Unlike lots of diets you aren’t starving yourself; in fact we are eating every 2-3 hours. You are simply filling your body with healthy foods (whodathunk?) and drinking a shit ton of water!

Here is a snapshot of a day during the Cleanse Phase (days 1-10):

·         30 Min Before Breakfast – 16oz Water* + Multivitamin + Probiotic (days 6-10)

·         Breakfast – Protein Shake + Fiber Supplement

·         Morning Snack – Fruit and/or Veg

·         30 Min Before Lunch – 16oz Water*

·         Lunch – Protein, Complex Carb, Veg

·         Afternoon Snack – Fruit and/or Veg or Protein Shake

·         Dinner – Protein, Veg, Complex Carb (if needed) + Omega Supplement

·         After Dinner Snack – Fruit or Veg

·         Bedtime – Disgusting Herbal Cleanse Drink** + Multivitamin

Guidelines:

·         Each meal and snack should also include at least 8oz of water*

·         Avoid: alcohol, soda, coffee, simple carbs, dairy, sugar, processed foods

·         Limit: salts, added fats (aka oil)

* You can replace plain water with tea or you can mix in the flavored energy powder mixes you can buy everywhere.

**Ok it isn’t that bad, in fact Matt likes it… It is basically the drink from the Master Cleanse or Lemonade Diet and it packs a punch!

So far it hasn’t been bad at all. I am not really a protein shake person so I am probably going to substitute eggs for breakfast tomorrow and see if I stay as full as I do with the shake. I am getting a bit tired of chicken and I miss salt but so far the results have been good so I will deal!


Do you have any awesome low-sodium recipes you can share or anything magical to do with chicken? How do you get swimsuit ready in the summer?