Of Parties and Plateaus

As I write this, I am in Memphis, Tennessee, where I had to come for an unexpected trip to move my Mom. I brought my shake stuff with, and I even brought travel food — my cut-up chicken, cherry tomatoes, nuts, apples, oranges, and bananas to eat for dinner and snacks last night. However, with today being weigh-in day, the one thing I didn’t plan on was not being able to find a scale in my hotel OR in the hotel gym. Not the planned lifestyle we’ve been leading so far this month, but different is good, right?  I’m planning to make a trip to the store while I’m down here to get meat, snacks, and produce — these are things that my Mom just doesn’t keep in her house. Another challenge! 🙂

 

This past weekend we held our “After Christmas Christmas Party,” and let me tell you — staying away from some of these amazing and creative snacks and goodies was difficult, to say the least. I have to admit, I did some nibbling, but compared to how bad it could have been, I’m pretty proud of myself. I had to be real with myself before the party — it happens once a year, and this year, it just happens to fall on a date that happened to occur during our 30 Days to Fit Challenge. We both did REALLY well, so I’m not gonna fret over it!

 

Oh, but there was AMAZING food. My ever-so-creative friends Judy and Claire brought a Popcorn Ball Croquembouche, drizzled with whiskey chocolate sauce. What’s a croquembouche? Well, I’m glad you asked. A croquembouche is a traditional French dessert, literally translating to “crunch in the mouth. I HAD to try one. I mean, I was one of the judges, right?

 

 

 

Slightly better for you were these gluten-free bourbon balls, made by our neighbors Meg and Erik:

 

 

 

The winner of the best “Healthy Junk Food” went to our friends Judy and Bernard, who brought some incredible sweet potato chips that I’m still craving almost a week later. I also found some pretty good gluten-free pretzel sticks,  and super yummy Lucy’s gluten-free Cinnamon Sugar Cookies. I know that next year, this category will grow!

 

Even with all of the good behavior around the food, both of us reached a little plateau. Honestly, we can’t say that we’re surprised about that. Part of it is something that Errol mentioned — last week with the cleanse we were drinking 64 ounces of water, and this week it’s been far less. It also might be us just readjusting to our much “cleaner” system. In any event, we’re okay with it. It gives us a challenge for next week!

 

Total Weight Loss:

Errol: 9.6 pounds

Wendye: 9.0 pounds (this is a guessed number, especially now that I can’t find a scale!)

 

Total Combined Weight Loss: 18.6 pounds (still an AWESOME thing to be proud of)

 

Will we get over the hump? Will I resist the challenge to snack on unhealthy foods while I’m helping my Mom move? Stay tuned for next week’s blog…and thanks for reading!

Detox and Challenges

As we’ve slowly come to realize, there are few sounds more beautiful than the sound of the blender in the morning. Errol’s hard at work making his shake!We’re still feeling great with lots of energy — even after our seven-day detox cleanse, which we just wrapped up today. The best thing about this cleanse, as simple as it sounds, is that it got us back into the habit of drinking liquid. This entire week we drank 64 oz. a DAY, which is something we’re not used to doing on a regular basis. I believe  I read somewhere that we should be drinking half of our body weight in ounces. Either way, it’s a challenge for me (more so than Errol). It was a great thing, though — helped to flush out all of the bad stuff.We had a few challenges this week (which means even more challenges over the already challenging detox period). First, we had a meet-up at a Mexican restaurant, where we had to tackle the task of not eating chips, salsa, guacamole, cheese, OR tortillas…much less our adored margaritas. We were victorious! Surf n’ turf and fajitas, none of the aforementioned good (bad) stuff. It felt good to get over that hurdle.Another challenge presented itself this past Saturday. I had a bit of a setback at Errol’s Arbonne Pamper Party that we did out-of-town in Madison, Wisconsin. My one BIG weakness is cheese — and apparently, I needed to have some. As a result, I paid for it. But, life is a series of these kinds of challenges, so Sunday and Monday, I did a two-shake day (Arbonne’s 30 Days to Fit Plan gives you the option of doing a shake once or twice a day) with one healthy meal. This seemed to diffuse the cheese “flub” a bit — and it helped me to just deal with it and move on!

Looking ahead, we’ve got yet another challenge this coming Saturday, which is our annual After Christmas Christmas Party.” Our Christmas parties have always had what we refer to as the “Best of the Best Junk Food Contest” with categories for prizes. This year, however, we’re adding another category: “Best HEALTHY Junk Food.” We’re hoping it encourages all of our amazing friends/bakers to come up with something gluten/dairy-free! As a strategy for the upcoming party, Errol suggests eating a healthy meal before and have go-to snacks around — carrots, apples, and nuts stashed away for those emergencies…and a pitcher of Fizz Tabs — maybe a combination of Pomegranate and Citrus!

We’ve discovered a few more tips along the way. The Arbonne Fizz Sticks are absolutely a wonderful way to avoid grogginess. For example, Errol was feeling a bit groggy before last night’s rehearsal and drank a Fizz Stick dissolved in water on the way there, and it really gave him the boost he needed. He felt alert, and what’s more — he didn’t feel that usual “crash” that he usually gets with coffee or soda. He also didn’t feel that wired feeling that comes after drinking those things. Five hours later, he was home and sleeping soundly.As we mentioned briefly in our last blog, we have gotten into the swing of making our own “fast food” — which means chicken breast or steak cut in small bite-size pieces. It’s a satisfying snack, relieves hunger, and it’s so easy to do. Again, planning ahead has been the key to our success!

Final Numbers as of Day 14 and the end of the seven-day Detox Cleanse:

Errol: Down 7.6 pounds
Wendye: Down 9.6

Total Combined Weight Loss: 17.2 pounds!

Stay tuned for our full report about our After Christmas Christmas Party — hopefully, we might get to include some healthy “junk” food ideas from our friends in our next blog!

30-Day Challenge…the first week!

Since we’ve embarked on the first week of our 30-Day Challenge, we’ve learned a lot…and we’ve been feeling GREAT! We wanted to give our blog readers a bit of information on what we’ve been doing (just in case you might be thinking about losing weight or getting just a bit more healthy yourself — after all, it is January, which is usually a good month for this sort of thing!). Our own Challenge was being planned already at the beginning of December, but what really kicked it into high gear for us was going on an impromptu cruise for Christmas. We ate a lot and had more than our fair share of those fruity drinks with parasols in them, which made for a rude awakening of sorts when we got home. So, we decided to put our money where our mouth is and make this challenge happen!

But because we’re honest people, these blog posts won’t always be wine and roses. If things get hard, we’ll tell you. But in all honestly, so far, things have been pretty manageable. Errol right away reported not feeling hungry at all almost immediately. Instead of coffee, he used the Arbonne Fizz Sticks in his Detox Tea as a replacement, which energized him even more. I fell in love almost immediately with my shakes, which consisted of 1/2 c. almond milk, 3/4 c. water, 2 scoops of the Arbonne Protein Powder (1 chocolate, 1 vanilla), 2 tbsp of ground flax seed, and a combination of frozen fruit, berries, and kale. Right now, I’m not experimenting with the format of these shakes — but plan to do so as the month progresses.

I’m (this is Wendye) feeling great — a lot less bloated, for starters, and I think that the Digestive Plus supplement is helping a lot of with that. I had been putting it into my shakes, and then read that Arbonne’s resident doctor, Dr. Peter Matravers, recommends getting it into the body quicker by mixing it with some water and drinking it separately. So, as funny as it sounds, I’m kind of “shooting” it! 🙂

It isn’t just the shakes and supplements — eating “clean” has a lot to do with it, too. We’ll cook up several skinless boneless chicken breasts, or some beef or pork (100-150g raw) at a time, cook ’em, and store them in the refridgerator. I can take them with me at any time during the day (along with some other healthy snacks) so I don’t have to drive-thru anywhere, or resort to another unhealthy option. To this end, we’ve learned the biggest lesson of all this week, which is to ALWAYS be prepared and plan ahead. Always keep things like nuts, protein bars, veggies, fruits, Fizz Tabs, and Detox Tea on hand. Always make your shakes ahead of time. This is the key to success.

Which brings us to our GREAT NEWS…our final weight loss numbers for the week!

Errol: Down 3.8 pounds

Wendye: Down 7.8 pounds

11.6 pounds TOTAL! We couldn’t be happier with those numbers.

Today signals the beginning of our seven-day detox, which will be a challenge, as it’s primarily liquids. Every day, you mix one of the detox packets with 32 oz of water. You need to sip slowly throughout the day along side an extra 32 oz of plain water. It tastes okay, but one trick is to add a fizz stick of your choice to give it a little flavor. As long as you sip this stuff slowly throughout the day, you won’t have to stay close to the bathroom (we know, a bit too much information, but true!).

We’ll be back next week to tell you how the Detox portion went. Although we’re a bit nervous about it, we’re also excited to rid our body of all of those toxins!

Until then…we’ll be growing well together! 🙂