*32* My Favorite Products

My Favorite Advocare Products

1. ThermoPlus
This is my go-to "all-in-one" product.  It helps to maintain my energy levels (along with Spark!), while burning fat, and helping me feel fuller longer.

2. Meal Replacement Shakes
I like both the vanilla and both chocolate flavors (I'll have to try Berry next).  I hate wasting time in the morning making breakfast.  I love that I can grab a pouch and my blender bottle with water and go.  They keep me full, and taste great!  Prior to using Advocare, I had tried other forms or protein/breakfast shakes and didn't find any that tasted good to me.
These also work great for when you are in meetings, running errands, traveling, and don't have time to sit down and eat, or limited availability of food choices.

3. Carb-Ease Plus
I'll be honest, I love my carbs.  Pasta, potatoes, you name it.  Since I started using Advocare, I've been much more mindful of what carbs we're eating and how often.  Our pantry is now stocked with whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, and sweet potatoes.  However, it's just not realistic for us to eat perfectly all of the time.  Carb-Ease helps when we're having a particularly carb-heavy meal, breaking down the carbs and fats, while boosting my metabolism.

4. Spark
Aside from the 24 Day Challenge bundle, Spark is Advocare's most popular product.  It's a safe, sugar-free drink that boosts energy without the crash and jitters commonly associated with energy drinks.  It provides a more consistent flow of energy throughout the day.  While I may not get an instant jolt of energy that I would expect, on days that I drink Spark, I notice that I'm not needing a nap come noon, and yawns are hard to come by.

Interested in trying out one or more of these products? Want to know more?
Message me, I'd love to tell you!

*31* I'm an Advocare Distributor!

After a year of using consistently using the Advocare products and loving the results, I decided to join the Advocare Team and become a distributor of their fantastic line of products!

You might be asking why, so let me tell you!

1. I truly love their products and what they do for people.  

I will forever be grateful for what they've done to help me achieve my fitness and weight goals as well as how the increased energy and overall just feeling good about myself.  That in and of itself makes it worth it.  

2. I want to help other achieve and feel the way I do about myself.  

I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to at least know about Advocare and make it a choice for themselves.  If you don't know about it, you can't choose it. I love seeing Advocare clients celebrating their successes, getting healthier, and feeling great about themselves too!

3. Getting to work with awesome people. 

A couple amazing friends of mine have been Advcoare distributors for over a year and rave all the time about the company they work for.  We work together as a team to help each other out with supporting clients,  supporting other distributors, answering questions, and being each other's cheerleaders.  My success is every much their success and there's mine.  I'm not fighting my coworkers to get the top, we're climbing together.  I also have the freedom to choose when, where, and how I work-it's completely flexible.  Plus, the extra income doesn't hurt either. ;)

Want to know more about the Advocare line of products?

I'd love to hear from you!  

Drop me a line on the "Contact me page" or visit me on my Advocare website. 

*30* Harder than I remembered

Here's a recap of the last 3 days. 

Starting weight: 120 lbs. 

I'm slightly embarrassed that I let myself get back to this point, but I guess on the bright side, I'm still much lighter than I was at this same time last year.  Considering that I'm only 4'11", this is pretty high for my stature.  Ideally, I'd like to be at 110lbs.  I think that's a reasonable amount of weight to want to lose.  Last year when I ended the challenge, I was down to 113lbs and was pretty happy with that, but I know that I can do better. 

I didn't do any measurements/pictures this time around because I didn't remember to do it before we started.  Oops!

Day 1

This time around, we decided to do the peaches and cream fiber drink instead of the citrus.  I was able to get the citrus one down without a problem last time, but it was still pretty rough with all of the grittiness.  The peaches and cream is much smoother and if you have a texture issue at all, I highly recommend you go with that.  

Breakfast: Fiber drink and egg scramble (8 egg whites, 2 yolks, red pepper, green onion, black pepper,  basil, oregano-baked in muffin tins at 350 until cooked through)

Snack: Baby carrots

Lunch: Salad with grape tomatoes and lite balsamic vinaigrette

Snack: Celery and All Natural Peanut Butter

Dinner: Marmalade curry chicken in the crockpot from the Advocare Cookbook, Green beans

Snack: Raw Almonds

Day 2

Breakfast: Fiber drink and an apple (I'll admit, I threw up about 1/2 of the fiber drink after downing it)

Lunch: Left over curry chicken

Snack: Raw Cashews

Dinner: Baked Tilapia with dill sauce, cauliflower "rice", steamed asparagus

Snack: Mocha meal replacement shake with a small scoop of peanut butter 

(I was craving something sweet and this satisfied that craving)

Day 3

Breakfast: Fiber Drink (yay-last time until day 7!) and egg scramble

Snack: Baby carrots and hummus

Lunch: Left over Tilapia and asparagus

Snack: Raw Almonds

Dinner: Cilantro Lime Chicken in the crockpot on whole wheat tortillas with fresh avocado and a little plain greek yogurt (in place of sour cream)

Snack: Raw Cashews

Thoughts

Overall, this cleanse seems SO much harder this time around than it did last year.  I keep reminding myself that it's only for 10 days and that I can do anything for 10 days.  It definitely makes me appreciate healthy snacks more than ever.  I'm getting bit tired of eating carrots and celery. What I would give to have a handful of lentil chips! We're really focused on keeping carbs out of our diet as much as possible.  We've been good though-no cheating!

Only 7 more days-we can do this!!

*29* Round 2

Almost exactly one year ago, Jake and I decided to try the Advocare 24 Day Challenge.  We saw some great results and were motivated by the changes we were seeing-not only on the scale, but also in our clothes.  

Unfortunately, with moving, the holidays, and I'll admit it-laziness, we've reverted and although we didn't slide all the way back to pre-advocate weight, we've definitely regressed.  I've gained back almost 1/2 of the weight I lost and I've got my little belly pooch back with it.  So, we decided to do Advocare again.  However, this time we're not doing the full challenge.  In an effort to spend a little less money, we are modifying the 24 Day Challenge. 

Staring Monday, we will be doing the 10 Day Herbal Cleanse.  What we will not be doing is the 14 day burn phase.  When we did it last year, I reacted badly to the supplements, so our plan is just to eat as though we're doing the burn.  In addition to ordering the cleanse, we also ordered a box of meal replacement shakes (I also had 1/2 of another box I ordered a few months ago), and a box of watermelon Spark.  We still have some Leptilean, Carb Ease+, and Omegaplex left over from mid-year orders, so we're good to go on that.  I've already got our fridge cleaned out of all of the bad stuff and stocked full with lots of fresh produce.  Our 10 day meal plan with snacks are all planned out as well.  

Our Advocare arrived today, and I'm so excited to get started Monday!

*28* Update

It's been about 2 1/2 months since we finished the 24 Day Challenge.  Since then, we've managed to maintain many of the clean eating habits we adopted during the challenge.  The biggest one is not buying frozen lunches.  I still try to make enough at dinner to supply lunches for us the next day.  If not, we'll have a sandwich using low sodium turkey, or cooked chicken breast.  The one thing that I have no kept up is high levels of protein in each meal.  Breakfast particularly.  I really miss the Meal Replacement Shakes, but they are way too expensive to continue drinking daily.  I did, however, order some protein powder through a Groupon, and am just waiting to receive it in the mail.   In cooking, I've continued to reduce salt and eliminate butter in my cooking.  Unfortunately, with the craziness of moving (please check out my sister blog, for more on that) our eating habits have not been so great.  This is changing Monday!

Fitness-wise, I have not been officially working out, but I have been working almost non stop on the new house, which is keeping me very active.  Aside from working on homework for grad school, I have hardly had a moment to sit down and relax since moving in 2 weeks ago.  Both Jake and I have managed to keep the weight off!  I did gain a little bit back about a month after we completed challenge, but I weighed myself last night and was back down to my post-challenge weight.  Woo Hoo!  Now I just need to work on toning :)

The challenge is a great reminder, that a one month quick fix is only going to last so long.  It's also about life-style change.  While we're not as strict as we were during the challenge, it's been important to continue implementing the changes we made.  Perhaps we could have done all of this without having to spend hundreds of dollars to eat healthier, but I truly believe that it was not only the financial motivation, but the products themselves that gave us a jump start on making this change. 

*27* Day 24!!!

LAST DAY

Today is the last day of the challenge.  I weighed myself this morning and I had to double take what the scale read because I honestly couldn't believe it.  I surpassed my short-term goal weight and was down 8lbs from the day we started.  Prior to Christmas, I had weighed myself and was 13lbs heavier than I am now. I am ecstatic about my results.  I will be getting my final measurements tonight when my husband gets home. 

Breakfast

We had a snow day, so I had time to make an actual breakfast today.  I made scrambled eggs (1 whole, 2 whites) with green onions, and had a whole wheat bread thins toast with a little bit of natural peanut butter. So good!

Mid Morning Snack

raw almonds and cashews

Lunch

Left over pork chop

Mid-Afternoon Snack

Carrots and garlic hummus

Dinner

Sweet potato lasagna from the Advocare cook book. 

Evening Snack

Ginger cookie and carrots

Water Intake

Much better today!

How I felt

Pretty good! I'm excited to be done with the challenge and have the awesome results that I did!

I will come back and do another post that summarizes our experience with Advocare and the 24 day challenge.   

*26* Day 23

REFUEL DAY

Breakfast

Vanilla MRS

Mid Morning Snack

raw almonds and cashews

Lunch

Left over chili from the night before.  So yummy!

Mid-Afternoon Snack

Carrots

Dinner

Sage and Apple pork chops with baked green beans

Evening Snack

nada. 

We went to see The Book of Mormon and didn't get home until pretty late.  

Water Intake

Terrible.  I only drank my MRS in the morning and one water bottle (25oz) worth during the day.  At dinner, I had another glass, and one more before bed. 

How I felt

So much better than the past 2 days.