Day 1

Today was day one of the Advocare 24 Day Challenge and things are going well so far.  I got up an hour early this morning just to take all of my measurements and to make sure I drank my spark & fiber drink early enough before breakfast.  I went to bed really late last night but I was eager to get up and to start the challenge because I'm excited about what it can potentially do for me.  There are several steps involved in the challenge but they were easily met with the handy dandy worksheet that Matt had printed off for me and aside from taking the Herbal Cleanse tablets before bed, I'm done for the day. 

I didn't notice the Spark giving me any extra boost this morning but I think it did help me to overcome my afternoon hump, when I normally get tired around 2 or 3 PM.  It is now 6 PM and I suddenly feel really tired and if I could go to bed right now, I'd probably sleep for around 8 hours.  I don't know if it would be possible to adjust the Spark intake from morning and afternoon to drinking it in the afternoon and early evening.  I don't think it would keep me awake all night if I did.

I was worried that when I started the cleanse phase that I would have some unpleasant "side effects" from the fiber drink but there were no colon explosions to speak of.  The challenge calls for you to consume a lot of water and I mean A LOT of water so I think I set the world record on how many times one person can go pee in a day. 

The only cravings that I really had today was for something warm to drink earlier in the day.  When I get cold or my hands get cold, I like to have a warm mug of coffee or hot tea to hold on to.  I sent Matt a text to see if I could drink tea while doing the cleanse and he said that herbal tea would be OK but I never did make anything.  I did OK with my food choices today, too.  I had scrambled eggs with a little bit of ham & spinach for breakfast, an apple for snack, a salad for lunch, and cashews & grapes for my afternoon snack.

I noticed that I still felt hungry after my salad today but I didn't eat anything else.  I ate lunch at 11:30 and had my snack around 2 PM and I still felt hungry after my snack, too.  This prompted an early dinner at 5 PM.  I fixed the boys a chicken quesadilla for dinner and I also had the chicken but I had it on a salad, instead of in a tortilla.  I tracked everything I ate, including the Advocare products that I consumed, on myfitnesspal and I'm at around 1511 calories for the day.  That leaves me a few more calories for an evening snack if I get hungry again before bed.

I did an hour of Zumba this morning, so that covers my physical activity for the day.  I got to lead one of the songs this morning because I wanted to do the Time Warp.  Rachelle didn't have time to learn the routine so she said that if I wanted to learn it, I could teach it.  So I did!  I was so freaking nervous but I did it.  I think I'd like to get certified in Zumba once I loose enough weight.  It's a lot of fun!

I'm going to post my beginning stats in the sidebar to the right of this blog so that it's visible for the duration of the challenge.  It was kind of hard to take my own measurements, so I hope that they are fairly accurate.  I'm not sure if I should continue my habit of weighing myself once a week or if I should hold off on that until I'm done with the challenge.  By starting today, it puts my final day on October 31st.  Just in time for all that Halloween candy! Ha!

And here are my before shots:

Rachelle told me that I should've take my before picture in a sports bra and shorts in order to have a better visual but I'm not going to post that on the internet!!!