Day 1 - why am I doing this?

Today is the day. My challenge begins. And with it, I say goodbye to cheese, wine, carbs and pretty much all things super delicious for 24 days. Why, you ask, would someone do such a stupid thing? Well, my sweet and trustworthy friend Katherine Caputo told me about this challenge and talked about how life changing it was - and I believed her. You see, although I worked out fairly regularly and had even run two half marathons within the last year, I had gotten into some pretty bad food habits. This, I assumed, was why the scale barely moved even after my half marathon training  So here was the deal - coffee was pretty much streaming through my veins all day long, which was causing me these super fun roller coaster highs and crashing lows. In addition, I would have these panicked moments of hunger, accompanied by shakes and nausea; most likely the result of large amounts of caffeine and my blood sugar dropping  Although my diet wasn't horrible, it wasn't perfect either. Cheese was my 'go to' food when these hunger pains would strike or at night after the kids went to bed. Of course it went nicely with my large glass of wine that was my 'I made it through another day of managing chaos' reward. Most times, one glass turned into two and a small slice of cheese turned into half a brick. I'd wake up feeling tired, dehydrated and would resume my IV of coffee. I knew this wasn't a healthy way to go about my life, but I had a solution. I would exercise my butt off and then I would not have to worry about what I put in my body, right? I could overindulge here and there and not have to feel guilty and that damn number on the scale would have to move! So I amped up my workout routine. I did a 30 for 30 challenge. I worked out every day for 30 days for at least 30 minutes a day. Jillian Michaels and I became close friends and I could recite every thing she was going to say on her workout DVD before she said it. I noticed some muscle toning, but the scale barely moved and I still had those fun crashes during the day. What the heck!? Was I going to have to workout all day long to see that number change and to lose that muffin top that taunted me every time I put on a pair of jeans?! After bitching and moaning about this phenomena to my dear husband (who can lose 5 pounds just thinking of dieting), he finally said to me, "it is what you are putting in your body!" I wanted to scream - or cry. It wasn't like I was eating McDonalds every day - was I going to have to starve myself?!? But what he meant was feeding my body solid nutrition and vitamins - fueling it properly. He, being a very serious athlete and marathon runner, had done more reading about what fuels your body than any other person I knew. But when he would talk to me about it, my eyes would gloss over (sorry, babe). It was all too much. What he put in his body wasn't right for me and I just didn't have the time to figure it out - not when my 2 year old son was falling down in a mall and needing 6 stitches or when my daughter emotionally melted down for the thousandth time during the day. And then God had little Miss Katherine Caputo walk into my life and say, "here is your answer!" She told me about Advocare, described the plan, and I knew I had to give it a try. I did my research, Tom did his, and we agreed that this company and product was top notch and if I was going to do it - this was the product to use. So long story short, here I am on day one! I am going to use this blog to write about the challenges (it isn't called a challenge for nothing) as well as my successes. I hope by day 24 I feel energized, happy, have a clear mind and soul and look better than ever. And if that scale finally moves - that would be great too!