Detoxing - I survived!!!!!

FITNESS COMPETITION:

Saturday morning I went in for my assessment at like 6:20am because I was so excited to see how I had done. When I started the competition I weighted 143.41 pounds, my body fat was at 22.9%,fat mass 32.81 and my BMI was 23.1. On Saturday I was down to 133.0 pounds, body fat 21.0%, fat mass 28.01 and BMI at 21.5!!!!! I had also lost 11 inches between my chest, waist, thighs and butt! What What!!!

Not only were my numbers improved but I killed my assessment test as well. The first assessment I did at the beginning of the competition I was able to do:
42 squats in 1 minute
11 pushups on my toes/18on my knees in 1 minute
33 sit ups in 1 minute
Held a plank for 3:02

This past Saturday I did:
52 squats in 1 minute
42 pushups all on my toes in 1 minute
44 sit ups in 1 minute
Held a plank for 5:12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not one to toot my own horn but, freaking TOOT TOOT! I am terrible about following through with things and I really found the competitive streak in myself. We still don't know who has won or placed in the competition yet and I really really hope I do but if not, I am still oh so proud of myself. 

Left: The beginning of the competition and a true "before pic" Please ignore the disgusting post workout hair and my overall chub! Right: At the end of the detox before the weigh in!

DETOX EXPERIENCE

First off I would like to give myself a HUGE pat on the back. I, Brenda Pluid, actually followed through doing a smoothie detox last Wednesday - Friday. My main goal was to stick with it because on Saturday was my final weigh-in for the fitness challenge at my gym and boy oh boy I wanted to win!!!  A lot of people have asked what I did & how it went so I thought I would tell you all about my experience and I will share the smoothie recipes with you and my tips to make them tolerable! =)

I will be honest. I am not a huge smoothie fan. Josh kind of soured me on them by adding pure grosness to one smoothie with kale, ginger, cucumber (yuuuuck), celery and then like one piece of fruit. It was practically vomit in a drink in my opinion. He drinks that like every morning and the smell alone makes me gag, seriously. So I was super apprehensive to the fact that I would be living off liquid for three whole days. I freaking love food. Like more than a person should so I knew this would be difficult for me.

So day one I woke up at 5:30, cut up a small gala apple and ate it on my way to the gym for  my 6:00 class. I was told to always always eat something small before you work out early morning. It helps kick start your metabolism and wakes your body up. Hell, if anything kicks my metabolism to start moving faster and earlier I'll do it! When I get home from the gym I immediately make myself a protein shake. We order this awesome protein from All Pro Science. It is a company from a guy who is an ex-Chiefs football player (I believe...) and they offer either a complete grass fed whey protein or they also have a vegan protein. We personally love the chocolate and the strawberry. I mix it in our shaker with about 8oz of water and chug it down. You can absolutely add the protein to your morning smoothie but I take a while to drink mine and its best to get your protein in within 45 minutes of your workout.

^^These are the recipes I used for my detox. I repeated the same ones for the three days.

Then around 8:00 I made my breakfast smoothie. Gulped it down as quickly as I could and it really wasn't super gross. There is barely any veg in this one so its kinda tasty. To my surprise it kept me full for quite some time. If I were to get hungry before the lunch smoothie I either snacked on raw carrots or celery. I have really developed a liking for plain carrots, plus their packed with water so they keep you full for a while as well.

I would make my lunch smoothie while I fed the kids their lunch around 12:00. This one is the largest smoothie of the day and packed with the most vegetables...therefore its not so delicious. The first day I did it I literally gagged on the last drink and it took everything in me to keep it down. But by god I was NOT going to throw up everything I managed to get down!!!!! However a friend of mine gave me this amazing stuff called Sweet Leaf Liquid Stevia that was Vanilla Creme flavored. Its super sweet, natural, and 0 calories. I literally think I put like 10 drops of it on my day 2 lunch smoothie and it was SO MUCH BETTER. If you cannot find this particular stuff (you can get it at Whole Foods) I would add regular Stevia and then maybe some drops of pure vanilla extract. Trust me, it needs it!

Typically in the afternoon is when I crave sweets. Therefore, I would snack on grapes, which surprisingly satisfied my sweet tooth and again, they are very water based so they tied me over until dinner. I would make my dinner smoothie around 6:00 and this one I was scared of because it required cayenne pepper and I do not do anything spicy, I am a weenie with spicy foods. I don't think I put in as much as it required but this smoothie was actually kind of tasty!

I made it through day one with no cheating, I had energy all day, I never got crazy hungry or bitchy (like I expected to happen) and the next morning when I woke up I felt fantastic. I was up and awake with energy to go to the gym, I was CRAZY proud of myself for actually following through an entire day of smoothie drinking and I had dropped like 2 pounds (water weight I am sure.) The next two days were pretty much the same. I worked out every morning with full energy, drank my smoothies during the day, snacked on raw veggies or grapes if I was hungry in between meals and I survived the three day detox and had dropped about 4.5 pounds doing it!!!! I highly recommend anyone to test this out, I will warn you though the groceries are kind of expensive for just 3 days. I spent about $52 at HyVee and that was for most of the items. I already had flaxseed, almond butter and some of the produce in my fridge. The cost of the items alone was a motivator for me because I am all about not waisting foods! If anyone has any questions about doing this detox I would be more than happy to answer them. I really had a great experience doing it and felt amazing afterwords! Good luck & Happy Monday everyone! =)