Eat Clean Challenge started Monday!

THE RULES – Start Monday August 9 thru Monday August 16

1. EXERCISE five to six times per week, depending on your program. If you are not doing a Beachbody workout, you should do 2-3 cardio days and 2-3 weight training days per week.

2. EAT CLEAN every day. You get ONE cheat meal during the week challenge period. Not a cheat day – a cheat meal.
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3. No alcohol during the challenge period. No soda (diet or otherwise). No Crystal Light, Gatorade, KoolAid or other fake water additive.

4. Sign up to participate on Facebook. Post your daily progress. I don’t need to know everything you ate, but if you want to post that, the more info the better! Also let us know if you stuck to your exercise program and drank your water.

5. Take your measurements – this isn’t just about losing weight. You may not lose any weight, but chances are you will lose inches.

EATING CLEAN DEFINED

1. You eat 4 to 6 small meals per day – nothing within 3 hours of bedtime.

2. 8 glasses of water each day.

3. Eat at least 1250 calories. This challenge is about eating clean and being healthy, not about starving yourself.

4. Follow something close to a 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat. Your meals have to be balanced. Let me know if you need help coming up with a meal plan.

5. YOU EAT ONLY FROM THE TOP 2 TIERS of MICHI’S LADDER 6 DAYS A WEEK. To See Michi’s Ladder, click here: MICHIS-LADDER - ALMOND MILK, RICE MILK AND PROTEIN POWDER ARE OK TO HAVE IN THIS CHALLENGE.

If you are not a FREE Beachbody community member, go to
Free Beachbody Membership to join. I will also become your free coach.

MORE INFO:
Diets don’t work. Yes, they can help you lose weight, but when your diet is “over” you go back to the same eating habits that made you overweight to begin with. Then, since you’ve just lowered your metabolism by starving yourself, you body stores fat more easily and you gain MORE weight than you had before.

Eating CLEAN is a lifestyle, not a diet. You don’t go on and off it. It helps you raise your basal metabolic rate (your metabolism) which allows you to burn off more fat every day. I think this is the KEY to my 20 pound weight loss in the last 6 months. Yes, I’ve been exercising, but I’ve ALWAYS exercised. I think it’s the change in my diet to include almost exclusively complete proteins, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats that has made the biggest difference. I have STOPPED eating simple carbs (which cause a spike in insulin and negatively affect your metabolism), I eat small, frequent meals, lean protein (chicken, fish, egg whites, turkey, etc), complex carbs (whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetable) and healthy fats (mono- and poly-unsaturated fats). I also stopped drinking alcohol (except for special occasions or a night out with the girls).

Top 10 Foods to stay AWAY from (according to The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno). Doughnuts, marshmallows, sodas, bacon and processed meats, sugar-loaded cereals, fruit juice and fake fruit drinks, candy, French fries and twinkies. I always thought of fruit juice as healthy, but it’s not. You’ve taken a complex carbohydrate (an orange or an apple) and turned it into a simple carb (orange or apple juice) that will cause your insulin levels to jump through the roof because it’s ALL sugar and the fiber is gone (which is what makes fruit a complex carb to begin with!)

Top 12 Superfoods: Tomatoes, skinless turkey breast, wild salmon, broccoli, berries, beans and legumes, walnuts, spinach, bison, pumpkin, soy, oatmeal.

Another way I like to think about it is this: don’t just track you’re the food you eat, track the INGREDIENTS of the foods you eat.

For example, my old diet included:

Instant oatmeal: whole grain rolled oats (with oat bran), sugar, artificial flavors, salt, calcium carbonate (a source of calcium), soy lecithin, guar gum, caramel color, niacinamide, vitamin a palmitate, reduced iron, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid.

Lean Cuisine: tortilla crusted alaska pollock (alaska pollock, enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, modified cornstarch, tortilla chips (yellow whole corn, vegetable oil {corn, soybean, and/or sunflower oil}), sugar, yellow corn flour, potassium chloride, white corn flour, salt, spices, dextrose, egg white, tomato powder, natural flavor, whey, maltodextrin, yeast, onion powder, leavening (sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate), soy flour, garlic powder, torula yeast, citric acid, corn oil. prefried in cottonseed and/or canola oil), blanched enriched long grain parboiled rice (water, rice, iron, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid), skim milk, corn, tomatillos, red peppers, water, chile peppers, onions, 2% or less of reduced fat cheddar cheese (cultured part-skim milk, salt, enzymes, annatto color), buttermilk powder, dehydrated sour cream (sour cream (cultured cream, nonfat milk)), modified cornstarch, salt, soybean oil, garlic puree, cultured whey, cilantro, jalapeno puree (jalapeno peppers, salt, acetic acid and calcium chloride), bleached wheat flour, sugar, potassium chloride, lactic acid, spices, calcium lactate

Quaker granola bar: whole grain rolled oats, brown rice syrup, crisp rice (rice, sugar, salt, malted barley flour), sugar, dried sweetened cranberry pieces (sugar, cranberries), semisweet chocolate chunks (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, salt, vanilla), almonds, peanuts, honey, sunflower oil, inulin, whole grain rolled barley, whole grain rolled wheat, molasses, soybean oil, water, glycerin, salt, vanilla, soy lecithin.

TOTAL ingredients: more than 100!
And that is just breakfast, lunch and a snack. Sure, my calorie intake was FINE, but my NUTRITIONAL intake was CRAP.

An example of clean eating:
Breakfast: Organic steel cut oatmeal, Honey, Almond milk
Snack: Almonds and raisins
Lunch” chicken, spinach, tomatoes, oil and vingar
TOTAL ingredients: 10

See the difference???

MY TYPICAL MEAL PLAN
Breakfast
Shakeology – Chocolate – 1 serving
Beachbody Protein Powder, 1 scoop
Almond Milk - 4 oz
Coffee – 4 oz

Snack
Almonds, unroasted, 10
Raisins, 15

Lunch
Low carb whole wheat wrap
Chicken, breast, baked, 8 oz
Tomatoes, 1 medium
Spinach, raw, 2 cups

Snack
P90X Protein Bar – I’m going to have to give these up during the challenge
Apple

Dinner
Salmon, cooked, 6 oz,
Broccoli, 1 cup

Total
Calories 1,570
Fat 53g (30%)
Carbs 103.4g (25%)
Protein 177.3g (46%)