Sarah’s Blog

We do have a date. December 20th 2007 at 16:30 www.trainwithsarah.com will officially become Mrs. www.atozfitness.com  

In the mean time, we had one restaurant dinner with friends to celebrate the engagement last Saturday plus a family dinner in the same honor on Sunday night (desert only on one night); and we’re having another restaurant visit with 4 other friends this coming Saturday (as in tomorrow).

This is the reason for today’s post, because honestly, there’s something wrong.

I wonder how restaurants make their food. Even choosing the whole wheat pasta, grilled chicken breast and a salad (I took the Italian, not the caesar!) , my weight was still up 2 lbs the next day! And yes, I did portion it by the EODD method, bringing the rest home for the dogs! That was with no wine, no coffee, no desert. Three large glasses of water. And it was a good, family owned and driven Italian restaurant, not your run-of-the-mill fast food joint!

Main question then becomes : Is it worth the short-lived treat of going out to go out?! I’m seriously beginning to doubt it.

You pay at least twice the price you would by getting the ingredients from the store.
You have no control over the "auxilliary" ingredients.
You have a more or less restless night depending on additives, with stomach cramps and gaz.
The next day you wake up with a swollen tongue and a mouth that feels like you just swallowed a desert (one s).
And when you get on the scales, even your modest meal has ruined several days of effort.
Result, you spend the next 4 days repairing the damage.

On the plus side, there are no dishes to clear.

Is it worth it?! I’d rather steam some vegetables at home, make a roast (the rest can be cut up and eaten cold the rest of the week), start with a salad where I know the ingredients in the dressing, and a desert I have not added sugar to!

Of course, with EODD, I am today at a lower weight than I was on Saturday morning before going to the restaurant, but without that visit and expense, I would have been lower still! That’s what’s so darned infuriating! So tomorrow, restaurant yes, but from then till the 20th, no more! And after that, none either for a good while unless there’s a New Year’s "thing", and the first 2008 restaurant visit will be the weekend before or after my birthday, early February.

Personally, I’ve had it with restaurants, until they get some regulation that make them list the hidden ingredients in their dishes, they can largely forget me.

Have a nice weekend 

Me again  

Why am I posting yet again? Simply because I thought it might interest you to know that I have dropped further amounts of bodyfat this week, and it’s only Thursday morning.

Thanks to the Every Other Day Diet eoddiet.atozfitness.com by Jon Benson and Janice Hauser.

I did mention a coouple of weeks ago, that I was opting for the Lifestyle Plan of EODD. Two burn-days, one feed-day, repeat and add a detox day on day 7.  What I found last Wednesday and again yesterday, was that the feed-day plan with no snack actually left me hungrier than the burn days!

Well, burn days are breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, salad. OK, I prefer the snack in the morning rather than in the afternoon, but that’s not a problem. I can switch that around as I want. The reason I do that, is that I train in the morning and need food afterwards. Jon I believe trains later in the day so it made sense to have the snack in the afternoon. The good thing is, that the program is flexible enough to fit your training schedule!

However, on burn days, that snack is gone! You get to eat more for dinner, salad, more "free" food. And another salad afterwards. That’s ok, but since there is no snack in the morning (and I still train in the morning), by dinner time I am ravenous! But at the same time, salad + more food than the other meals and yet another salad … too much volume of food at one time.

Therefore, next week, I shall have my mid-morning snack anyway and skip the pre-dinner salad. In other words, just move it up in time during the day. I’ll get as much food and the same type of food, but spaced out differently to suit me.

Bottom line is: it’s not the calories per meal you need to worry the most about, but the total calories per day.

Today, tomorrow, and most of Saturday to eat really clean and burn more fat. And Saturday night at the restaurant?

I’ve decided on escargots for the entree, supreme of chicken with no starches for my main course, and … the decadence of the week: a creme brulee (or a creme caramel) for desert.

And of course, detox day Sunday with fruit and salads to make sure that the splurge does not counterbalance the week’s efforts.

In other words, there is nothing in the EODD that keeps you from living a normal life with the occasional restaurant visit.

I still wonder about those though, becaise even if we choose lean meats, whole wheat pasta, salads with just a regular vinaigrette (no creamy stuff or cheese) and no desert, our weight is still way up the next few days! What is it in restaurant foods? What ingredients do they use that we don’t know about? Chinese restaurants we know, it’s MSG! Pure poison and I can’t believe it’s still allowed even! But the others? With the above menu choice, there is no obvious reason for a weight gain of 2-4 pounds, yet that is exactly what happened last weekend. Even with half the meal brought back in a doggie-bag!

We’ll see this week, but if it happens again, I’d rather spend the same sum of money and make a gourmet dinner at home (even if I also have to clean up after it) knowing exactly what goes into it, making healthy portions and using only clean and natural ingerdients. Actually, it won’t cost half of what the restaurant meal costs anyway!

The snow we had last week is having a hard time resisting! It’s been raining a little, melting some of it; and now the temperatures are attacking it with above-freezing temperatures. That’s fine as far as the roads go, makes it so much easier to walk and drive, but I like the added light we get from the bright white reverberations! And Christmas should be white. Last year, it wasn’t. The early snow went away and only returned on December 26th 

Still, there’s nothing I, or any other mortal, can do about it. It stays or goes as Mother Nature wishes. All I can do, is make sure I give my body what it needs! Such as …

Proper training.  You know I’d decided to use the program in Optimum Anabolics by Jeff "The Muscle Nerd" Anderson. It’s a great program. For one thing, it has progression built in whether you want it or not. Then there’s the change of pace, both going faster and slower. And variation of exercises, but you get to chose the ones you want, from a set table of course! Alternating 3 weeks at a time with differences makes it a fun program, because your brain is kept on it’s toes as well as your muscles! Check it out for yourself by visiting    http://optimumanabolics.atozfitness.com 

Proper nutrition.  Now this part, is often a headache for many people. Us included, and we should know what to do, right? Well now we do, without even having to think. You know, from my previous posts, that we are using the Every Other Day Diet written by Jon Benson and Janice Hauser. There is no one simpler diet to follow out there! And when they, and I, say diet, it’s not in the restricted sense used in the media every spring. This is the word diet put back in it’s rightful place: a way of eating. A lifestyle nutrition plan, for life. And yes, you can still go out with friends and enjoy the meal! We wouldn’t want it any other way, neither would Janice and Jon. And neither do you! So in order to master this super-simple way of healthy nutrition in time for the biggest "pig-out-holidays" of the year, just click here eoddiet.atozfitness.com and follow the instructions.

Tracking the results.  This is actually very important! If you don’t know where you’re going (GOALS) how do you know which direction to take to get there? And once you’ve started on your journey, without feedback, how do you know you’re on track? To use the plane and auto-pilot system as an example, the auto-pilot is constantly readjusting the trajectory of the plane based on the feedback data it gets on the exact location at any given time. You need that feedback too.

I’ve browsed around the Internet, tried free programs, paying programs, being less than convinced by any of them, until this one http://dietsoftware.atozfitness.com  The programmer contacted us before he was through making the whole program (in fact, there will be updates as he also wants to add an exercise list to it, but anyone getting it now will be informed of future updates and receive instructions on how to get them). I have been e-mailing back and forth with him on the things to correct or add or change, and have now been using the program for 3 weeks, daily plotting weight and nutrition and exercise load into it. It is easy to use, easy to find the foods, and the weightloss graph is priceless!

So there you are, three simple steps towards your dream body. However, you also have to remember to set clear and precise goals, with a deadline and using the present tense and a positive note. Example:  "I am extatic to have 15% bodyfat today, July 1st 2008"  ~  or whatever your goal and deadline date is     What is your excuse for not starting right now?

"Christmas is coming soon".  Sure, 4 weeks from now. You have time to get quite a bit of bodyfat off before then, especially if you opt for the EODD 7-Day Detox as of … well, the time you need to download and read, Saturday? You don’t need to start the Optimum Anabolics training program right away, the detox should be with little to no exercise anyway. That leaves you an entire week to read and understand that program! And between reading both books, you have time to plot your Diet and Exercise Diary with your goal weight and daily progression, seeing that red line of actual weightloss drop faster then the blue line of the goal-loss which is linear and doesn’t take a detox into account, is exhillerating!

Those 3 links again, all in one place:

http://optimumanabolics.atozfitness.com 

http://eoddiet.atozfitness.com 

http://dietsoftware.atozfitness.com 

This is probably the best Christmas present you can give yourself! Would I suggest this to you if I wasn’t 100% convinced myself? No.

Yes, the Optimum Anabolics program looks tough at first glance. You may think that you’re too much of a beginner to be able to do it. In fact no. All you need to do is start it at your present level of fitness and strength. If it calls for 12 reps and you can only do 10 with the lowest weight you have available, don’t worry about it. Within the first three weeks you will get the 12 reps easily!

And you’re tired of counting calories and masuring and weighing your foods?  Then you need the Every Other Day Diet. No more weighing, measuring, counting, yet you know exactly how much to eat of everything! And I do mean everything, including deserts!

Who likes to make graphs manually? Or remembers to keep them up to date? The software does it for you! All you have to do is tell it your goal, and put your weight in on a daily basis, and the graph appears "magically"!

Best wishes for the Preparation Season

I am seriously beginning to wonder if these "treats" are worth it. The experts say to have a treat once a week, to keep sane and not crave something so badly that you end up bingeing on junk. In a way, ot makes sense, especially if you are just starting on a lean and healthy nutrition plan. However, I find that I get more irritated at the negative impact of these treats on my overall health and results than finding pleasure in eating these things.

Take this past weekend. I didn’t have anything outside of the plan for 13 days, so a plate of whole wheat pasta with clams after starting the meal with a green salad should have been fine. No wine, no desert, no coffee; and only half the portion of pasta as it was way too much as always in restaurants. Nothing "bad" right? Yet my weight was up the next morning.

Sunday I made sure to eat fruit and salads throughout the day to eliminate the restaurant pasta, and the supper afterwards was completely healthy and home cooked. Ending with a piece of sugar-free dark chocolate with nuts, and a sliver of lemon meringue pie. The apple crumble pie I felt sick just looking at, it was dripping in super-sweet, liquid caramel! Yuck 

Total "wreckage" this morning … not a whole lot, but still one pound up on the scales. The worst though, is the dry mouth from dehydration caused by non-clean foods, the sluggishness in the entire body, the little dull aches here and there, the sleepy feeling, the obvious discmfort of the entire digestive system …

Meaning?

Meaning that the next time somone even hints at a sweet desert, I will flatly refuse. It’s that simple. If one little sliver can do that much harm after 13 days, what will a larger piece do after 4 weeks? I’ll be ready to be admitted to a hospital where I will be made even sicker!

So why isn’t this reaction noticeable to most people who indulge in a piece of this or that almost daily or at least bi-weekly? It is, the thing is that these people are so used to having this sluggish feeling and the dry mouth, they don’t put it in relation with the sweet or junk foods anymore. They are not in tune with their bodies, probably haven’t been for years.

But anyone who has gone on a clean nutrition plan (not to call it diet, because that word is associated with fads and not-so-healthy alternatives) will have noticed an accrued accuity to their bodies’ signals and cries for help after ingesting what they previously thought of as food.

The EODD plans  eoddiet.atozfitness.com  take care of it by giving you clear guidelines (no strict orders to eat this or eat that, just guidelines) to clean eating and a healthy body.  After a while, especially if you opt for the 7-Day Detox Plan to start out, you will find that the sweets everyone almost fights for at the end of dinner, leave you totally indifferent.

Of course, you will get a lot of comments when you refuse desert ("Are you ok?" or "Are you feeling ill?" or "Oh, you don’t like this? Can I get you some ice cream instead?" etc) and you will have to steel yourself against the onslaught of (frankly) stupid comments like this.

These comments you also get when refusing a drink. Why would you want to poison your body with alcohol? Even one glass? Oh yeah, "red wine is good for you", I forgot! Meaning that someone who doesn’t drink should force themselves to having a glass a day because of the antioxydants in the red wine? Silly. Yes, there are good things in red wines, but … in the really good red wines, the ones most of us can’t afford to drink on a dayly basis anyway. The lighter table wines have minimal amounts of anything good for you. Want antioxydants? Pick some blueberries from the frozen or fresh fruit section at the supermarket! Or green tea. Or anything else without alcohol!

Because … it’s strange. You want to stop smoking? everyone will support you, cheer you on. You want to get over your alcoholism? Again, your family is right there to help and support you. But if you want to live a healthy lifestyle and give up deserts, fatty foods, processed foods etc, all of a sudden all you get is critisism and people working against you! And that includes the fact that you ask for a glass of water when offered a drink.

Why is that? Mainly I think, because most people would give up cigarettes, or are already non-smokers. It’s not something threatening that you want to quit. Same goes for the alcoholic, their families are only too happy to help them out of the destructive spiral, and most people are not alcoholics after all, so again, no threat to them at all that you want to quit.

But the healthy foods and the daily weight training? Now there’s a threat! Most people, 90% at a personal estimate, don’t want to give up the ease of processed, frozen stuff thrown into the microwave oven for 5 minutes and gobbled down in front of the TV, where they stay for the rest of the evening! And here you are, wanting fresh foods, cooked from scratch, controlling that there’s no MSG or other chemicals in it; you train regularly, you even lose weight (or at least size, if you add muscle as you burn fat, the actual weight may be close to the same but they can’t see that, only your size getting smaller). You threaten their existance!

You are showing them that they are in fact, wrong. That the excuses they keep making (genetics, obesity gene, obesity virus, obesity being contagious, big bones …) are all a big lie, a self deception! Because here you are, family member and friend, changing your lifestyle and overcoming the excuses! In other words, these excuses are shown for what they are: lazyness in disguise.

No wonder they are not supportive. No wonder they do all they can to ridicule you and stuff your face with junk you no longer want.

It’s up to you to stand strong and resist them. Show them by your own example that it can be done. That once your body is back in shape, that maintaining it isn’t all that hard. In fact, that the whole transformation process is fun! True, they’ll say all you can talk about is health and calories and training. Retort with "all you guys talk about is disease and pains! I don’t have those anymore!"

Be strong. You owe it to yourself. And if you are the religious type: you owe it to your Maker who gave you a healthy body at birth.

New week. New start. Be strong and make it a great week! Check out eoddiet.atozfitness.com even, Jon Benson and Janice Hauser really provide us with a terrific tool to get our eating under control here, no hassles, no pills, no powders, just food!

Good news 

Our weight is still on that nice downward slope! 0.4 lbs burned for me since yesterday on the Lifestyle Plan, 0,8 lbs shed for Lewis who is still on the Detox Plan for a few more days.

For those who haven’t read the earlier posts on the subject, we are following the principles from the Every Other Day Diet e-book, co-authored by Jon Benson and Janice Hauser. You can read more about it here and have a close look at the picture, it changes between the before and after pictures of the authors. eoddiet.atozfitness.com Jon and Janice were not always as lean and fabulous-looking as they are now. They have been fat, even obese, and have changed their lifestyles so that they now look better than most stars on the billboards (who think they are just sooo delicious by the way,  yuck)

Jan has a child, she was big (ok, closer to huge, sorry Jan). She is now a fitness professional! With a young child. How many of you new moms out there say you don’t have time now that you have a baby? You still have 24 hours, like everyone else! It’s just a question of being organized and getting the priorities straight. A little dust or mess can wait, your body cannot!  And yes, I have had babies too, one was a good sleeper, the other was not. I still did not let myself get fat or obese or looking like I just got out of bed all day long over it.

Women, new moms, need to remember that they are a person in their own right first and foremost, then a wife keeping her husband happy (he’s got to remember that too, the other way around) and then a mom! We cannot live our lives through our kids. They have their own lives to live, it’s not necessarily what the parents didn’t get to do that the kids will enjoy! We are here to raise them, to guide them, to love them, not to live their lives!

Our first duty is to our health. WIthout good health and a fit body, we canot hope to be around to help our kids, to love our spouse, to live a rgeat life in health and happyness.

So do yourself the favor of taking care of you right now. Grab a copy of the EODD right here and now eoddiet.atozfitness.com and get a Detox done between now and Christmas. The drop in fat and overall weight will help you with the Holiday eating as well   who will want to put back on what they just so deliciously saw melting off?

Have a great weekend!

Today’s update

My graph is totally back on track I am back to Monday morning’s results this morning, with the period being over and gone for this month. From here on in, the red line will just go downwards (well, for 28 days at least!).

The EODD is so easy to follow, it’s almost ridiculous! Like Lewis said this morning, "I love food, so if I can do this, anyone can!" Well, technically, he doesn’t "love" food, he enjoys it, but never mind that for right now. We all say we "love" all sorts of stuff, when we really only love people close to us, ourselves and our pets

The point is though, for someone who really enjoys his food and could put away an 18oz steak by himself, if he can follow this Detox Plan and subsequent Lifestyle Plan, anyone can. We now buy a 6-8 oz steak and split it between us! He’s had a glass of wine with dinner every night, now he’s down to one glass on Saturday night only. Coffee used to be 5-6 cups a day, now only 2-3.

I’m more of a vegetable eater anyway, having followed the Natural Hygiene movement for years, so I can’t really commend myself all that highly for following the Detox Plan. For me, it was dead easy, a total no-brainer. However, following the Lifestyle Plan takes more organizing and understanding, because it’s not for just the one week, it’s not for 12 weeks, it’s a new lifestyle – as in forever! It’s not hard to do though. I’m already well into it after just 4 days.

All it really takes is to read the book carefully once, then re-read the nutritional plan chapter again, and make your decision as to which plan you want to follow. Then you study that plan one more time, print out the few pages you need, and presto: you’re in business! The business of getting to the real, lean and healthy you!

Step one eoddiet.atozfitness.com and then just keep going! You also noticed the mention of this graph … you can see more on this great weightloss software we use here! It’s, frankly, the best I’ve seen so far.

There are loads of these diet and exercise softwares out there, FitDay being one of them and very popular at that. I tried it. I left it. As I left so mahy others these past 2 years. They are either incomplete, complicated, or listing way too many foods that health minded people do not consume! Under "chicken" they will have pages and pages of ready made meals made with chicken, and you really have to search up and down several times to even locate "breast, skinless, boneless, raw" so you can accomodate it yourself!

When we were contacted by the programmer for this new system, I was more than sceptical. He understood that, and welcomed it! Telling me he needed me to be sceptical and to give him all the feedback I could so that he could make it better and more fitness friendly.

After a month of working together, he’s still not satified 100% and has an update in the making, with exercise descriptions etc, but in order to let you all get a chance to check it out as it is now, here’s how. You simply click here!

I’m no computer wiz, far from it! If I can figure this one out and actively use it on a day-to-day basis, anyone can! Combine this with the EODD and you have an easy way to see where you’re going and that way is down as far as bodyfat (which shows as total weight of course).

Have a great weekend everyone

PS, by everyone, I do not include spammers!

As predicted, the “period effect” is wearing off. This morning the scales were dipping the right way again, down. Not that they had tipped up a whole lot, but it was still a graph-line I didn’t like. Now I do.

Today is going to be a workout day. For one thing, I do have my weight training, nothing new there, but today …

Snow. Heavy, wet snow. It has to go, from the stairs, from the deck, from the passage at the side of the house to the fuel-tank filling tube (or whatever, does it have a name?) Oh of course there’s not enough of the white stuff to make passing impossible, the thing is, by clearing it as it falls everything stays so much easier to keep clear. And who knows if there’s not going to be a 20, 30, 50 cm snowfall in one day or overnight? If I leave 10 today, 5 tomorrow, and get 50 on top of that … no thanks!

So, out doors work today. But I look at it this way: clearing snow is pushing, lifting, throwing, all weight related full body work. It is intense and aerobic. And it’s outside in the fresh air. Perfect workout

The driveway/parking is supposed to be cleared by a company with a truck, but I guess they don’t think there’s enough on the ground to come yet. Looks like I may have to clear at least tire-tracks for the car tonight if this keeps up.

Right, the EODD was the subject for today. Lewis is steadily dropping 2 lbs/day on the Detox, and it shows. Like he said this morning, it makes it worth the effort! This is his 3rd day, the last of the toughest. From here on it gets easier.

I opted for the Lifestyle Plan, and I’m sticking to it. Well, this week has actually ben a mix of Lifestyle and late Detox days, because I’m just making a large salad for each of us for dinner, except mine has protein and his doesn’t yet. Once he’s through with the Detox, it’ll be easier to plan our meals.

Actually, we’ll be having dinner as soon as he gets home from work! Early compared to now. And then, two hours before bed time, around 7 PM,  we’re having a salad.  Gives us something to snack on without reaching for the more sugary fruits or worse: junk!

Lifestyle Plan. It’s well named. Not only does it fit into most other people’s lifestyles so that you still have a social life; it especially gives you a good, healthy lifestyle for yourself. And you don’t even have to think about it! It’s all there, written in the pages of the Every Other Day Diet e-book.  eoddiet.atozfitness.com 

I know that once I’ve followed this plan for a couple of weeks, I’ll be able to not even look at the meal-chart on the fridge door anymore. I’ll leave it there, as a reminder and goal-card of sorts, but it’ll become totally natural. It’s that easy to follow. After just 3 days, I know this is the easiest meal plan I have ever used!

Of course, if you prefer the starting phase, the beginners plan, there is no reason not to follow that. In fact, when it comes to this time of the year, you knwo … Holiday Season … the Base Plan is probably the best for many people. It allows a freee meal every other day. I don’t want that, nor do I need it, but I’ve been eating clean and by bodybuilding nutritional principals for years, so I have no trouble sticking to the master plan as long as I am focused on my end goals.

However, I have already heard many people say “I’ll just put my diet on hold till January” totally on hold. Or “I’ll just exercise more to make up for it” sorry guys, with the amount of calories, the mixture of fat and sugar, topped with alcohol … if you want to “exercise to make up for it” you won’t even have time to sleep!

Rather than “pigging out” and making up for it later, why not just slow down a bit? Those traditional tastes, sure they’re good, but they come around next year too! Have less, have a portion! You know what your portion of foods looks like. You do not need seconds or thirds of larger-than-normal portions just because it’s “the holidays”.

Think about it, does indigestion, heart burn, sleepless nights on the toilet, cramps … does that sound nice to you? Not to me it doesn’t, and I know that that is the inevitable outcome of the Holiday Season Pigging Out Contests! Think about it!

My sister-in-law is a doctor, general practitioner. Being in France and having her own practice, she is often on call, even over the Holidays. And that’s when she gets the most calls too, from people certain they are dying of heart attacks or “something”. In fact, when she gets to their house, it turns out to be … over consumption of  fats, chocolates, alcohol! The liver is in total crisis. The pulse is racing. The chest tightens. Panic seets in. She’s getting her celebrations interrupted. For what? Lack of common sense and self discipline. Stupidity in fact. Everyone knows not to have too much of all this, yet in the midst of family, friends, a cosy fire, food is there … you relax, you nibble, you linger at the table, you eat more…. STOP. THINK. And DON’T DO IT!

You are going to have that body you’re abusing for the rest of your life! Why cater to a few taste buds in the mouth alone? What about the rest of you? What about the parts of you that are keeping you alive? What about that flat stomach you want to show off at the beach next summer? (no, one month of daily sit-ups before the vacation won’t help). THINK and don’t fall into the Holiday Traps this year.

Now I have started on the Lifestyle Plan from the EODD e-book. I had originally thought of following the Extreme Plan, getting as tough as possible with myself so that I would burn as much fat as possible before Christmas, but then there’s life.

You see, the Lifestyle Plan works over 7 days. A week. The Extreme plan works over 2×4 days, which is 8. Not a week. Meaning that the treat days, the off days, the feed days, whatever you want to call them, will not necessarily fall on a day that you traditionally get together with friends and family!

Therefore, I am opting for the Lifestyle Plan, at least for now. I’ll see, maybe – quite possibly in fact – I will switch to the Extreme Plan as spring approaches. It will depend on … bodyfat percentage !

Lifestyle Plan. It’s easy. Simple as anything to follow. I printed out the page with the meal-plans and hung it on the fridge. That way I see right away if it’s a Burn Day or a Feed Day, and what/ how much of what to eat at any given meal. Not the ingredients mind you, just the food group!

Like for example one meal will say “protein + vegetables”  another may say “protein + starches, vegetables optional” or it has all three. It depends on the time of day, but I don’t have to remember, wonder, think, err … it’s all planned out and all I need to do, is follow the main plan.

And, this morning Lewis left for work with three containers of fresh fruit salads, one of vegetable salad and dressing, and two bottles of water with the juice of a pressed lemon in each. We shall see what the Detox does to the male bodyfat, now that we’ve seen the result on the female fat last week.

My progression has, however, come to a grinding halt. Not because of a flaw in the EODD Plan, not because I’m being “bad”, simply because I am a female and nature is interfering! Yeah, period time! Ain’t that just peachy! Damn, the guys just keep on the same downward trend, we aleays get a flattening out once a month. It’s just not fair!

The thing to do though, is ignore the scales for a few days, not get hung up in the numbers, and know that keeping up the Plan will get me where I want to be once this is over. I will not be stopped!

So there

7-Day Detox plan and weekend away, does that work?

Considering that I dropped a further 2+ lbs since Friday I would have to answer “Yes!” I suppose.

All it takes is focus, and a little preparation, that’s all. I told eveyone going in that this weekend I would not have any desert, no wine, nothing much “fun”  (in the sadly traditional sense of the word fun-an-food), and that was fine with everyone, and respected. No pressure at all to have anything I didn’t want.

I had prepared a bag of raisins and mandarins before we left, and I had those before each meal, making sure the meal itself didn’t contain things that weren’t on the allowed list, nor that the portions grew out of control because the food was delicious!

Exercise wise, yesterday I made 5 trips up and down the stairs with  a box full of logs for the fireplace, and I didn’t go at a slow pace either because I  purposfully made it a workoout. Later we went for a walk, and with the cccc..old wind, the fatburn had to be accelerated! In my logic anyway. I mean, if you’re cold, your body will have to burn something to keep your organs warm, what better than the excess fat? You also shiver as a result of the cold, another way to make you move to keep warm. I recently read a short paragraph on the extra fatburn you get from walking barefoot on a cold floor even!

Total drop in bodyweight overall in 6 days is 8,6 lbs. Mostly fat. Check out the Every Other Day Diet at everyotherdaydiet.com/about.php  for your copy, the Detox Plan is in there!

To find out more information on EODD – Every Other Day Diet please click-Here!