What's so hard about it?

Learning a new language is hard.  Eating good food is not.

We want to get a few of the things that people have found difficult about the challenge out there early so that as you plan for the start, you can take them into account.  We have found through time that they are not so much difficulties as differences.  The way you look at food, the way you shop, how much you spend, how you cook, how much you clean, all of these things become much different and could possibly derail your efforts if not addressed.

The way you look at food - We all love food!  Food and eating has evolved into a part of our social fabric in such a way that it is emotionally connected to us.  We derive a great deal of pleasure out of food . We eat to celebrate, we eat to mourn, we eat to meet, reconnect, maintain friendships, etc.  The list goes on, but for the next 30 days we want you to peel all the emotional attachment away from food and look at it as fuel for your body.  Your body needs three macro-nutrients to function optimally, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.  We want you to be able to look at your plate and identify a protein source, a carbohydrate source, and a fat source with each meal.  Over time, if you stick with it, you will reconnect with food in a much more intimate way(sounds strange, but it happens.)  However, for the next 30 days, you need to look at food as a means to nourish you, not to entertain you.  

The way you shop - This one will probably change the most and until you get a grasp of the quantities of these new foods that you need to sustain you for a week, it will mean multiple trips to the store.  Real food goes bad. The convenience of having food that can be stored for years in your pantry has serious negative impacts on your health.  Most of us are used to buying a few vegetables and placing them in that bottom drawer in the fridge, until they resemble some sort of moldy science experiment.  This is usually followed by a silent battle of wills until someone can't stand the smell, breaks and cleans out the drawer(that is how it used to go in our house).  Food quality is a huge factor and we will address it later on in the 30 days, but for starting out you can find everything you need at your local grocery store.  Check this link for shopping tips.  For the purposes of this post we just want you to understand that you will be making several trips to the store to keep up  your supply of fresh real foods.

How much you spend - Our biggest expense in our budget is our food bill.  We think it is money well spent.  If you are used to running into the store and buying a few things and getting out for under $50, your first, clean eating, shopping trip will be a surprise.  However if you factor in all the money that is spent eating out either at fast food or real restaurants along with the positive health benefits of eating this way we feel like it all evens out.  Just know initially you will be spending more money at the grocery store.

How you cook  - This one is unavoidable and is a bit of a soapbox one for me.  You will have to get your hands dirty and actually prepare your meals.  If you are so busy that you don't have 30 minutes to prepare quality meals for yourself, than you have other lifestyle issues that are going to prevent you from reaching your health goals.  You make time for what is important and preparing quality meals is important.  I enjoy cooking, Dawn does not.  We both cook.  This is not one of those plans where you get all your meals sent to you in a box and you can pop them in the microwave.  I am willing to bet many of you have tried them in the past, we have.  They usually work initially, but are not sustainable over the long term.  Learning a few tricks in the kitchen will go along way to, not only helping you in these next 30 days, but also being a better person.  Suck it up buttercup and cook!
p.s. this is where the community of the challenge has come in handy in the past.  Our best recipes have come from challenge participants

How much you clean -  This is another common complaint we hear and one we struggle with ourselves.  It seems like we always have a sink full of dishes.  Like learning to cook, it is one of those unavoidable aspects of eating real, healthy foods.  There is not much we can do to avoid it, but we want you to know going in so you are not surprised by it.  We have also found that cleaning as you go makes things much easier, than letting things pile up until the end of the day.

You can be sure there will be other challenges along the way but these were some of the bigger issues that have come up in the past.  Knowing what you are getting into and having a strategy going in can help when these things pop up.  In our next post, we hope to answer any lingering questions you may have.

Why Eat Clean for 30 Days?

As we gear up for our latest clean eating challenge, we have several new people jumping on board and wanted to let them know and remind all of our veterans why we are doing this.

It is our belief, based on the changes we have seen for ourselves and those of the many who have completed 30 days of clean eating, that certain foods have a negative impact on your body without you even knowing it.  Grains, sugar, dairy, and legumes can cause issues from mild gut irritation to full blown auto immune disease and certain types of cancer.  These issues can manifest as low energy levels, strange aches and joint pain, poor sleep, allergies, skin conditions, obesity, and chronic digestive issues.  There are many more possibilities, but these are what we have seen in our past three challenges.  Many people simply get used to the aches and pains, chronic congestion, allergies, irregular bowel movements, and poor sleep.  They chalk it up to getting older or the weather and just live with it, never once considering the way they eat might be an issue.  We did! 

We will go into more detail on the exact mechanisms in each food that cause these issues in a future post, or you can scan the archives or use everyone's friend, google, and begin the research on your own.  There is only one way to find out if you have issues with these foods.  Eliminate them from your diet for a period of time and see what happens when you reintroduce them.  30 days is an arbitrary number, but we have tried shorter challenges and not had as much success.  Mostly because the mental and behavioral aspects of changing your eating habits take more time.

Upon reintroduction of the grains, sugars, dairy, and legumes, after the 30 days of eating nothing but gut healing, real foods, your body will send you strong signals when you ingest foods that it does not agree with.  You may even discover that you can handle certain levels of these types of foods without much problem, but there is only one way to know for sure and that is WHY you are doing this!

It is all about your health and a quality of life that you are missing out on and don't even know.  To borrow a phrase from The Whole 9, "This will change your life!" sounds big, but it changed ours and each of the challenges we have done, we have had at least one person thank us for changing their life.  It is powerful stuff!

While your health should always be the main focus of your efforts, there are many other positive side effects that have been associated with eating clean for 30 days.  The physical ones are fairly obvious, lost weight, clear skin, more energy, etc. but the emotional and mental ones are far more powerful and more rewarding.  Most of us have issues with control.  We want to be in control of everything and will do some crazy things to ensure we have (at least the perception of) that control.  Yet put a box of (insert crap food here) in front of us and the control is gone.  We have also experienced some strange reactions from friends, family, and clients when we suggest that they give up something for 30 days.  They can't fathom 30 days without cream in their coffee or beans in their chili.  Yet, once they commit, and realize it's not that hard and they now have control over another aspect of their lives, it is rewarding!   On the emotional side, and this is going to sound strange, but people who have completed the challenge and continue to eat that way tell us they are simply more happy.  What can be better than that?

We hope we have sold you on the why, we will have a post up soon addressing some of the difficulties people run into when completing the 30 days.

The Rules and Some Help

If you are like us, you have sunken into this kind of holiday rut of crappy food, booze, and poor sleep.  We are not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing, but it has us tired and looking forward to 30 days of cleaning things up.  These types of binges can do one of two things; either send you on a months long downward spiral of poor eating, self loathing, and depression, or motivate you to make some positive change.  We hope you are in the latter group and are ready to join us for the 30 days.

We wanted to officially lay out the rules for the 30 days.  Remember this is a super strict, gut healing cleanse and if you are joining, we want you to totally invest, all in, no gaming the system or shorting yourself.  Even small slip ups here and there will be enough to prevent the gut from healing and you from reaping the benefits of this experience.   Starting on Jan. 3rd you are going to eat nothing but real food - lean meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits and good fats sources.  Here is a grocery list of approved foods.

Suggested Grocery List 

Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
Chicken Breast Turkey Breast Ground Turkey Veal Beef Ground Beef Canadian Bacon Corned Beef Ham Lamb Pork Calamari Catfish Clams Crabmeat Salmon Shrimp Tuna Eggs Soy Burgers Tofu	Artichoke Asparagus Alfalfa sprouts Bean sprouts Beet greens Bok choy Broccoli Brussel sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Celery Collard Greens Cucumber Eggplant Green beans Lettuce Iceburg Romaine Mushrooms Spinach Salsa Tomato Apple Blueberries Squash/ Zucchini Grapes Orange Pineapple Strawberries Watermelon	Almonds Avocado Canola oil Macadamia nuts Olives Cashews Walnuts Olive oil Tahini Guacamole Vegetable oil Mayonnaise Sesame oil Sunflower seeds Lard Vegetable shortening Vinegar & oil dressing Pumpkin seeds Coconut Coconut Oil Flax oil Flaxseeds Herring

Now for what you cannot have:
Do not eat dairy. This includes butter, cheese (hard and soft), yogurt, sour cream and milk(including cream in your coffee).

Do not eat grains. This includes bread, rice, pasta, corn, oatmeal, and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains.

Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds, lentils, and peanuts. (No peanut butter)

Do not eat sugars of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Truvia, Stevia, etc. Be sure to read your food labels. You would be surprised how many common things have sugar added.

Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, processed bars (like Zone bars), dairy-free creamers, etc. If it comes in a box you can't eat it.

Below are links to past challenge posts for further information and explanation.
Jan 2010 Challange 
Making meals
The problem with processed Carbs

Not to toot our own horn, but there are several posts in the archives that will provide you with tons of information to help you along.  Also feel free to leave us a comment if you have any questions as we head into the challenge.

Finally, if you are still not sure you have a strong grasp of what you are getting yourself into, or if you just want to geek out on this stuff, we recommend you purchase the Whole 30 Success Guide. Our original challenge back in 2009 was based on Melissa Urban's first 30 day Challenge.  She has since joined forces with a physical therapist, Dallas Hartwig and together they created Whole 9 life a nutrition and exercise consulting business.  They give seminars and consultations helping people change their lives through nutrition and exercise.  They have compiled what they have learned from thousands of people who have completed their challenge in one manual.  We have been to see their seminar twice and still have learned from the Success Guide.  One of the things we like most about our approach to clean eating is that there are no gimmicks or things to buy, other than the food.  This is the first time we have recommended that anyone purchase something and do so with the confidence that you are getting your moneys worth.  With that said, you can find all of the information in the guide for free by spending a few days on their site.  The call is yours.
Stay tuned for more updates.

Merry Christmas!

The ornament was a gift from one of Dawn's clients

A friend sent us a list of holiday eating tips that we thought were too funny not to share.  Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas.  We will hit you hard and heavy with clean eating info next week.

HOLIDAY EATING TIPS

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me.  Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy.  Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or  whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's.  You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if  you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three.  When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by: "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate and wine in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

Have a great holiday season!! Merry Christmas !!!

Top 5 Reasons To Jump in on The 30 Days of Eating Clean

As we move closer to the New Year we keep hearing from more and more people who are leaning towards completing the 30days with us.  Just wanted to give you some details about the challenge and a few reasons that you should jump on in.  The official start day of the challenge will be Monday, Jan. 3rd.  It is always easier to start things off at the beginning of a new week.  The 30 days will run until Tuesday Feb. 1st.  We will have more details on the what and how in the coming days but essentially you are eating whole, nutrient dense, good foods, while avoiding all grains, legumes, dairy, sugar, and alcohol for thirty days.

Now for some reasoning:
Top 5 reasons to eat clean for 30 day's

1. It's hard - "Wait...why is that a reason to do something?"  you ask.  Doing something hard and completing it is rewarding.  It takes you out of your comfort zone and makes you learn new things.  This helps you grow.  So if you are one of those who say's "I don't need this challenge, I'm not fat, unhealthy, out of shape, I eat good, etc." Just do it because it's hard and you will be amazed at how completing something difficult impacts other areas of your life.
2. It's all about behavior - Over the last three challenges we have found that most of the issues people have with food are mental and emotional.  You develop patterns of behavior over the years and end up doing things or eating things just because that is what you do.  Everyone knows eating a whole box of Golden Grams for breakfast or four scoops of Bryers a night is not good for you, but we do it anyway.  Breaking these habits, be they nutritional or otherwise, takes time.  Gaining control over these behaviors has far reaching benefits for many areas of your life.
3. Your body deserves it - If you are like me, you have spent the past several decades punishing your body with grains, processed foods, sugar, and alcohol and it deserves a rest.  I can say from experience, that going thirty days eating clean will strengthen the relationship you have with your bowels.  Not to get too graphic, but I need to look no further than the toilet to determine how I have been eating.  Clean eating =consistent, quality bowel movements, Bad eating = a sloppy mess.  It is my body revolting from the poor fuel I am providing. 30 days gives your body, especially your gut, time to heal and get back to it's normal functioning.
4. It's all about your health - There are several positive benefits that happen as a result of cleaning up your eating habits, including losing weight, more energy, mental clarity, clearer skin, healthy hair, etc.  These are all nice, but the first and most important benefit of eating lean meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and natural fats is improved health.  This seems so simple, but we see so many people who are suffering from conditions that are a direct result of poor nutrition, yet they refuse to change the way they eat.  They are happy to shove bottles of prescription medication down their throats, but unwilling to try kale or collard greens.  It just does not make sense.  Give yourself thirty days of eating clean food and let your body heal itself.
5. Positive affirmation - We are prepping this 30 days differently than ones in the past.  Because of our experience with things being swayed so far to the mental/emotional side of things(at least until you get in control of your eating) we are going to include almost daily doses of positive affirmations in the form of posts, stories, quotes, movies, etc to keep you motivated along the way.  So even if you can't stand the heat of eating clean for 30 days keep checking in for frequent pats on the back.  They always feel good.

Martina-Final Challenge Update

When I started this challenge, I will admit to having unrealistic fantasies about losing a lot of weight and coming out of it with a bikini ready body.  With all of the diet and pill advertisements out there, it is no small wonder I was so disillusioned.  We are brainwashed in to thinking that it will happen-almost like magic. I have learned two important things in this challenge: nutrition is key to everything and exercise will compliment healthy eating. The goal was to eat clean with four cheats and work out once a week.  I injured my neck about two weeks ago right before the challenge ended.  It was a silly mistake, but one that stood in the way at the end.  I was lifting my daughter's mattress to change the sheets and instead of using my core that I am developing, I used my arms and neck.  The result was instant pain.  It didn't help that I was annoyed and stressed at the time.  It felt like I had been hit on the back of the neck with a bat. 

 

After several visits to the chiropractor and lots of rest, I hopefully am better.  During that time, I tried to do some exercises.  The most important thing was to rest the injury, but I did do planks and squats to try to keep up and not turn back to flab.    Dawn, of course, was there encouraging me all the way.  She has been invaluable and I truly am grateful.  If I keep at it, I will get the body I want.  That does not mean just pretty on the outside.  It is true what they say about beauty on the inside.  If my insides are unhealthy, what is the point of looking good?  I think I will try the New Year challenge.  It will be nice to have another goal and see what happens. 

Get off the fence!

 Some of you are on the fence about whether you should complete the 30 day clean eating challenge with Paul and I at the start of the New Year.  I am here to tell you to get off the fence, now!  I am sure you can come up with a million excuses as to why your health can be put on the back burner!  Everyone always does!  The fact of the matter is, there is no GOOD reason not to put your health at the top of your to do list.  Some very important facts that I took from our last nutrition seminar are that healthy eating leads to mental clarity, increased energy levels, lower body fat(hotter looking body), better moods, and an overall zest for life. Who does not want that?   We know it is hard to get started.  We know that you will feel like crap before you start to feel better.  We know it takes a lot of work and time.  It is also during these times when things get hard and you feel bad, and it takes a lot of work, that you tend to grow the most as a person. Paul always says "nothing good in life is easy" and the same goes for clean eating. 

Take charge of your life. Do something that will change your life for the better.  Break out of that cozy little place you have created for yourself and try something new. We will be here every step of the way.  We want everyone to succeed and experience the awesome effects of clean eating. After the challenge, you will wonder why you waited so long to make such an important change.  We look forward to starting the new year off with a bang.

We leave you with one of our favorite quotes about committing yourself to something and hope you are inspired to get off of the fence and commit to a 30 day journey with us.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

W.H. Murray

New Year - New Website - New You!

We are gearing up for 2011 and have several plans to expand both the way we provide services and how we grow in our knowledge of health and fitness.  One of those plans has been in the works for the past few weeks.  I am far from a tech guy and would much rather work with people than on a computer, but I have spent considerable time over the past few weeks wrestling with Go Daddy and their Web Site Tonight program to revamp our web site in an effort to simplify and clean up our web presence.  Take a look and let us know what you think.  http://www.newdawnfitness.com/

Another thing we have in the works is yet another 30 day clean eating cleanse.  We will start the new year off right with 30 day's of eating nothing but nutrient rich, anti inflammatory, gut healing foods.  We have many of our old time challenge members in for this one and would love to get some new people on board.  Please feel free to share this with anyone you feel might be interested.  If you want to know what the 30 days is all about read this post.  If you have done one in the past and fallen off of the wagon, now is the perfect time to jump back on.  This time we will link to all of the sciency stuff that explains the why, but our main focus is going to be on the people involved in the process and the emotional and mental challenges involved in changing your relationship with food.  With the ultimate goal of improving how you look, feel, and perform in your daily life.  Can you think of a better way to start the new year?

We really want this 30 days to be driven by the people involved and not done anonymously behind your computer.  There is great strength and support in the shared experience.  So if you are in, leave us a comment letting us know and we will do our best to personalize the experience for you.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season.  It has been an awesome year of growth for us as trainers, parents,  and spouses.  We hope you have some time in the coming weeks to reflect on the past year and set goals for continued growth into the future.  Remember, nothing stays still in life, you are either getting better or getting worse.

Eggplant Pizza

We have tried several different versions of a grain-less pizza over the past couple of years and have yet to find and adequate substitute for the real thing.  The biggest problem is making a crust that does not taste more like a pizza box than a pizza.  We came across a recipe for an eggplant crust on Mark's Daily Apple a while back and have tweaked it over the past couple of months to produce something we really look forward to on a Friday night.  It should be noted that prior to trying this neither of us had ever had eggplant.  It should also be noted that this recipe has some fresh grated Parmesan cheese in it so it is not truly paleo.  You could leave the cheese out and it is still good but like anything in life it is better with the cheese.

Ingredients(for one pizza):
1 Small to medium size eggplant grated
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup almond meal
2 egg whites
Olive oil (for baking sheet)

1. Mix all ingredients except for olive oil in a bowl
2. Very liberally grease a baking sheet with olive oil and dump mixture on sheet
3. Spread the mixture with hands to desired thickness(we prefer it fairly thin)
4. Bake crust at 450 for 10 to 15 minutes until crust browns.
5. Remove crust let cool and add toppings
6. Return to oven and bake another 5 to 10 minutes

Cut and enjoy! Let us know of any variations and/or topping combination you try.

We like a meat lovers pizza, so we cooked up some bacon(Trader Joe's, no nitrates) and sausage(cheap grocery Jimmy Dean Hot).  We also threw in some peperoni.  We also like the Trader Joe's Puttanesce sauce for the base.

We just used a cheese grater, we have tried a food processor and it does not work as well.  We also cut up some sweet peppers and a few jalapenos.

Here is the mixture of eggplant, eggs, almond meal, and cheese.

We use the gift that God gave us (bacon grease) to cook the spinach and peppers

Our proprietary secret is lots of olive oil on the baking sheet prior to spreading out the mixture.  This will allow you to cut up something resembling a piece after baking.

The finished product.  It is labor intensive but so worth it.  We usually do two or three at a time and enjoy it for a couple of days.