I first heard of Advocare at a bachelorette party. The bride-to-be had large canisters of Spark with her that she claimed were her morning coffee replacement. (Sidenote: this was the second time I had heard of Spark. We had a teacher in high school who used to drink Spark regularly after her lap-band surgery, and I know she always had tons of energy.) I knew she had gotten in to Crossfit, so I thought that was some sort of Paleo thing she was into. Another girl there announced she was about to start the 24 day challenge. I asked her what-all it entailed (I am always intrigued by a food challenge), but the thought of giving up fast food and alcohol for nearly a month seemed daunting.
I got home from the bachelorette party and did some more research. I saw some amazing before and after photos and thought that could be me. I did some more searching and placed my order for the 24 Day Challenge with someone who promised (via her website) to coach me through the process.
A few days later, my package arrived in the mail, and I was ready to begin. Except that I wasn’t.
1. Temptation at every turn. At the time, I was living with three boys. The awesome thing about living with three boys? There was pizza on the dining room table every single day – sometimes multiple brands – and nobody cared if I nabbed a piece every now and again. When they weren’t ordering pizza they were cooking delicious-smelling carby fried foods.
2. Lack of prep-work. Along with the challenge of sharing a kitchen, refrigerator, and cabinet space with three boys who enjoyed cooking, I was also commuting an hour to work each day. I was leaving around 7 in the morning and not getting back until 6:30 at night. At which point I needed to think about breakfast, lunch, snacks, and even dinner for the next day. It just wasn’t happening.
3. Lack of will-power. My coworkers love to go out to eat for lunch, and I love the fellowship that brings. On the days I did actually get my act together and take a lunch, I was easily persuaded to save it for another day and go out to lunch, and with this challenge, that was just a fail waiting to happen. 24 days sounds like a relatively short amount of time, but the temptation to cheat eventually wore me down, and once I was off of the challenge wagon, there was no going back.
4. Confusion. I had so much trouble figuring out when to take what pills. There is a handy website that tells you what to do each day, but for whatever reason I just could not remember what to take when. ESPECIALLY after the 10 day cleanse. Those MNS packs are tricky little buggers, and I never did get the hang of when I was supposed to take them correctly. The coaching I mentioned looking forward to earlier was not very existent. I very much felt on my own during the whole process.
5. Lack of commitment. I didn’t even take before measurements or weigh myself in. It’s been a while now, but I don’t think I really committed to the challenge, and it takes commitment.
Desired results.
Actual results.
Despite DNFing* the challenge, there were definitely some things I enjoyed about the products. I continued to take some of them, and came back to taking others of them. I got comfortable taking my leftover MSN packets – and there were a lot of them! I felt like the challenge could work now that I had a better understanding of everything that goes into it, and now, one year later, have decided to give it another go! Updates to come!
*DNF = did not finish in marathon-runner lingo. I’m not a marathon runner, but like to trick people into thinking I am one by using the terminology.
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