How to Find Clean Foods While Grocery Shopping

If you are anything like me when I first started (and even sometimes still!), when people told me that I should avoid processed foods, I wasn't sure what that meant. There are so many different things within every food product and even if it is good for you, you don't know what it is and it is some crazy name that sounds like a chemical or something. You know?!

Here is a simple guide of what you need to watch for:

Is that ingredient something that you can buy on your own and have in your pantry to cook with?
Here is an example from The Gracious Pantry: Spaghetti sauce. If the ingredients are, “tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil”, then you know it’s clean because you would buy JUST tomatoes to cook with. You would also buy JUST garlic to cook with. Same for olive oil and basil.
But if the ingredient list says, “tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil and maltodextrin”, you would want to pass it by. You would never go to the store for some maltodextrin to cook with at home.

This way of shopping can be really frustrating, I know, but this is going to actually allow you to find clean products.

You want to purchase less packaged products and replace them with whole food items, mostly from the produce section. This is because the actual item doesn't need an ingredient label because it is what it is.

Notice how I haven't said a word about all natural or organic here? Clean does NOT mean organic eating. However, like in the spaghetti sauce example, the pre-packaged foods will most likely be organic. SO if you don't want to pay the organic price, then you will need to by the ingredients themselves and make your own.

Also, in my area, Aldi and Trader Joe's have fantastic products and prices of a lot of things!

My 3 Day Refresh Results and Opinions

This week I decided to test out one of Beachbody's cleanses. I chose the 3 Day Refresh over the Ultimate Reset because I knew I wouldn't have the discipline to do it for 21 days, so I wanted to see if I could get through 3 days first.

First I think we need to talk about what the 3 Day Refresh actually is. I like to describe it as a short term, high nutrient mild detox. You get to eat, which I loved and is why I won't commit to any other detox/cleanse out there just because I want to eat. There is no meat and no starchy carbs, though. 

Here is a breakdown of how each day looks like. You seriously get SO much stuff to put in your belly! I was shocked. I didn't even know if I would have time in the day to eat it all!

There is a list of each type of food allowed in each category, so I decided that I would look at what I enjoyed for foods available (the lists were not too strict, I liked almost everything on them!) and then I chose what I could have the MOST of. Like what was going to fill me up more? I took into account of what I had in the fridge already, but still wanted to eat a larger amount if I could.

Here is what some of my meals included. 2 of the three days I had strawberries with my lunch because you could have 12 (YES!) of them in addition to the vegetable. I also had baby carrots, but changed it the following days because you were only allow 5 baby carrots and that just wasn't enough. I chose to have hummus with my vegetables each day just to keep in simple. I chose to have the same dinner each day because I was working nights and wanted to cook up a big batch of it and split it into three days. I also peeked at the dinner options to pick the one I thought would fill me up the most.

Lunch was a medium sized orange, 1 cup cauliflower and 2 tbsp hummus
Snack was 1 cup cauliflower and 2 tbsp hummus
Dinner was a spinach salad with lots of variety of veggies and a lemon juice/EVOO dressing

 SO after I had my food all planned I had to shop and prep it all so I could be on the go with it (which is another thing I took into consideration when choosing foods).

My grocery bill was about $30, but I did also have
some things at home still.

This was everything prepped and packed for Day 1.
I chose to put all my shake and tea packets into a baggie for days 2 and 3 so that they weren't sliding around in my "lunch bag".

Let's talk about the shakes that you drink during these three days. I was silly and didn't take a picture of the Fiber sweep drink, so I will include a picture of my friend drinking hers!

 Shakeology: A high nutrient dense superfood health shake that provides you with almost all daily vitamins, nutrients, probiotics, and prebiotics that you need each day. It helps to curb cravings throughout the day as well as helps to maintain your energy levels each day. Some drink it for a meal or snack, some have it as a post workouts. During the refresh it is breakfast! I drank my chocolate vegan Shakeology blended with water, ice, and a half a banana for breakfast on the Refresh.

 Fiber Sweep: A fiber loaded (obviously) drink that you mix with 8 oz of water to help clear your intestinal tract. Now, a lot of people think that this is going to cause you to have to "go" all the time, and everyone has a different experience. But in general, this is a mild cleanse and doesn't require you to run to the restroom. This is a beverage that you want to CHUG. Honestly, the taste (flavor) isn't bad, but the texture gets you. This was the worst part and wasn't totally unbearable by any means.


Vanilla Fresh: This is a protein packed shake that allows you to stay full longer. It is also full of nutrients and vitamins to make this super healthy as well, and not JUST a protein drink. You mix/blend this 8-10oz of water and ice and can blend it. You also have the option of blending your lunch fruit into your lunch Vanilla Fresh if you would like, but I chose not to. I wanted to EAT. :) I enjoyed the flavor but thought I could add one of the guilt-free flavorings, cinnamon, to my Day 2 Vanilla Fresh lunch shake, but found that it didn't enhance the flavor much and decided to stick with the shake how it was. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the Vanilla Fresh just shaken with water. Had I not been at work, I would have probably tried blending it with ice and water just to see if that was better.

Now I would just like to show you the teas that I drank, just to give you and idea, because I really enjoyed them and am loving the idea of incorporating more tea into my days. (Of course the kiddos legos had to get in the pic!)

Morning tea I had a Wild Blueberry & Acai green tea. I also have a pomegranate green tea, but it isn't decaffeinated, so I skipped it for the 3 days.

Afternoon tea was this Perfect Peach herbal tea and it was DELISH!

Evening tea was a little different with the minty flavor, but it actually helped me fall asleep! I am really thinking that this will be drink every night!

 Alright, alright, now that you have heard me babble about what this whole Refresh thing is all about, I bet you're wondering how I feel and if I got any results? FINE, I'll tell you! Keep in mind, that although I was NOT starving (a little hungry) during this process, I did cheat on Day 2 and had some crackers that were disgusting (and I had a BITE of a doughnut, I know it's terrible, on Day 1) out of boredom and the inability to eat and drink when I wanted to while at work. Day 3 was perfect! Also keep in mind that I did not have the intention of losing weight, because I don't really need to anymore, but I wanted to reset myself and cleanse a little bit of toxins out of my body from the holiday season the last few months and I had gotten off of my clean eating a little more recently.

Overall, I feel less bloated, I actually have a lot more energy and was able to wake up a little earlier these last couple days. Maybe it was hunger, maybe I was just bogged down and my body didn't want to get up, maybe it was the nutrient overload that helped to increase this, I don't really know.

As for my measurements, I did end up losing 2.6 pounds and lost 4 inches, 2 in my waist and 2 in my hips! I was very happy with those results and really do feel better. I have not even compared my before/after photos until posting them here, so as I type, I don't know what they look like. I have to make the collage real quick and then I will come back and place them here. HERE THEY ARE!!!! You can tell that there is some bloating gone and I'm a little more toned. Overall, I like my transformation! I feel great, so I'll take it and keep those inches off!

If you are interested in joining me in March to do this again (I won't cheat this time!), please shoot me an email to kjeskacoach@gmail.com with "Refresh" in the subject line! 

What can a grapefruit do for you?

My recent meal plan has me eating lots of grapefruit, but do you know why?

Here's 5 fun facts and I think I found the reasons why I am supposed to eat them on my meal plan!

1. Naturally curbs hunger (YAY!)
2. Helps to protect your heart by having the ability LOWER the bad cholesterol
3. Can smooth your rough skin by rubbing a piece of grapefruit sprinkled with sugar (don't use on face, though!)
4. Boosts your metabolism and is great to jump start some weight loss! (OOOOOH YEA!)
5. Firms your skin because of the high amount of vitamin C needed to produce healthy collagen

HELP WANTED!

Sorry for the typo, Link to apply at the end of the post!

When I think about what I've ever wanted in life all I can come up with is that I've always wanted to do something to help people. I've always had a passion for sports and fitness, but lost it along the way while building a family and trying to provide an income for myself.

In July of this year, I saw my best friend going through an inspiring lifestyle change with losing about 30 pounds in two months. I was so busy and needed to do this for myself, but just kept thinking about the cost to do it. I couldn't got to the gym, I hardly had 10 minutes to take a shower. Frankly, the gym just doesn't work for me. I had a month of a FREE membership to a club by my house and I went TWICE. I'm not really sure what it is, but I found my home with Beachbody.

I decided with the success and the passion for health and fitness coming back and allowing it to changed my life, I am now helping others find the joy that I find from working in a health and fitness industry all from my computer with the ability to go into my community as well.

*I am holding myself accountable to my challengers so that I am a coach that leads by example.
*I am not at my goal body, but I will get there.
*Eating clean isn't about completely and only healthy, whole foods. You eat what you want in moderation and live by the 80/20% rule. I'm not perfect in following this ratio.
*Sometimes, I don't want to work out either.

This business isn't about perfection. It's about progress. Learning to live the way your body craves. And sharing your journey and story so that you can inspire others to want to live their fullest lives.

Will you decide to build a business with a vision for progression, not perfection, to help yourself and those around you. Let's take the leap to change lives one day at a time. Apply here: bit.ly/ApplytoPlatinumVictory