February Pucker Up Plank Challenge

Maybeeeee you are like us and don't really care about Valentine's Day but still want to be a little bit festive...or maybe you are all about Valentine's Day. Either way, it doesn't really matter because we could ALL benefit from a stronger core! And that is exactly what this challenge is designed to do: strengthen your core! It was also designed to be something that you do in addition to your normal workout (which is hopefully one of our workout plans!). We have 4, 6, and 12-week workout plans for all fitness levels! Unless you are a total beginner, doing this core workout each day is not a long enough workout for you!

Want to pair this fitness challenge with our finance challenge this month? Get started today!

We are introducing different variations of planks with this 28-Day Plank Challenge. Some you may have heard of before and some you might be scratching your head at. Never fear, we are here to help!

Learn how to do all of these planks plus a few more in this post on how to whittle your waist with 5 different planks!

The picture below shows how to do a regular plank. Keep a straight line from the top of your head to your heels. Your shoulders should be in line with your elbows. Hold your abs in. You can read the other descriptions here.

If you are advanced and this is too easy for you, you can double or triple each day. If this is too difficult, cut the time and/or reps down and work your way up. This challenge is totally customizable based on your fitness level.

Tag us on Instagram and use the hashtag #heandsheeatclean so we can follow along!

We're also including the challenge below if you would rather do the planks listed each day! Your challenge, your decision! :)

Instant Pot Shredded Chicken

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Read more about our disclaimer here.

Not kidding here, it took us 16 months to take our Instant Pot out of the box. I was SO. SCARED. and I don't know why. I was just certain that it was going to blow the roof off of our house. I actually made Scott try it first. He made some sort of chicken dish. After that, I started making our boiled eggs and quinoa in it each week. And then that's all I did. Until last night when we made our weekly chili in it. SO FAST. What I normally leave in the crock pot for hours and hours took less than 40 minutes. But this isn't about chili, this is about chicken. I used to always make our chicken by boiling it on the stove. I even wrote about how to boil chicken here. I love it because it keeps the chicken juicy...we actually hate baked chicken because it's always so dry! The Instant Pot did the same thing but in less time and hands off (I only had to shred it, instead of monitor it the whole time to see when it started boiling, etc).

We have the 6 quart Instant Pot (it has over 22,000 customer reviews on Amazon with 4.5 stars!

Ingredients:

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
• Organic Chicken Broth (or water)
• Spices, your choice (We use sea salt, black pepper, and minced garlic)

Directions:

1. Add chicken to Instant Pot

2. Add spices of your choice (we normally use sea salt, black pepper, and minced garlic)

3. Cover with chicken broth or water

4. Ensure that the vent is set to sealed and press the poultry button

5. Once the chicken is finished, allow a natural release for 5-10 minutes

6. Once cooled (5-10 minutes), shred chicken and enjoy!

We love using ours in Savory Chicken Casserole and Clean Eating Chicken Salad!

Detox Your Life Challenge

New Year’s resolutions...Ben Franklin once said, “be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man,” and we couldn’t agree more!

But, ohhh, New Year’s resolutions...you know the typical ones - get in shape, be more organized, create (and stick to) a budget, yada, yada yada...let’s face it, we all start the year with the best intentions to improve a category of our life and, hopefully, we hold ourselves more accountable than last year because those previous resolutions only lasted a week or, at best, a month then life hits.  Seriously, we’ve all been there, right?!?!  

For this very reason, New Year’s resolutions have the ability to be very punitive and end up becoming our own worst enemies.  We set a general goal, never tackle it and get down on ourselves for the failure.  The problem is this - we set a goal without having a real, workable plan as to how to tackle that goal (Tony Robbins says it best here).  We tend to think that having the resolution will cause us to have an epiphany and maybe, just maybe, the perfect plan will fall in our lap.  Seems like common sense, but this perennial lapse in proper goal setting is exactly why we never follow through with our resolution(s).

So, this year we decided that we were tired of failure and wanted to come up with a new challenge for ourselves.  We spent 20-30 minutes and started writing down categories of our life that we wanted to improve and realized we had exactly 12 areas we wanted to improve.  We thought, what if we just separated each general life category into its own month and came up with specific goals and a plan for those areas within each month?  Think of it like New Month’s resolutions, but better!

Then, the idea for our first-ever “Detox Your Life Challenge” started to take shape.  

We’re not perfect (far from it, actually), but we felt as though all our readers could benefit from the same 12 life categories we decided on.  We have determined our own specific goals for each month/life category and will share those specifics as the months arrive.  We’d love it if you join us in tackling those goals because everyone will benefit from attaining the same goals and we can hold each other accountable!

So, how does this work?

We were very intentional about the design of this challenge.  Each month will rotate between self-centric and external categories.  For example, we focus on self-improvement in January with fitness and then move to external environment improvement in February with money/personal finance.  The idea here is that if you don’t meet your goals within a certain life category, you give your emotions a bit of a break the next month and get right back on track.  

We also love how measurable this challenge is...if you set (and reach) one specific goal each month, come year’s end, you will have improved 12 areas of your life.  If you set four specific goals each month, you’ll have improved 48 areas of your life!  So, our advice is to list as many specific goals as possible for each month...even if you set 10 monthly goals and reach 25% of them, you’ll have improved 30 areas of your life….WOW!

But wait, why is this called the "Detox Your Life Challenge”?  Aren’t detoxes bad for you?  Well, the answer is this - resolutions come about because you feel an area of your life is toxic or not being fulfilled.  When you boil it down, the lack of fulfillment is caused by a toxin - some tangible or intangible object that is getting in the way of living a fulfilled life.  The goal of the challenge is to remove those toxins to help improve your life!

Ready to get started? Great, we are too!

Here’s how the challenge will work:

1. Download the printable Detox Your Life Challenge calendar here.

2. Join our email list and we’ll deliver our challenge updates so you can follow along with us, get moral support and fresh ideas to your inbox along with the specifics for each month.  

3. Post your challenge worksheets, ideas and moral support to social media using the hashtag #dylchallenge and leave a comment below...we’d love to hear from you! We're on Instagram under @heandsheeatclean ---> tag us in your posts!

4. Join the facebook group “Detox Your Life Challenge” to share ideas and support others

5. Check back here each month as we share the new challenge and discuss our wins from the previous month!

Get a sneak peek at the monthly challenges below. Remember to check back for our goals and share yours too!

We'll come back here to update the links as we post for each month:

• January - Detox Your Fitness
• February - Detox Your Money
• March - Detox Your Nutrition
• April - Detox Your Home
• May - Detox Your Body
• June - Detox Your Digital Life
• July - Detox Your Brain
• August - Detox Your Relationships
• September - Detox Your Office/Workspace
• November - Detox Your Sleep
• December - Detox Your Time