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Detox Your Nutrition: March

ChallengesWhitney CarlsonComment
Detox Your Nutrition: March

MARCH. 2018. The fact that it is already March of 2018 blow my mind. The beginning of a new month means the beginning of a new challenge! If interested, we also have a Full Body March Madness Fitness Challenge here.

The entire goal of our Detox Your Life Challenge is to improve a different area of our lives each month. It's okay if we don't accomplish ALL of our goals; however, we will take much pride in tackling the goals we set and use those accomplishments to build momentum in tackling our remaining goals as the year goes on.

Last month, for the Detox Your Money Challenge, our goals were to:

  • Opening a new savings account to maximize the interest we’re earning (check!)
  • Categorizing our grocery receipts to help drill-down on wasted expenses (nope!)
  • Reviewing our retirement investments to ensure we’re saving enough for retirement (check!)
  • Reviewing the new changes to the tax code to identify incremental income that can be poured into savings and take advantage of new opportunities (check!)

I (Whitney) have been super busy over the last few days (weeks) getting everything ready for our taxes and Scott has been really busy at work. While we wish we would have been able to better analyze our receipts, we were pretty happy with how we didn't waste any money during the month of February and how we were able to open our new checking and savings accounts (that came with a $500 bonus!).

Again, just because a new month is upon us doesn't mean that we are going to completely forget about our January fitness goals or our February money goals. We will continue with our previous goals and simultaneously move forward with our nutrition goals!

Wondering what all of this detox stuff is all about?

Take a look at the concept behind our Detox Your Life Challenge here.

Let's take a simpler approach to nutrition this time, shall we?

High carb. Low carb. High fat. Low fat. High protein. Low protein. Juice cleanse. Cookie diet. Grapefruit diet. There are so many buzz words being thrown around that it makes my head spin! I have a feeling you feel the same way!

We're going to simplify nutrition for you: Eat Real Food.

Get started with these steps:

  1. Read Getting Started with Clean Eating
  2. Read 8 Things You Need to Know When You Start Eating Clean
  3. Download our FREE 13 to Clean Challenge and/or take a look at our 1,500 Calorie Meal Plan

Keep in mind that just because your sister, brother, best friend, and/or co-worker lost 25 pounds on a certain diet doesn't mean that same thing is right for you. Just because you see it on Facebook or hear about it on a TV show also doesn't mean it's right for you.

Keep things simple. Our bodies need all nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Choose lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

So, what will we be working on this month?

March is a really busy month for us (big news coming soon!) and to top it off we travel to Arizona at the end of the month but we will keep nutrition at the forefront of our mind.

  • Do an entire food prep each week
  • Drink our apple cider vinegar detox water every day
  • Try to incorporate vegetables into breakfast
  • Drink at least 64 oz of water each day
  • Limit added sugar
  • Eat out twice per week, max

Looking for ideas for your own challenge?

Need to write down your goals with pen and paper?

We do too! We have a simple printable for you! You can print it in color or black and white and then just fill in whatever notes or goals you need to jot down. Get it here.

Reminder: Make sure you are signed up for the Detox Your Life Challenge emails so that you know when a new challenge is released or we have something fun to give you like a new printable!

Check out these additional resources:

Get Ready for New Recipes & Tips to Help You Along the Way!

Detox Your Money: February

Challenges, MoneyWhitney Carlson1 Comment
Detox Your Money Challenge

How is it already February?! The month slipped right by and we didn't do any yoga! Seriously. But that's okay, we aren't going to beat ourselves up about it. We still have our fitness goals going for the rest of the year, but our focus now shifts to our February challenge - Detoxing our Money!

The entire goal of our Detox Your Life Challenge is to improve a different area of our lives each month. It's okay if we don't accomplish ALL of our goals; however, we will take much pride in tackling the goals we set and use those accomplishments to build momentum in tackling our remaining goals as the year goes on.

Last month, for the Detox Your Fitness Challenge, our goals were to:

  • Lift Weights 4-5 days per week (check!)
  • Cardio 2-3 days per week (at the end of our lifting workouts) (check!)
  • Hike at least once a week (We hiked twice, we weren't able to the other weekends because of the weather but we did add in a couple stair climbing sessions in the gym and some HIIT workouts!  We’ll make up our lost days when the weather improves.)
  • Yoga at least once a week (didn't happen...nope...not once!)
  • Stretching every day for 10 minutes after waking and 10 minutes after lifting (half and half, we stretched after working out but not much after waking up)

I (Whitney) start week 5 of the She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder next week and Scott will start week 5 of the She Sweats 12-Week Transformation (Yes, men can do "she sweats"!).

Again, just because a new month is upon us doesn't mean that we are going to completely forget about our fitness goals. We will continue with our fitness goals and simultaneously move forward with our money goals!

Why are we talking about money?

Fitness is a large passion of ours, but financial responsibility and freedom are top priorities and huge passions as well. We both majored in finance in college and continue to be captivated by personal finance. Scott has worked in corporate finance for over a decade now and continues to stay on top of personal finance and investing news. We share a strong passion for helping our community get better at budgeting, saving, investing, and building financial freedom along with living a healthier lifestyle by focusing on pursuing active hobbies and eating healthy.

We're not perfect, but we strive to be as disciplined and responsible as possible by living within our means; it's simple - we focus on the things we need in our pursuit of happiness, not the things we want in the relentless chase for status. Living a balanced life requires saying "no" more than saying "yes". This applies to finance and fitness. It is not about deprivation, it's about self-awareness and control.

Wondering what all of this detox stuff is all about?

Take a look at the concept behind our Detox Your Life Challenge here.

Let's take a simpler approach to money this time, shall we?

Start off the month by reading our post on 18 ways to save $15,000 in 2018! It has a ton of valuable information to help you reach your financial goals. Then, pick one (or two!) of our money saving challenges to try! Getting your finances in order sounds complicated but it's really simple. It not easy but it is simple. The easiest way to get started is by spending less than you earn and prioritizing your goals whether that may be to pay off debt or build emergency savings. How you do that is up to you but we will help guide you along the way!

Check out these money quotes to help motivate you!

So, what will we be working on this month?

  • Opening a new savings account to maximize the interest we’re earning
  • Categorizing our grocery receipts to help drill-down on wasted expenses
  • Reviewing our retirement investments to ensure we’re saving enough for retirement
  • Reviewing the new changes to the tax code to identify incremental income that can be poured into savings and take advantage of new opportunities

Looking for ideas for your own challenge?

  • Make this month a no spend month
  • Build a budget
  • Build a financial plan
  • Take advantage of free (or low-cost) financial advice through your employer or bank
  • Start an emergency fund (ANY amount helps!)
  • Cut back on how many times per week you eat out
  • Write down every single thing you spend your money on this month (count every penny!)

Need to write down your goals with pen and paper?

We do too! We have a simple printable for you! You can print it in color or black and white and then just fill in whatever notes or goals you need to jot down. Get it here.

Reminder: Make sure you are signed up for the Detox Your Life Challenge emails so that you know when a new challenge is released or we have something fun to give you like a new printable!

Check out these additional resources:

Start one of our free Money Saving Challenges:

Get Ready for New Articles to Help You Along the Way

We will come back here and add the links as we publish these posts!

Detox Your Fitness: January

DetoxWhitney CarlsonComment
Detox Your Life Challenge for January

How often do you set New Year’s resolutions related to your health, fitness or weight loss goals, but consistently fail to achieve the results you want? Our experience with our readers and clients has shown us that fitness resolutions have less than a 5% success rate. Maybe it's because you've been approaching your workouts the same way each year. Maybe you set a goal to run a certain number of miles each month or buy the hardest workout plan or DVD and get injured or give up because it's too hard. The low success rate can be boiled down to a couple different reasons - failed resolutions range from either having hardly any plan at all or having too complex of a plan to follow through with.

RELATED: 5 Reasons Why You Need a Workout Plan

Wondering what all of this detox stuff is all about?

Take a look at the concept behind our Detox Your Life Challenge here. 

Let's take a simpler approach to fitness this time, shall we?

If you haven't already, you should check out our FREE 13 to Clean Challenge which basically gives you everything you need to hack your diet in 13 days. All you have to do is sign up here and you will instantly be redirected to the challenge! (Don't worry, if you have already entered your email address on our site you won't get duplicate emails!)

So, what will we be working on this month?

Last year we were fairly consistent with getting to the gym for a pretty high-intensity workout, but we weren’t great about stretching or doing yoga. So, our main focus for this month to help us detox our lives will be to do more yoga and stretching. Below are our goals:

  • Lift Weights 4-5 days per week
  • Cardio 2-3 days per week (at the end of our lifting workouts)
  • Hike at least once a week
  • Yoga at least once a week
  • Stretching every day for 10 minutes after waking and 10 minutes after lifting

To follow a plan (remember why we fail!), I am starting the 12-Week Run Builder today and Scott is doing the 12-Week Transformation. Yes, men can do the She Sweats workouts and, no, he doesn't need to transform, but it's just a great workout overall!

We love them because we can just pull them up from our phones at the gym or take the workout that we printed at home! I'm thinking we might need to re-brand these so they aren't
"She Sweats" anymore. Men can use these to sweat too!

Below is what the workout looks like on the phone, then we just have to scroll down to the date we are on. You can see all of our workout plans here.

She Sweats 12-Week Transformation
She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder

Looking for ideas for your own challenge?

Are you new to working out?

If so, you should focus on getting into the routine of working out. Start simple, this could be walking for 30 minutes per day and you can work your way up to getting to the gym for 5-6 days per week. Again, the 13 to Clean Challenge is a great place for you to start! Use this time to really focus on building good habits and learning different exercises and routines.

Have you been working out for a while, but need to detox your fitness routine?

It's very important to cross train. If you are a runner, you definitely need to start incorporating things like weight training, yoga, and different forms of cardio (stair climbing, biking, swimming, etc). If you are a yoga only person, try incorporating a day or two of weight training. The more well rounded you are in your fitness routine the better off you will be!

Try one (or a few!) of these:

  • try a new workout routine for a week
  • take a yoga class at least once a week
  • run a 5K
  • incorporate one of our fitness challenges per week

Post your challenge worksheets, ideas and moral support to social media (we're under @heandsheeatclean) using the hashtag #dylchallenge and leave a comment below...we’d love to hear from you!

Need to write down your goals with pen and paper?

Good, we do too! We have a simple printable for you! You can print it in color or black and white and then just fill in whatever notes or goals you need to jot down. Get it here.

Reminder: Make sure you are signed up for the Detox Your Life Challenge emails so that you know when a new challenge is released or we have something fun to give you like a new printable!

Check out these additional resources: