The Rules- every game has them.

Warning: This blog is more informative than funny...the funny is coming however, just wait for the post about our first day back at the gym.

First and foremost- if you're reading this and like either myself or Lazy Ass, do us some mad props and click that "Join this site" button over there to the right. We really appreciate it! Thanks to Mama Kas for being our first follower! We thought about rewarding you by letting you come take our "before" pictures- but then we realized thats more of a punishment than a reward.

Second: Are you following along with us because you are going to do what we do? Let us know! We have some ideas up our sleeves and it would be great to know how many people are doing the cleanse, diet, working out, lifestyle change right along with us. Also please check with your medical peeps before starting anything like this. We were under supervision of a trainer and a nutritionist during our first go at cleanse.

Okay- Onto the blog now :)

So I was going through my massive box of paperwork (I stopped trying to stay on top of shredding and just have been throwing everything in a bin in the garage for a few months now, its great, I don't see it so I don't worry about it!) The one good thing is that I knew exactly where to find my rule book for the month of January.

So here it is...the almighty Bible of the 28 day PaleoCleanse. As you can see its pretty worn down- I actually used it! For those of you who have no idea what this is about- I am going to let you in on it. We had to pay money to get this 11 page pamphlet but I'm going to give it to you for free, little by little so you have to keep coming back and reading.

Paleo stands for paleolithic. Its based on the concept that the human body has not changed the way it digests food since the paleolithic era. It was a great class/seminar learning all about this. Our bodies are not meant nor designed to digest things like processed foods, so by eating them we are harming our bodies. Or so they say. I still vote that cake from a box tastes pretty damn good.

This part of what we are doing in our massive lifestyle change is the CLEANSE. It is not designed to be done forever but jump start a new lifestyle. It detoxifies your body and gets all the bad things out of your system so you can happily (kinda) live without it all.

Each week there are different things that are added into the cleanse. Starting Week 1 aka "pre-cleanse week" (days 1-7) Lazy and I are to follow and adhere to the strict diet. On top of that we are to be taking our LV-GB pills (Liver & Gallbladder cleanse pills) and our Antioxidant pills. 2 of each, daily. I can hear you- LV-GB pills? Where do I get those? Well we got ours at the R-Spa at Club Sport in Walnut Creek. They sell all the paleo cleanse stuff there. If you're not near walnut Creek- You can find the Paleo stuff all over- even Amazon. Here is a link to the Ultimate Antiox Full Spectrum, and the LV-GB Complex pills.

Here are pictures of the bottles for the LV-GB & the Antioxidant Pills.

Here is everything else we will be using throughout the month.

-PaleoCleanse

-PaleoMeal (I think I used 2 of these last time) Go with the Chocolate- you'll thank me

-PaleoFiber

-OmegAvail Lemon Drop (this is a liquid I hated the taste- I'm going for the pills this time.)

-PaleoGreens (Optional) This is a serving of veggies that you can mix in with your shake. This can be important when you are mostly living off shakes and need to get your greens in. They say we can just take them without mixing them- I think they taste horrible either way. I do my best to get my greens in without needing to take this.

-PaleoRed (Optional) Like the greens- but this is a serving of fruits. We didn't really use these last time as we mixed fruits into our shakes and got our servings of them this way.

Let me forewarn you: I came up with a great slogan last time I was doing this after a few times of trying to explain the rules to people who asked. "Pretty much if it tastes good- I can't eat it". Sounds harsh and it is not exactly true, If you're like us and have been eating all these horrible things (as listed below) food will taste pretty bland and not so good at first. By the end of these four weeks this food will be amazing and I will be wondering how I could ever have eaten a piece of cake. That is until you finally break down and eat that piece of cake...then it's like so good. But that's not going to happen this time...

So lets get to the game plan. This is where I'm going to lose a lot of you...but I assure you this is doable. Lazy and I did this last year! It was horrible but great by the end of it. I cannot even begin to explain to you how great I felt by the end of it. THE RULES are as follows. These rules start Week 1- January 1st 2012. There are eleven of them and I provide some info after each one. Skip to the bottom if you want to just get a quick re-cap of the rules. :-) Although I know none of you will do this since you are all so eager to read every single word I write.

#1: NO Gluten! This is the biggest and hardest part of this whole thing. Gluten is in everything! And believe me- you love it.  No wheat, oats, rye and barley. No bread people. This is horrible. I'm a Huge bread person. I love me some sammiches. Some okay things you can eat are brown rice, millet, quinoa, wild rice and cornmeal. Here is some boring statistics for you from Celiac.com:

"Recent studies and advances in diagnosis show that at least 3 million Americans, or about 1 in 133 people have celiac disease, but only 1-in-4,700 is ever diagnosed."

You might be thinking - Well Fatty, I don't have Celiac's. Let me tell you the way it was explained to me. Everyone is intolerant to Gluten. Just like everyone is intolerant to lactose. The difference is how tolerant you are. Some people might be able to go their whole lives without having an issue with gluten. However, some people might have Celiac's or a higher intolerance and never show symptoms of what its doing to your body.

So what might be going on if you are eating Gluten and you have Celiac's or you are intolerant? Bloating. Stomach Pain. Inability to lose weight. Fatigue. Continuing to eat gluten while having Celiac's can also cause other issues like arthritis. Basically gluten is bad. Really really bad. Gluten is the enemy. At least I can still have rice. On a quick note: Just because it says "gluten free" doesn't mean its good for you! A lot of gluten free products have increased amounts of sugar to make them taste good. Read you labels.

#2: NO Soy! What? This one shocked me. No Soy? WHYYY?? I love my soy sauce! So I can have Rice but no soy sauce on top of it? This sucks. In our class we learned that soy affects hormones. Too much of it and losing weight is damn near impossible. Especially for women. This is almost as hard as gluten to take out. Why you ask? Well because in America soy is also in everything. Soy and gluten are used as fillers in things. It will be really hard to get this out of your system, but its only for 28 days.

#3: NO Dairy! You think I'm kidding don't you? Nope no joke here. For a lot of the same reasons that gluten is removed, so is dairy! Mainly the lactose. If you're intolerant to it and still eating it you're messing with your body. So its on the no-no list for the net 28 days. We'll talk later on how to re-introduce it to find out if you are tolerant or intolerant.

#4: NO Sugar! Seriously? WTF? I mean okay obviously sugar is bad but we're running out of food groups here. Next you're going to tell me I can't have bacon.

#5: Eat Organic! This means no nitrates, preservatives etc. Aww crap. There goes my bacon. Most deli meats, hot dogs, bacon etc have nitrates. They are SUPER bad for your system. It is possible to find foods like this that are nitrate and preservative free, but try to just stay away from these foods for 28 days.

#6: NO Processed Foods! If its in a box- you can't have it. What this means is you need to go and buy all the raw ingredients for whatever you want and make it yourself. So find your inner Martha Stewart and just start making everything from scratch! You can do it!

#7: NO (please don't kill me) Alcohol! Sorry Spoons- I'm not going to be by for a month. The obvious things here no Beer/Wine/Shots/Mixers etc. However nothing containing alcohol should be consumed.

#8: NO (seriously- don't kill me) Caffeine! How am I supposed to get up in the morning? Lazy has a really hard time with this rule. I don't blame her. With a 2 year old who wont sleep through the night and still having to get up with the 5 year old to get her to school, Lazy NEEDS her caffeine. Well she asked MAD about this last year and was given the okay for ONE count it ONE 8oz cup of organic coffee/day if desired. This is not recommended however. Decaff coffee should also be avoided.

#9: NO Yeast! This group has basically been covered by other parts of the rules, I don't really understand it but its in the game plan so here we go. This means no processed foods (check), refined sugars (double check), commercially prepared condiments, breads (seriously? didn't you already tell me no gluten?), peanuts (this one surprised me), vinegar, and beer (we got it- no beer okay?)

#10: WATER WATER WATER (drink it)! Last but not least DRINK YOUR WATER! The water helps with the detox process, it gives your body a way to get rid of all the toxins, and its good for your body. It should also be purified/filtered. Part of the cleanse is knowing everything we are putting into our bodies this means making sure our water is clean as well. If you're undercutting your H20 intake every day you will not lose weight. Its part of the magical formula. So you're thinking FINE I'll drink my stinking 8 glasses of water a day. Well buddy its not that simple sadly. Everyone will need a different amount of water. So its time to do some math.

Water Formula:
Your weight / 2 = how many ounces of water you need a day for the next 28 days.

Example:

Fatty (me) @ 165lbs / 2 = 82.5

I round up- 83 now let's divide that by 8 ounces/cup = 10.3 rounded to 10.5 glasses/day.

#11: Avoid Starches: This one isn't in the actual rules but later in the pamphlet it sort of mentions not to eat a lot of starches. So I've added it here for my own personal benefit.

There is a lot to process with all of this information and if you haven't left the page yet out of disgust of all these horrible no good very bad rules (that are really amazingly good for you) here is a very important tip. Read your labels! Gluten and soy are hidden in everything. Make sure your list of ingredients is clear, short and you know everything thats in it. Spices are okay, but if your product says "Natural Seasonings" but doesn't explain what those are, it has gluten in it and possibly soy. If you cannot pronounce it- its either a preservative, a fake sugar (bad), or gluten. Don't eat it.

So here is the recap of The Rules (as promised).

#1: NO Gluten

#2: NO Soy

#3: NO Dairy

#4: NO Sugar

#5: Eat Organic

#6: NO Processed Foods

#7: NO Alcohol

#8: NO Caffeine

#9: NO Yeast

#10: Water Water Water (drink it)

#11: Avoid Starches

Preview: Coming up soon from me- the list of okay foods. This should be short as there is not a whole lot left we can eat. (Remember my slogan! hah!)

I want to point out that neither Lazy nor I are medical professionals. We are not nutritionist or personal trainers. If you want to follow along here- please go talk to your medical peeps before starting. Once again, were supervised by a trainer and a nutritionist last year when we did this, and went through classes on it. I will be sharing the information we learned along the way as well as some helpful hints and feel free to follow along- just make sure this is okay for you and your body/health before starting!