One of the most challenging and rewarding activities I have done this year has been the Bodybuidling.com Employee Transformation Challenge. My husband works at BBcom and he entered the challenge. I love to be a part of all things my hubby does, so of course I had to jump on the same boat and do the transformation along with him. I sort of knew it would be a big commitment, but I never expected it to rule over my life for three months. My days looked something like this:
– Wake up and do 25 minutes of fasted morning cardio.
– Go to kitchen and eat oatmeal and coffee (best part of my day right there!).
– Go to the gym and do 1-1 ½ hours of weight lifting and cardio.
– Speed home, get ready for the non-profit I was working at and drive like a maniac to get there on time.
– Work and make sure I ate my boring lunch every 2-3.
– Drive home, cook and prepare our lunch boxes for the next day.
– Sleep out of exhaustion.
– Wake up and repeat.
*Side note: social life went bye-bye at this point
The hardest part by far…our boring, cleaner than clean, meals. We had to eat super healthy with the trainer we were following: broiled or grilled protein, veggies, and slow digestive carbs (yams, oatmeal, brown rice, brown pasta). Blah. Every single meal we were limited to these and only these things. Meals got boring after day one. We survived ninety days of them! Ninety. Our trainer program didn’t allow the fun Paleo stuff! We couldn’t have fruits, nuts, and we had to reduce fats to only protein fats.
But you know what…the results were so incredibly satisfying that I forgot all about the boring meals and the tough workouts. We ROCKED our transformation. Preston (hubby) won second place! He looked like a superhero. I couldn’t technically participate because I wasn’t an employee L, but I was very proud of myself and my results! Body fat went from fifteen percent to nine percent, and my abs were so cut that I could probably hold a piece of paper in between them when I flexed! Ok, that was a weird visual.
I started eating Paleo right after the trainer was over. And seriously, it was the best.thing.ever. No joke. Are you kidding?! I could eat bacon????? And fruits?! And nuts?! Whaaaaa??? Heaven.
Our favorite Paleo dinner appetizer was either yam fries or bacon. But how, oh how do we combine the two? We knew we needed to figure that one out since it was sort of a lot of work to stuff them in our mouths one at a time. We wanted to savor both at once! One night, we got enlightened. Boom, just like that. Yam fries wrapped with BACON strips. They lasted, um, about 30 seconds. Three large yams entered our bodies faster than the oven could cool off. Give my Bacon Wrapped Yam Fries a try, they won’t disappoint.
Get the full recipe here!
