Day 8, Sunday April 25th

"My advice is to go into something and stay with it until you like it... you can't like it until you obtain expertise in that endeavor, and once you are an expert, it's a pleasure."
Milton Garland

By the time you are done with the 12 weeks you will all be experts - you will all slowly but surely begin to enjoy the process and by the end will you each find the pleasure within the discipline. Don't believe me, believe everyone else who has already done it.

Yesterdays results: Jody took 1st place in the women's open division against some tough competition. She has never looked better on stage. Nick finished 2nd, Jeff 3rd and Jim 5th in their division - although I didn't place in my division I won for best poser and was very happy with how I looked as I get ready for my next show 8 weeks out... I have another 5 pounds to lose. Congrats to everyone and THANK YOU to everyone who showed last night!!! You will see pictures soon.

Answer to common questions:
1) Alcohol is a carb - it is a VERY fast acting carb... faster than sugar and therefore the "source" of that alcohol doesn't matter. Wine at least has some health benefits for the grape. Of course you don't need wine to get the benefit... you could just eat GRAPES!
2) The cheat meal day - on cheat meal days you have 1 less container of carbs and NO ADDITIONAL FATS for the day... your cheat meal can absolutely have fat in it and even if it doesn't it doesn't matter... we are taking away those 2 things to control calories... that's it.
3) Dairy - specifically Greek yogurt. I'm not saying you can't ever have this again... I'm saying you can't have it for 12 weeks. Whether you think it is beneficial for you or not remains to be seen... we will find that out over time. You will learn a lot about dairy in 2 weeks from today.
4) Organic rice cakes are fine as a carb... remember, about 65-70 grams of carbs is considered a container.
5) 2 tablespoons of almond butter is a serving of fats, about 2/3 of a medium avocado is a serving of fat... read the labels on the bottles and jars and you will see that each serving of oil, nut butters, etc are all around 15 grams as a serving - that is why we make 15 grams a serving... it makes it easy when you read the label.
6) Veggies - eat as many as you want (that includes onions, peppers and mushrooms) if you saute them cook as little as possible... the benefit with almost all veggies is in the raw form. Tomatoes have benefits to being cooked, but we consider tomato a fruit.