Fit For Life Challenge + Highlights From The Weekend

Hello, hello! Happy Monday, friends! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Here are some highlights from mine!

From top:

• A special someone turned 7 months old on Friday. He’s turning into a little boy right before our eyes!
• On Saturday night, we had some friends over to watch the Pats game. We served Grandma’s wings, veggies dip, chips salsa, habanero BBQ almonds, bacon-wrapped crackers (OMG, so good), and pepperoni pizza.
• Quinn’s newest obsession is car keys. He thinks they are sooooo cool!
• I did a tempo run on the treadmill on Saturday morning with some new kicks on my feet. No knee pain, and I felt pretty great overall.
• Mal, Quinn, and I enjoyed a wonderful sushi lunch with Elizabeth, Nick, and their daughter Grace on Saturday afternoon. As always, it was so nice to see them, and I loved watching Quinn and Grace interact. Too cute.
• Our friends brought us donuts from Donut King and, my goodness, they were incredible. I highly recommend the chocolate-coconut flavor.
• After my tempo run, I listened to a nutrition lecture at KFIT to kick-off the 6-week Fit For Life Challenge.

So, I’m really excited about the Fit For Life Challenge! I feel like I need a little kick in the pants to get me back on track with healthy eating, especially after the holidays (holy cookies). It’s not like I’m eating horribly, but I know I’m not giving it my best effort, ya know? Plus, I’ve eaten like 1,000 peanut M&Ms over the past week or so, so the Challenge is exactly the motivation I need. And, for me, the Fit For Life Challenge, is not about eating 100% clean. There are actually 3 different levels to the Challenge, and I chose the most flexible one, so I’ll be eating an 80/20 diet, which is totally realistic and the way I usually try to eat. And, honestly, I’d never be able to eat 100% clean. Not that I’d ever want to! Life’s too short not to eat delicious food!

As far as what to eat and not eat, the Fit For Life Challenge focuses on whole foods and nixes the usual sugar, fried, highly-refined, packaged, artificial foods, but no food group is off-limits and you are allowed up to 4 “cheats” per week (i.e. cheese, flavored Greek yogurt, dark chocolate). You can even drink alcohol once a week! Well, ok, one serving of alcohol, not like a whole bottle in one sitting. Haha! We’ll also keep track of what we eat in MyFitnessPal, but instead of counting calories, we’ll be focusing on macros (carbs, protein, fat). I’m aiming for 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat.

So, that’s the Challenge in a nutshell. I know I didn’t go into great detail about it, but it’s pretty straight-forward and a lot of it is based on our individual goals. My goals for the Challenge:

• Eat at least one fruit or veggie with every meal.
• Properly fuel and refuel for workouts (i.e. protein versus ALLTHECARBS).
• Don’t lose strength! Do at least two KFIT/CrossFit/basement workouts per week.
• Maintain weight. <