My First Arbonne 30 Day Plan to Healthy Living – Week One

30 Days to Healthy LivingWondering what this 30 day plan is all about, check out the Arbonne 30 Days to Healthy Living and Beyond Plan.  Are you thinking of doing the plan yourself?  This is my diary entries for the first week, I thoroughly recommend the plan although I must admit that I didn’t do it cold turkey.

Read about my pre-30 day plan journey here.

This is just my diary entries, if you have any queries then please ask me in the comments or head over to my facebook page.

January 1st 2018

Well it’s day one of the plan ‘proper’ as they say.  I have lost 0.2kg since my last weigh in (but please remember it was Christmas!).

Last night (or I should say early this morning) my daughter was out for NYE and there was some drama which saw her get home quite late this meant that I went to bed about 1.30, 1.45 so I overslept this morning and didn’t go for a walk as by the time I got up it was too hot and humid for walking.

I started my day with a vanilla meal replacement shake with fibre added and I just made it up with water – delicious!

I’m feeling very excited about the next 30 days even though my husband has decided to make what smells like a very delicious cooked breakfast this morning!

I have also had a mug of Arbonne herbal tea.  I make it before I have my shake and leave it seeping, then when I rinse out my glass I pull the bag and enjoy the drink – I really do enjoy having this first thing in the morning.

I’m keeping the tea bag as I found out the other day that you can easily reuse it again and it’s strong enough for a second mug during the day.  As my mum is staying with me and she has more cups of tea during the day then I have been having (thanks to my cutting down and increasing the water intake in place of it) it’ll be handy to have a second one to keep her company if I feel like it.

Lunch was a chocolate meal replacement with a scoop of greens balance, water and 6 frozen cherries – you’re supposed to only have berries, but I have been enjoying having the cherries and I thought I’d just continue to do so, hopefully it’s not too bad to be doing this.

Off to the shops once everyone has finished their lunch and we can pick up some goodies for the next few days – no morning snack although that’s only because I was up late as after about 4 hours I get a pit in my stomach the shake doesn’t usually let me go much longer so I need to decide which snacks I’m having in the morning and which I’ll allow myself in the afternoon.

I had a few mixed nuts and half a dozen blueberries mid afternoon and then made myself a pomegranate fizz stick with double the amount of water it recommends.   It didn’t make me feel sick like the first time I had one so obviously I need to dilute it more – I diluted it in about 800 ml, I think a litre would have been better, but it was the size of my glass so…

I can’t wait to make dinner – I’m not following the meal plan in the facebook group because to be honest I didn’t like the look of it, plus I’ve still got people staying  so the next few days are meals that meet all of the requirements but can also be adapted for other people very easily.

creamy chicken in sundried tomato sauce with salad and riceTonight for dinner I made chicken in a creamy sundried tomato sauce – no I didn’t actually use cream – the creaminess came from coconut cream and the result was amazing.

This is the recipe I based it on, I chose to cut the chicken breasts up into chunks and I also quickly steamed some green beans for 1 minute in the microwave and added them to the sauce when I added the cooked chicken back to the pan.

My family absolutely loved it as I served it up with brown rice and some broccolini for them.  For myself I had less rice and also had a handful of spinach on my plate.  There were some left over and I think I’ll eat that with some roasted sweet potato and maybe some broccoli or a salad.

Feeling great for the first day – roll on day 2!

January 2nd 2018

Went for my walk today and we come across a tree blocking the path – did I let that get in the way?  Not at all, I’m SMASHING 2018!  When I got home my legs felt quite shaky as though I’d walked/run way further than usual which surprised me.

I have since seen (living in Australia I’m getting the tips in the facebook group later than everyone else as when they’re starting their day I’m finishing mine!) that we shouldn’t really be pushing ourselves on the exercise front until day 3 or 4 as our bodies are working hard to eliminate the toxins.

I’m going to carry on with my walking, but I won’t increase it too much and I won’t start any other exercise until after mum goes back which is day 6.  It’s also a very humid morning which doesn’t help with the walking.

For breakfast I had a chocolate meal replacement shake with a scoop of fibre (made with water) and an Arbonne herbal tea.

I made a second cup of the herbal tea (from the same teabag) a couple of hours later.

Mixed nuts and a few blueberries made a yummy morning tea and then for lunch I had a vanilla meal replacement with frozen blueberries, a scoop of greens balance and water – not sure about the blueberries and greens balance with the vanilla I must say.

making zoodlesFor dinner I used our spiralizer to make zoodles aka zucchini/courgette noodles and a vegan bolognaise – delicious.

The bolognaise was made with onion, carrot, garlic, can of lentils, can of diced tomatoes, Italian herb mix, homemade vegetable stock, passata and then towards the end I chopped up some baby spinach to add to the mix.

I had a citrus fizzy after dinner as I had forgotten to have one earlier in the day!

Feeling pretty good, roll on day 3.

 January 3rd 2018

Increased my walk slightly today (every little bit helps), I’m not sure how far it actually is probably only 3 kms but I’m feeling really good for starting my morning with it.

Breakfast was a vanilla meal replacement with a scoop of fibre made up with water – I’m certainly enjoying my breakfast shake followed by an Arbonne herbal tea.

There are lots of different shake recipes available so that people don’t get bored, but to be honest most of the time I always ate the same for breakfast anyway so why should I need to try different recipes in the morning?

The humidity has gone this morning after the rain last night and although I think it will be another beautiful day it’s so much easier to walk when you can breathe – today’s going to be a good day!

For morning tea I had a warm boiled egg (I did a couple of extras to put in the fridge for the next couple of days.

Lunch was a chocolate meal replacement shake with a scoop of greens balance and a few cherries.  Now I got some frozen cherries in December when I saw a protein shake recipe that included cherries, but in the group they said you could only have berries, green apple, lemon or lime as fruit so you might not want to copy me – but it was delicious and I’m not letting my frozen cherries go to waste!

I remembered my fizz stick this afternoon, took it before we popped out to an appointment and meant to have a snack when I got back, but I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t have an afternoon snack today.  I have to say that I’m still not that keen on the pomegranate flavour, but by diluting it more (as my cousin suggested) it’s definitely more palatable – my husband tried some today and it reminds him of some sort of medicine he had to take years ago which could be why I’m not too fond of it.  The citrus is definitely my favorite.

Dinner today was a chicken taco salad bowl.  I made chicken taco’s for my husband and mother and vegan fajita pieces for my daughter to have in tacos and I used the chicken as part of my salad bowl.  It also had roasted sweet potato, guacamole, spinach, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrot & cucumber.  Love it!

January 4th 2018

I’m expecting today to be tough as we’re having a day out which usually involves lunch out and snacks in the car as we’re going up the coast.  What I didn’t realize is that most people have problems on day 4 – great timing huh?

Anyway my breakfast was a vanilla meal replacement made up with water and a scoop of fibre followed by the Arbonne herbal tea.

I’m going to be taking a chocolate meal replacement (already made up) with water, cherries, greens balance.  I’m also taking water, a fizz stick sachet, a boiled egg, some nuts and a green apple.

No walk this morning as we are going to look at a lighthouse today and I’m not sure how much walking that will entail, I could still do a walk this evening if the exercise today isn’t much – we’ll see.

Okay so today wasn’t as bad as I thought – I had a boiled egg for my morning tea and then  the chocolate meal replacement shake that I had made up in the morning.  I drank this while my mother and daughter were enjoying lovely looking vegan lunches at a café, but I actually wasn’t too worried about it (very proud of myself).

I also had a fizz stick in the afternoon, but I didn’t need the nuts or apple that I took along so that was good.

We got back late afternoon so took the dog for a walk, probably about 2/3 of the walk we usually do.

creamy chicken on zoodlesDinner was the leftover chicken from Monday served on a bed of zoodles which I had tossed a few pieces of roasted sweet potato (from last night) through and some cherry tomatoes cut in half.  If was really nice.

After dinner I was hanging out for a piece of bread and butter and really wanting carbs!  No one said a great body came without a challenge though did they?

January 5th 2018

Up very early to take mum to the airport today, once I was dressed the dog started doing his excited cry because he thought he was going for a walk (poor thing was left at home!).  When we got back to the airport I decided I would take the dog for a walk as it was only 7, I probably only did about 2/3 of the usual walk (a bit like last night) as I had only got to the intersection down from our house and my legs felt like they’d turned to jelly.  I pushed through, but did change the route.  It was probably due to the fact that I had been up since 5 and hadn’t had anything to eat or drink except water.

I got my vanilla meal replacement shake (made with water and a scoop of fibre) into me once we got home and then enjoyed my herbal tea.

We then had to go out for an appointment and as we were coming back (just after 9) I was hanging out for a nice cuppa – very surprised this craving didn’t come until day 5!  I really feel like I’m struggling, to make it worse I walk in the door to my daughter eating toast.  I don’t know what it is about toast, but the smell just makes you instantly want some – I know I’m not alone in this!

Anyway I decided to make myself a fizz stick and I also had a boiled egg – I am woman, hear me roar!  This seems to be a mantra when I’m struggling, I said it to myself yesterday and again today, not sure why it popped into my head, but I’ll take it if it helps me!

Lunch was a chocolate meal replacement made with water, greens balance and some frozen cherries – delicious!

This afternoon I had a few nuts as a snack and also another fizz stick around 4.30, the lack of enough sleep last night is making me tired and hungry!

I am so tempted to cheat today it’s not funny, but I’m holding on thinking of how great I’m going to look and feel at the end of the 30 days – I know I would be feeling a lot better if it wasn’t for too little sleep, maybe I need to work on a vision board for moments when I’m feeling weak – have you tried this idea, apparently it’s really good for helping you to focus.  I tried it years and years ago when we were saving for our first house, but I don’t think I found it very helpful … I might do now though ((shrugs))

Dinner tonight was leftover chicken taco on top of a plate of salad with roasted sweet potato in it for the complex carbs – delicious.  I also think that I’ll probably have the same tomorrow as there was more left over than I expected and hubby didn’t feel like it tonight instead he had some leftover pork from his dinner last night (I don’t eat pork).

Feeling a lot better since dinner time as I really can feel a difference in my body, I’m really excited to see what my weight is on Monday and as for what I’ll look like by the end of the month ,,, I’m not wishing my life away, but I’m so keen to get there.

January 6th 2018

My feet feel like they need a foot massage this morning and it is Saturday so we’re having a rest from walking – the dog has been watching me like a hawk in case I try and go without him!

Breakfast is my vanilla meal replacement shake with a scoop of fibre and water, I’m thinking of mixing it up tomorrow – stay tuned!

I also have a delicious herbal tea to wash it down with.

For my morning snack today I put a spoonful of almond butter on a plate and then sliced up a green apple and basically dipped the sliced apple into the almond butter – very nice and a very pleasant change.

Lunch time I thought I’d change it up a bit as well.  I only added 200ml of water to the blender instead of 250ml, chocolate meal replacement powder, greens balance and then I got a few fresh blueberries and strawberries (quartered) – I put half of the berries in the blender and kept half to one side.   Once I blitzed it up I poured it into a bowl to find it wasn’t really thick enough for a smoothie bowl LOL! – I popped the remainder of the fresh berries on top along with 3 almonds and a brazil nut which I had roughly chopped.  It was a nice change and made me feel like I was eating as I had a bowl and spoon – might have to actually look up some of the smoothie bowl recipes next time so I can get my quantities together.

I had a fizz stick this afternoon and as we were hulling strawberries for freezing I did eat a couple of them along with a few nuts for a snack.

Dinner was chicken and salad (with roasted sweet potato) and that will be the same tomorrow – Monday will see a bit more of a variety, but I don’t mind I like chicken and salad (especially with sweet potato) even when I’m not trying to lose weight and get healthy.

January 7th 2018

This morning I slept in until 8, talk about feeling refreshed.  The secret?  We were sleeping in the spare room with the fan on (ours died and the heat and humidity have been killers!).  Consequently no walk again this morning although it’s now 11 am and my feet are feeling back to normal so tomorrow morning the dog will be very happy again and the walking will continue!

Breakfast was a vanilla meal replacement made with water, a scoop of fibre a few fresh blueberries and some fresh strawberries.  I also had a few of the fresh berries on the side as well which made a nice change.  I left my herbal tea steeping while talking to hubby and nearly forgot about it!  Luckily it was still warm so I drank it down, I can’t believe I nearly forgot my morning cuppa – how quickly things change, there was a time I didn’t get out of bed before having a cup of tea (and we’re not talking herbal tea here!)

chicken salad bowlLunch was chocolate meal replacement made with water, a scoop of greens balance and the last of my frozen cherries … no more ‘cheating’ as I’m only supposed to be eating berries!  Berries/cherries shrug!  So delicious, even my daughter sneaked a sip and said ‘yum’, I had to get that glass of her real quick – she’s eating food, not my shake for lunch LOL!

This afternoon I had a fizz stick and also a green apple with almond butter (this is fast becoming one of my favorite snacks!).

Dinner was a salad with a small bit of rice because there was some roasted sweet potato in the salad, but not quite enough, also some homemade guacamole and some chicken – it looked and tasted absolutely fantastic.

Weigh day tomorrow morning, I’m feeling good I just hope the scales and measurements tell the same story as I’m feeling.   Check out Week Two!

NOTE: The products mentioned are all available through Arbonne. I am an Arbonne Consultant so if you purchase through my shop – louannecox.arbonne.com I will be compensated (at NO cost to you). Message me through Facebook or Instagram with any questions

Reminder: In case you’re new here all Arbonne products are available with a 45 day money back guarantee so if you don’t like them you can send them back for a full refund – you literally have nothing to lose, it’s basically a free trial!

Leave a Reply