No Sugar No Carb 10 Day Diet Plan
New Year's Day is typically the time for resolutions and promises to do better—to take advantage of a fresh start.
But after a whirlwind year, my New Year came and went without much thought about resolutions, thanks to a much-needed tequila-filled vacation with my boyfriend, Jay, in Cancun. But in the blink of an eye, we were back in New York. Suddenly, I woke up one Saturday morning and realized it was already the middle of February. Lying on the couch that afternoon binge-watching a show—restless, but too exhausted to think of any plans to make—a thought hit me: I am in a rut.
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On the surface, everything in my life was great. I've been in my dream job running this very website for seven months, and every day, I walk into work beyond grateful for the gig. But having the dream job has also meant that I've had to put my career first—and myself, somewhere after that.
That constant hustle at work resulted in a lot of mindless stress-eating; I often wouldn't realize I'd gotten to the end of a late night snack until my fingers touched the bottom of the bag. And on Sundays, with the thought of another busy week ahead, ordering pizza rather than cooking a healthy meal always seemed like the better option. Oh, and the gym? It was somewhere I would go every so often to zone out on the elliptical and blow off steam. It was hard to believe that the previous April, I had completed my first 10K. Less than a year later, I had gained nearly 15 pounds, and the idea of running was a distant memory of a thing I'd once tried—and forgotten.
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My relationship had also fallen down on the priority list, too. Thankfully, Jay is the kind of guy who can make any bad day seem better and is an incredibly supportive boyfriend when it comes to my work. He regularly delivers the sort of motivating pep talks you typically only see in sports movies, and he gets a genuine thrill watching how many of you guys are on this site at any given moment. Still, there was no question that my busy schedule and often distracted brain had put a strain on our relationship. Back in the post-vacation bubble real world, I could feel that we desperately needed something that was for us.
That afternoon on the couch, during one of many endless Instagram scrolls (too much time on social media, by the way, likely also contributed to my rut—but that's a story for another day), I landed on Jennifer Lopez's feed. Okay, fine, full disclosure: As a self-professed J.Lo superfan since her album On the 6 , I "land" on her feed often. But that day, I saw that she and her boyfriend, former Yankee champ Alex Rodriguez, had posted something they were calling a 10 day challenge.
"Join me and Jennifer for a 10-day challenge," A-Rod captioned a video of him and J.Lo working out at the gym. "No carbs, no sugar. Who's in?"
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Something about the post made me sit up at attention. It could have been my love for J.Lo, or the fact that I often get eye rolls from Jay because I assert that we are basically J.Lo and A-Rod, since like them, I'm Puerto Rican and he's Dominican. Or maybe it was the soaring workout-friendly music A-Rod had playing in the background of the video. Whatever it was, something in my brain clicked. Both Jay and I had struggled with maintaining fitness and weight loss goals in the past; why couldn't this be the thing to help us finally do it?
I'll be honest, while I'd like to say losing actual pounds wasn't a part of it, it definitely was; while I'll never aspire to be skinny, I wanted to get back down to the weight I know I feel most comfortable in my skin. But I also just wanted to regain control of myself and my life—and feel better. Jay, meanwhile, had been wanting to push himself to finally complete the fitness goals he's never quite been able to reach, and also find a way to balance a healthy lifestyle with his unpredictable schedule as a real estate broker. I quickly texted him the video of J.Lo and A-Rod with the note: We should do this. He immediately responded: I'm down.
And just like that, we found ourselves embarking on a 10 day challenge of eating no sugar and no carbs, with the goal of working out a minimum of seven out of the 10 days. Of course, this was a big undertaking to do on our own. So I reached out to trainer and lifestyle coach Dodd Romero, who trained Rodriguez for years (and is godfather to his two daughters). He's the one who created the challenge for A-Rod and J.Lo, whom he says was looking to get in even better shape for her role as a stripper in the upcoming movie Hustlers.
Instead of a day-by-day diary (because I'm pretty sure no one wants to read endless paragraphs about my daily pizza fantasies), after we survived our 10 days, I compiled a list of the most important things I think anyone considering 10 days without sugar or carbs should consider—including Romero's tips on how to do it right.
What you can eat—and what you can't.
Before taking on this challenge, I had no idea just how many foods have either carbs or sugar—or both. In my mind, sugar meant obvious sweets, and carbs were, ya know, bread-y things. But Romero—who was inspired to start the challenge by a story in the Bible where the prophet Daniel fasts by eating only vegetables and water for 10 days as a show of faith—set me straight. Most fruits (including my smoothie go-tos like bananas, mangos, and pineapples) have sugar and carbs, and even something simple like pasta sauce includes added sugars—and, yes, carbs.
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"Basically in this challenge, anything with sugar or carbs shouldn't go in the body—you'll get your necessary carbohydrates from vegetables, but you're taking out starchy and complex carbs, plus anything with sugar," Romero advised me. "You want to focus on lean protein, which includes turkey, fish, egg whites, chicken, and lean or grass-fed beef. For sides, the key is to trick your mind into thinking it's eating carbs with low-carb substitutes like spaghetti squash and cauliflower rice. Add some spiralized spaghetti squash to pasta sauce, and you can almost convince yourself you're eating actual spaghetti."
As a serial snacker, though, my biggest question was: What the heck can I eat at that awkward 4 p.m. hour between lunch and dinner when I suddenly feel overcome with hunger?
"Replace anything you'd eat from a bag or can with things like avocados, nuts, and seeds, as well as vegetables," Romero said. He added that when J.Lo and A-Rod got desperate, their snacks included sugar-free Jell0, sugar-free popsicles, protein shakes, and protein pancakes—made with protein powder, no flour, and topped with sugar-free syrup.
So essentially, for over a week you're pretty much just eating protein and vegetables. The hardest part about that—aside from the hunger pangs and temptation—is the planning. I ordered a bunch of those fancy meal bento box-style prep containers from Amazon Prime, and the night before our challenge began, I prepped meals to get us started for the week. Here's what I generally ate during the 10-day challenge:
- Breakfast: Egg whites and turkey bacon with avocado, or smoothies with kale, spinach, almond milk, berries, and just a little pineapple. (Yes, they have carbs, but I am a human being who needs flavor, after all!)
- Lunch: Salads, salads, and more salads. I'd basically roam our company's cafeteria for a good 10 minutes every day seeing what vegetables I could toss onto my bed of spinach or mixed greens with a little bit of balsamic vinegar. Not the most creative approach, but it worked.
- Dinner 1: Meat sauce with sausage and lean ground turkey, made with Rao's marinara sauce, which has no sugar and a small amount of carbs. Instead of noodles, we did zucchini noodles (which I bought pre-made at the grocery store, because who has time to spiralize zucchinis?) and a side of roasted broccoli.
- Dinner 2: Grilled garlic butter parsley shrimp with cauliflower rice, avocado, and a pico de gallo salsa, plus a side salad.
- Dinner 3: Cilantro lime grilled chicken with roasted Brussels sprouts (mixed with crispy turkey bacon), avocado, and a side of cauliflower rice.
- Dinner 4: Cauliflower rice bowls (can you tell "cauli rice" became a staple side for us? When you're desperate, it really does taste just like rice!) with ground turkey, pico de gallo, and avocado. (Pro tip: Add a squirt of lemon on top of the whole thing and it really takes it to the next level.)
- Snacks: Plain almonds (okay, a few times I cheated with honey roasted almonds, because is there anything more dry than plain almonds?); plain sunflower seeds; sugar free Jello; sliced cucumbers; sliced avocado with tomato and a small sprinkle of salt.
The workout plan: Cardio.
Romero recommends working out during the 10 day challenge, with a specific focus on cardio.
"After your third day without sugar and carbs is when you really start to notice something's happening in your body," said Romero. "That's what I love about this plan, because especially after the fourth or fifth day, you get triple dividends with your cardio because there's less glycogen—the energy we get from carbs—in your system, which means your body has to burn fat instead to give you energy."
Translation, according to Romero: When you haven't been eating carbs, one hour of cardio can be equivalent to two, because your body is depleted and working double duty. So even though you may feel like working out and a stricter diet is a lot, it's worth it. Plus, J.Lo and A-Rod always post adorable #couplegoals workout snaps on Instagram, so if they could do it, so could we!
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Only problem? For Jay and I, squeezing a workout into our busy schedules was tricky; for him, he has occasional apartment showings that go late into the evening, and more often than not, I'm spending late nights at the office. Which meant to really stay consistent, these two non-morning people would have to set the alarm much earlier in order to squeeze in a minimum of 45 minutes (our personal goals) of elliptical and treadmill time in the mornings. Plus, Romero recommends morning workouts.
Cardio should be done before you put any food in your body.
"Cardio should be done before you put any food in your body," he says. 'They call that fasted cardio, because again, your body will be working harder to burn fat and give you energy."
And the secret to J.Lo abs?
"Do your ab workouts before you do your cardio, so they're pre-stimulated and ready to take some heat. Abs are like butter: If you put them in the sun, they're gonna melt."
The lows...
And now, on to my least favorite parts about this experience.
Days 3 and 4. At the end of Day 3, I literally stopped in my tracks to tell our deputy editor, Brie: Sugar withdrawal is real. I felt like a zombie and for two days, I had constant headaches. Not to mention that working at O, we're constantly inundated with free treats ranging from leftover pizza from meetings to a delivery of McDonald's donut fries (true story) that truly tested my will power. I was cranky, to say the least, and started texting Jay things like "This is no way to live!" "Coffee without creamer is disgusting," and "What kind of diet doesn't even include bananas?!"
Early wake up calls. As mentioned, we are not morning people, so Jay won the MVP award for not letting me hit snooze too many times the first few days of this challenge—because I was not about that waking-up-to-workout life. All I could think when I opened my eyes was "I still technically have a whole 'nother hour and a half until I actually have to wake up for work..."
Being on-the-go...without your meal preps. All the meal prep in the world doesn't help when life comes at you fast. When Jay and I were dealing with a sick family member, I found myself in the waiting room of the emergency room for hours, staring at the processed-food stocked vending machine in despair. And on a day out in the city with my pregnant friend, while she indulged her Magnolia cupcake craving, I sipped from a bottle of water. Which leads me to...
RIP my social life. There's also no alcohol allowed in this challenge, and my friends were quick to tease me for doing "dry January" a month late. On a Friday evening before I left work, Jay called me during the time we would've normally figured out where to go for what had become a standing end-of-week dinner-and-drinks wind down. Instead, we reluctantly made plans to...meet up at home and eat a meal prep. And maybe a little sugar free Jello!
...And the highs!
I actually started to like morning workouts. I know, I know. Admittedly, I never quite got excited to jump out of bed when the alarm went off each day, but after the cardio, I felt that elusive runner's high and was ready to take on the day. And some tips from followers who were cheering for me on Instagram were super helpful: Go to bed earlier (I know this seems like a duh, but as a night owl, I struggle to actually fall asleep before midnight every day), and lay out your workout clothes the night before.
After Day 4, I started to see results. Like Romero promised, after the fourth day, I saw some noticeable changes in my body. In addition to feeling like I was losing weight, my stomach was less bloated and flatter, and Jay commented that even my hands looked less, um, adorably pudgy. This was all likely the result of less inflammation thanks to my decreased sugar intake, which Romero had told me would happen.
I felt better. After I got through the (very, very difficult) No-Sugar-Zombie stage, I felt my energy actually increase, and I was generally in a great mood. My body was feeling lighter—not just in weight, but also stress. The heavy, weighed-down feeling that had come over me when I was in the middle of my rut started to slowly but surely recede. I felt happy and active, and no longer longing to spend the weekend zoned out on my couch with a bag of whatever processed foods I could find.
Ok, so final verdict: Is this challenge worth it?
Short answer, for me? Yes.
I don't like to focus too much on the numbers on the scale, specifically—as someone whose weight has fluctuated over the years, I know all too well that you can weigh the same number at different stages of your life and look completely different.
Still, for a challenge like this, weight helps you measure your progress. By the end of the 10 days, I had lost 7.1 pounds. Jay lost 9.2. (Not that it was ever a competition, but, for the record, studies show that men do indeed lose weight faster than women. So you can stop rubbing it in my face now, babe.)
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Seeing that number was encouraging because yes, I had lost weight. But it was also numerical proof that I had lost a lot of negative energy—and some bad habits. After the 10 days were up, I thought I would run straight to the nearest pizzeria. But I actually found that I was no longer craving sugar or carbs—in fact, I didn't eat anything with sugar or carbs until two whole days after the challenge ended. (So I really did a 12 day challenge!)
But enough was enough, and that Saturday, Jay and I treated ourselves to a burger and pizza (and beignets with vanilla ice cream for dessert—don't judge) from one of our favorite restaurants. And while we both enjoyed every single (and I mean every) bite, the next morning, we each confessed that we didn't feel great. I was way too full, and the mental and physical lightness that I'd achieved by the end of the challenge was already feeling foggy.
Romero told me that J.Lo and A-Rod are currently cycling their 10 day challenges—which means that they're doing 10 days of no sugar no carbs, taking a five day break that includes healthy carbs, and then starting it over again.
While Jay and I aren't committing to that level of dedication, we both ended the challenge feeling inspired to lead a healthier lifestyle — and now, we know that we can do it. And while it may have happened for me almost two months late into 2019, the 10 day challenge taught me: Resolutions and fresh starts can happen any day of the year.
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No Sugar No Carb 10 Day Diet Plan
Source: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/food/a26552775/jlo-arod-no-sugar-no-carb-challenge/