Happy Friday! Are you going out with girls, hanging out at home on the couch with a bottle of wine, celebrating the end of a week with a big bowl of ice cream? Not me! Sigh… Monday marked the start of my 40 day health/nutrition challenge which involves basically cutting out all the goooood stuff (that’s actually bad for you) from your diet. So what am I doing this Friday night? Umm… not drinking wine or eating dessert. [insert angry face]

A lot of people have asked me why I even wanted to do this in the first place. And that’s a great question! First off I want to say that in no way shape or form am I doing this to lose weight. That would be unhealthy! I am really happy with how my body is physically. Of course I’m always trying to get toned, but there’s a big difference between gaining muscle mass and wanting to lose weight. Oh and I probably partially wanted to do it because I’m a bit competitive, not to the extent of being annoying, but I’m always aiming for fourth place! Ha, kidding–if you’re not first you’re last! (Also kidding…) But seriously, my Pure Barre studio is hosting this Pure40 challenge and there is a prize for the person who accumulates the most points (points are good, they mean you’re following the rules) so of course it’s a bit of an extra incentive.

So why am I putting myself through what I would consider a form of cruel and unusual punishment? One main reason: ACNE! It’s no secret here that I struggle with acne. It’s something I’ve been dealing with since high school and what makes me really emotional (I’m talking, break-down crying just from looking at myself in the mirror) sometimes is the fact that when I look in the mirror it looks like it’s something I’m going to continue dealing with for a while. At this point I feel like I’ve tired everything under the sun (aside from Acutane because, scary!) to get rid of my acne and nothing has worked. Sure every once in a while I feel like something starts to work and then all of a sudden my acne is back and worse than ever. The one thing I’ve always been too lazy, or quite honestly, too scared to try (yes really!) is cutting sugar out of my diet. More on this below…

Cupcake is now a trigger word for me.

I’ve always been addicted to sugar, but I’ve also always kept a pretty healthy diet (aside from my sweets). You’ll never catch me snacking on chips or popcorn (unless I’m watching Scandal!) or, gosh I don’t even know what other snacks are out there because I just don’t eat them! With that being said, I eat a LOT of chocolate. After lunch you can be sure I’ll have a cookie (or three), and after dinner if I don’t have my dessert then something is seriously wrong. Oh, and did I forget to mention I start every morning off with chocolate chip pancakes? Yep! Well…not anymore.

Right now I don’t know what the outcome of this detox will be. Will I stick with cutting sugar out of my diet after these forty days, will I go back to my old ways, or will I find some middle ground? Not sure! On the one hand I really want to see my acne clear up from these changes in my diet, but on the other hand I don’t. Cutting out all the food I enjoy sucks, a lot! I love wine, not to drink it to get drunk, but because I love expanding my palette, trying new flavors, learning new things! And I love sweets because they’re comforting, because they’re my way to indulge, and because just like with wine, I love baking and learning new recipes!

On the other hand though, I of course want this detox to ameliorate my acne! That would be amazing! I think I could exercise a bit more control and grab for fruit instead of cookies, and maybe I would only have chocolate chip pancakes on the weekend…Wine of course is something I know I’ll introduce back into my diet because, well, wine! But now I know I don’t have to have a glass every night with dinner. Maybe every other night? Hmm… still a work in progress!

So cheers to the weekend! (with my 16oz S’well water bottle, because oh yeah, we have to drink half our body weight in ounces each day, ugg!) And cheers to five days in and only thirty-five more to go!

Would you ever consider doing such an extreme detox like this? Let me know what you think/if you’ve done one previously!!