Hey Y’all!
Holy, I can’t even believe that it’s pretty much October already. Where did the end of summer go!?
I haven’t done a challenge since August, and lets face it – I got so smokin busy with my day job, that the pull up and head stand challenge sort of fell through the cracks. SO – I’ve got another one that I am going to stick to this month, and it’s more of a food/diet challenge, vs physical. I’ve got some workout stuff I’m going to work on this month too, of course – but the main focus is going to be on this Kombucha/Tea challenge, and here’s why;
Back in February, I did an allergy test with my naturopath because I was having skin issues, and digestive upset. Without going into too much detail, the test came back showing that I had ‘leaky gut’. The quick and dirty explanation of this is that the intestines have ‘holes’ and aren’t functioning properly, so yeast, toxins and lots of other bad stuff is getting into the blood stream. Super fixable if you catch it and change your eating habits to correct it 🙂 If you don’t catch it, it can lead to things like diabetes, arthritis and many other things.
ANYWAY – I changed my habits and did the best I could with a pretty restrictive diet, and I am set to retest again in a month, and see if I can reintroduce some of the foods I had to cut out (fingers crossed!). In order to ensure I put my best foot forward to do the retest, I am doing a 1 month kombucha/tea challenge to make sure I am in tip top shape!
You’ll notice though, that the title of this post includes ‘weight management’ – Read on to see why!
Why kombucha?
Man – how much time do you have? I guess the main reason would be the probiotics. Probiotics are a HUGE part of gut health and kombucha is loaded with them! It has a fantastic ability to detox the body, and it’s super immune boosting because of all the antioxidants.
The challenge also requires drinking 3 cups of tea a day. This is no problem as I usually have upwards of 5-6 cups a day. But the types and the order is what’s really important!
Morning – oolong tea
– oolong tea is known for its ability to help speed up your metabolism. So this is a great thing to have at the beginning of your day
Before lunch – white tea
– white tea is of course full of antioxidants, but it also helps to BLOCK fat absorption, so have it before you eat
After Dinner – green tea
– green tea is known to help with the break down of triglycerides (fat cells), so they can be burned as energy instead of stored as fat. BONUS! Drink after meals.
Have your kombucha at any point of the day, wherever it fits! Just make sure to have 1 kombucha, and your oolong, white and green tea, in order, every day!!! It’s a lot to ask – I know! But for me, it’s things I’m having anyway for the most part, just having them in a particular order, and also paying more attention to the type of teas I am having!
I have to say – this whole challenge wouldn’t be happening without my friends over at Nineteen-02 . I toyed with the idea of doing some kind of a kombucha challenge but didn’t know what it would look like. When I mentioned it to them, they were like ‘oh, we did that with some people at the gym here last month… ‘. Of course they had. They’re so on it I should have known. The people they did it with at the gym were interesting in losing that last few pounds, and this challenge helped with that!
Also, I wouldn’t have thought to add in the specific teas at specific times – so I was stoked to have the direction from them —- not to mention they supported me with their AMAZING Kombucha.
I will post updates on my journey through this month with AMPLE tea and kombucha, and see how I’m feeling. Excited to give this a go 🙂
Stay tuned~!
~ xo Andrea ~