… only, I DO eat healthy and work out! Sigh. I really should have known better.

About a month ago, a good friend of mine who is a distributor of AdvoCare products talked me into doing their 24 day challenge. He made a really good case for it and I have absolutely no doubt that his intentions were 100% honest and genuine. I honestly do think that he did think that these products would help me to shed some weight. I just want to get that out of the way, so there’s no confusion there. I don’t feel as though I was swindled or duped in any way.

I am not going to rehash my feelings about my weight/physical appearance as I have done so many times on here. I am sure you don’t want to read more whining. (If you do, for some strange reason, see Exhibit A)

I really tried to not put any hope in the fact that this set of supplements would work for me, but sadly, there was a small part of me that did. I had heard so many stories about people that had used them and had fantastic results. One of the coaches at our gym is a distributor and posts pictures sometimes of people’s results, so naturally, I thought “why not me”? Yeah. Not me. Never me.

I did it for 24 days and there was VERY little difference in weight, body fat percentage, physical appearance, or how my clothes fit.

From what I hear, usually, people start to see some changes during the initial 10 day “cleanse” (read: “bullshit”) phase. I saw nothing. Concerned, I called my friend who sold me these products and he connected me with whomever is above him in the pyramid. The person I spoke to is a sports nutritionist and was very nice. We talked for a bit, and to be perfectly honest, he told me to “get more protein” and pretty much to zone. I attribute my whopping 2lb weight loss to the fact that I started eating more protein and trying to zone my meals more. He also told me to drink A LOT of water, which I did.

It should be noted that the only part of the challenge where I wasn’t really in compliance was when my parents were here (2 days, but not really bad cheating). It was the last 2 days of the challenge and when I looked at my weight and how my clothes felt on day 21/22, before I ate ANYTHING that I wasn’t supposed to eat, there was little/no difference.

Spark made me REALLY jittery at first. I thought it was b/c of the caffeine, but it was explained that it was because of the high number of B vitamins. Ok, whatever, it still made me jittery. By the end of the 24 days, I guess I was used to it.

I felt little to no difference in my workouts doing the Spark + Catalyst combo right before. In fact, for some workouts, I felt downright horrible. Maybe that’s the lack of sleep from having an infant, but since I’ve been off of them, I haven’t felt that bad again.

The MNS phase was weird as well. I don’t know what was going on, but whatever was in these pills made me feel hyper and made me sweat a TON. It was ridiculous.

I guess, really the only thing that I enjoyed about these products was the breakfast shakes simply due to their convenience. It’s a pain in the ass to cook/prepare breakfast every morning and they did taste pretty good.

Overall, I can’t say that I am satisfied with these products or the claims that they make nor would I recommend them to anyone based on my experience. They have quite a bit of ingredients that I would consider to be questionable (like Splenda a.k.a Sucralose). There are also ingredients that are derived from soy and diary, which, if you are trying to be a Paleo purist (some are, some aren’t), are questionable.

While, I am sure that they work wonders for some people, I sure as hell was not one of them.

Thank God for money back guarantees, eh?