Day 12--Lessons Learned

MORNING
I weighed myself this morning, and I'm down 8.2 pounds. I've made the executive decision to try to drink 1.5 gallons of water a day. We'll see how I do...

BREAKFAST
Can you guess??

Meal 34 of 63:

fresh fruit

So going on people's advice, I opted to have some "p" fruits today--plums and peaches. I added them to my regular cantaloupe, blueberries, and strawberries. The peach and plum were delicious. I really enjoy eating fruit in the morning. Have I said that yet? As mom and I ate, I explained to her the purpose of the fruit. According to the DVD, since we don't eat food for roughly 12 hours between dinner and breakfast, the body needs something easy to digest as the body wakes up. Fruit is an easy food for the body to digest. In one meal, I'm eating all my daily servings of fruit. It is surprising how easy it is to survive until lunch. Maybe it has something to do with my water intake, but I'm not often hungry for lunch after eating the fruit. Maybe it's the water...maybe it's my stomach shrinking. Either way, I'm satisfied.

LUNCH
As I said yesterday, I wanted to try out the miso soup...

Meal 35 of 63:

hearty vegetable-miso soup

microgreen salad with creamy garlic dressing (my fave)

The prep work for this soup wasn't so bad. I actually preferred the prep for this soup over the prep for the sweet potato soup. The only down side is that it does take a long time to cook because the vegetables have to become tender. It's the first time I've worked with bok choy which I already knew I enjoyed. One nice thing about this system is that it forces you to interact with vegetables that you may not be accustomed to eating or using. I don't hate ginger as much as I used to since I've learned how to handle it better.

I couldn't eat my salad. I was full enough from the soup. I did, however, take a couple bites of tomato since they are from homegrown plants courtesy of my chiropractor from Earth Day. Yayy!

DINNER
I was really excited for this meal since eating the root medley during the first week.

Meal 36 of 63:

Mediterranean roast beets

collard greens

quinoa

So yummy! I've had collard greens before but never this way. We added coconut milk to it to give it a creamy texture. It was so yummy! It has a slightly bitter taste as the end. Apparently it's similar to brussel sprouts (which I don't eat--yuck). The flavors of this dinner were very good but very overwhelming. In the end, I was only able to eat about half of the beets, quinoa, and collard greens. Stephanie was more than happy to help Brandon finish the plate.

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Mom asked me what I've learned through this process (besides eating cleaning). Here are some responses:

• measurement conversions (ie, 3 tsp. = 1 Tbsp.)
• HOW to cook as I am not the most stellar chef there is
• various recipes to incorporate into daily life
• new vegetables (ie, jicama, swiss chard, kale, bok choy, etc.)
• multitasking in the kitchen
• reading recipes more efficiently
• portion control--you don't need to eat as much as you think
• when hungry, drink water FIRST--then wait a half hour to decide
• water is your friend
• steaming vegetables should only take 3-5 mins--NO MORE
• never use the microwave to reheat food because it kills all the good vitamins and nutrients
• I CAN survive without meat.

I'm sure I had more, but my memory is failing me. The excitement of True Blood and The Newsroom are distracting me.

Until tomorrow! Oh, and I only have to take Detox 6 more times! Alkalinize is only 9 more times! Current water consumption = 144 oz (1 gal = 128 oz), and I'm not done yet. Hip hip!!