Day 8--Welcome to Phase 2!

MORNING
I woke up and weighed myself this morning: down a total of 7 pounds. Woot! I'm feeling good. Even my headaches seem to be more manageable. They haven't gone away, but they're not as severe as they could be.

Today marks the start of taking the supplement Detox. Similar to Alkalinize, Detox comes as a powder and must be mixed with water to consume. Overall, it isn't difficult to drink. It takes like a weak unsweetened iced tea. The only downside is that it is somewhat grainy. Some of the mix does not dissolve. Imagine drinking weak unsweetened iced tea in a mug where the tea bag broke and is filled with the tea leaves. Best comparison I can make.

BREAKFAST

Meal 22 of 63:

fresh fruit plate

I love fruit for breakfast. It's simple, easy, and very tasty. On this meal plan, there aren't a lot of sweet foods that we eat, so having the occasional sweet fruit because we're supposed to is nice. I don't really miss other sweets right now. The fruit is taking control of that for me. It was pretty filling.

I ate around 7:00, but I started to get hungry around 11:15. Water should have been my friend, but I forgot to go to the store yesterday to get more distilled water. I've been really bad with my water intake today because of that. Ughhh. I finally got out to the store, but it completely through off my meal prep and eating schedule for the day. I like schedules. I like sticky to them. Today was completely off.

LUNCH
I was so hungry for lunch that I believe I didn't wait the full 30 minutes after taking my supplement. I think I waited just about 20 minutes. My stomach was growling so badly. I didn't start eating until about 12:50--fifty minutes later than I've been used to. Believe it or not but it can really throw you off. Lunch today was a basic microgreen salad.

ALL AFTERNOON
I cooked all afternoon. I've been in the kitchen from about 2:30-7:30. The only time I wasn't cooking was when I took a drive out to the store because I needed green beans, and I didn't like the supply at the first store earlier today. While there, I also grabbed some asparagus for tomorrow and more raspberries.

DINNER
Mmmmm....

Meal 24 of 63:

pinto beans and rice

steamed zucchini

steamed string beans with lemon

I've been looking forward to this meal since I decided to do the reset. This is actually one of the two meals that made me choose to do this cleanse. Alison had me try it about a month ago when she was eating it for lunch. It was so delicious!

I made six servings of this meal. Mom and I need servings for lunch and dinner. I also wanted Brandon and Stephanie to try it. I added some more Himalayan salt to it for a little depth. Mine looks different, though, from the book, DVD, and Alison's recipe. It might be due to the color of some of the ingredients and also the fact that I made so much. I also added some more distilled water to it while mixing it so the meal wasn't dry. I liked it; Brandon liked it. When Brandon likes it, it's a success. He's now proud that I can successfully cook a third meal since I'm not the chef in the relationship. It's lovely. Thanks, honey.

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As of 8:00 this evening, I am officially done cooking for the day. Not only did I cook dinner tonight, but I also cooked ALL my meals for tomorrow. The picture below illustrates all my meals for the day tomorrow. I won't be home all day, so when I leave my house at 6:00 tomorrow morning, I'll be bringing my gallon jug of water, supplements, and all these meals.

I need to make sure I remember a fork and spoon. And some Himalayan salt.

It's been a busy day, but it's been good. I'm sooooooo sore!!!! My legs and back are killing me. I've been standing all day, and I can tell. Mom wasn't here to help with the cooking as she's babysitting my nephew. But mom, I cooked you your serving of the soup for dinner tomorrow if you aren't tired of having it for dinner at Ali's tonight...


Tomorrow I'll reflect on the process of cooking all tomorrow's food. For now, I need to relax a bit.

Day 2--It's Only Day 2?

MORNING
I should start off by saying that I fell asleep on the couch last night possibly by 10:30. I'm not sure on the time. I woke up at 1:00, and made my way to my room. My head wasn't on my pillow for more than 10 seconds before I was back to sleep. I only woke up once since 1:00 because I had a nightmare. My head was racing, but I kept my eyes closed and did some deep breathing. Only seconds later, I was back to bed. I sleep until just before 7:00, and I definitely slept like a rock. I had another dream about my tomato plants. Although they are mostly still green right now (2 are red-ish), I dreamed that my tomato plants exploded overnight and held grape tomatoes, roma tomatoes, and just regular large tomatoes. I remember shouting in my dream, "It's because I fed them MiracleGro!"

I weighed myself. Down 2.6 pounds. :) Mom is down 4 pounds this morning. I changed the way I took my supplements this morning by shaking it up more before drinking it which made it go down a lot easier. Yesterday I didn't shake them, and they were way too salty. Today not so bad.

BREAKFAST
Note: Not hungry at all. I'm more thirsty than hungry. But even still...

Meal 4 of 63:

1 cup oatmeal with 1 cup blueberries

1/2 cup plain 0% fat yogurt flavored with organic maple syrup

One thing I really like about this program already is it's goal to remove all processed sugars from your diet. If I had made oatmeal in the past, I would have sweetened it with some type of sugar...Splenda probably because it's "health friendly." It doesn't need it! The blueberries made the oatmeal sweet enough. It was lovely. The yogurt was delicious, too. Normally, flavored yogurt is very sweet. However, adding just a little maple syrup to it made the flavor pop! It was just enough to make the yogurt not so dull. I really appreciate it.

I'm getting used to not drinking water while eating. It makes me appreciate the flavors of the food more. I've been lucky enough to enjoy everything thus far that I haven't had the need to chase it down with something. Well...except for the Alkalinize.... *gag*

LUNCH
Note: Not hungry again.

Meal 5 of 63:

Greek salad with chicken

(romaine lettuce, English cucumber, roma tomato, pine nuts)

Greek dressing

I made extra chicken last night, so even though it was supposed to be grilled chicken, I think it's just fine the way it was. So much food... My younger sister ate pizza. This meal is the last meal I have with animal meat. I will have eggs and yogurt a couple more times, but any "meat" that I eat will be based in soy.

I'm still a bit confused about drinking the water. I am taking supplements 4 times a day--three have 2 pills (Optimize) and the fourth is the green drink of death (Alkalinize). Each time I take a supplement, I'm supposed to put Himalayan salt (Mineralize) into the distilled water along with liquid oxygen (Oxygenize). I just don't know if I'm supposed to put the Mineralize into the distilled water that I drink during the day. People are claiming a ton of different things on the Facebook support pages. My sister informed me that some people who have been drinking the water with Mineralize in it all day have expressed concerns over bloating. I don't want to bloat; I'm bloated enough! Until I find an answer, I'm just reducing the amount of Mineralize I put into the 32 oz of water so I don't overdo it, but I still benefit from the salt. Alison drank the water straight without adding the salt. Hmm... And I just found the answer: use the Mineralize. Starting tomorrow, I'll put the 1/2 tsp Mineralize in my gallon jug like some people have said on the support pages.

MID-AFTERNOON
I figured out how to master the gawd-awful Alkalinize. I put the mix in my shaker with 2 oz of water instead of 4 oz. In a small little bowl, I poured some lemon juice. Before drinking death, I took a sip of the lemon juice to sort of "numb" my mouth to the awful. I then CHUGGED liquid death and took a swig of the remaining lemon juice. The lemon was enough of a chaser to leave very little yuck in my mouth. I did continue to chase it with water, but it was in no way as terrible as it was yesterday. Below is a picture of ick:

DINNER
Note: Not hungry at all. Terrible, frustrating experience. Ughhhhhh!!!

Meal 6 of 63:
black beans and rice with fresh corn
salsa and guacamole
kale with pine nuts

Things that went wrong this evening:

• didn't have the correct brown rice--had to go get the right stuff
• didn't realize the rice needed 50 minutes to cook
• realize after the rice was almost done that the black beans needed an hour to cook (dehydrated beans, not canned)
• rice started to burn
• beans started to burn
• severe thunderstorm warning--possibility of losing power 
• mom forgot her cell phone when she went out to get canned black beans--couldn't communicate

It was just a lot of frustration. To make matters worse, I couldn't get my head around portioning. The recipe for the kale called for half a bunch which is a LOT of kale. Then, the portion of the beans and rice just seemed totally off. I doubled the recipe (thank God because we overcooked the lentils for tomorrow's lunch..ughhh). To make things even more challenging was that I was making 2 batches: one for me and mom (BUR friendly) and one for Steph and Bran. WAY TOO COMPLICATED!!! Math isn't my strong suit to begin with, so having the calculate the conversations to make 4x the amount written in the recipe. I need a break from cooking one night. Dinner has consistently been after 7:00 pm...usually closer to 8:00 pm.  And I thought I prepped well yesterday! 

Not looking forward to making nori rolls tomorrow....

The only thing that made me happy was this:

I never did that before... :)

Day 1 -- I Need to Do What?!

Last Night: I heard such horrible things about kale from friends and family after I bought 2 bunches of it. I decided to steam some kale as practice so I could taste it and not be shocked in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised! I liked it so much that I steamed both bunches to store and use for the next 4 days. Yummy!!!


MORNING
This morning I got out of bed without really wanting to get out of bed. My mind played with me a bit. It's garbage day, and the garbage bags were still sitting in the kitchen. I have such anxiety about getting the garbage out sometimes that I force myself awake, even though the garbage men won't be here today until about 10:30 or so.

I got up this morning, checked my weight as the official reset starting weight, took my measurements, and took before pictures. Cameras are always less friendly than the mirror. I spent a good 10 minutes walking my mom through taking her supplements and when she needs to take them throughout the day. 

BREAKFAST
Since mom has to get out of the house to get to work, I told her that I'd cook her breakfast. Breakfast gave me a bit of anxiety. For the last 2 years, I've only been eating egg whites, and when I ate eggs, I always had ketchup. On this program, I need to eat the whole egg without any ketchup. I was very worried about gagging if I thought about it too much.

Meal 1 of 63:

2 scrambled eggs (with herbal seasoning)

a generous portion of kale

2 dry slices of whole grain bread (1/2 tsp olive oil optional, but I refrained)

The eggs were actually very good! The herbal seasoning made it a lot more tolerable than I thought it would be. I wanted to put some pine nuts into the kale, but I couldn't find them! I didn't find its flavor to be too bitter, save for one piece here or there. The one thing that I know I'm going to struggle with is the inability to drink water while eating. The reason we are asked to refrain from drinking water during the meal is because drinking while eating will dilute the stomach acids that are present for the purpose of digesting food. If you drink water (or any other liquid while you eat), your stomach acid will dilute too much and will not be able to effectively digest the food. Makes sense. We are asked to take supplements and drink at least 12 oz of water 30 minutes before eating. After eating, we can't drink water for another 30 minutes. If you eat for roughly 30 minutes, you'll go an hour and a half without drinking water. Try eating 2 pieces of toast with super dry mouth!

The distilled water with Himalayan salt and oxygen is interesting. My mouth tastes salty which is an adjustment. It's not as bad as ocean water or gargling with warm salt water when you're sick. The saltiness is more subtle, and I only notice it when I haven't had water for a little while. We'll see how it goes! Roughly two hours in..

LUNCH
I was barely hungry when lunch time came around. I finished my initial 32 oz of water and also took my supplements with an additional 12 oz of water. Oy! I know this is meant to be a slow process to ease into the dietary changes, but I was barely hungry. I didn't want to skip the meal or sub it out because I know it's only a matter of time until I'm counting down the minutes until I get to eat a meal. I suppose I'm savoring this while I can.

Meal 2 of 63:

microgreen salad

(baby spinach, baby arugula, shredded carrot, tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, radish)

creamy garlic dressing

(extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, raw agave nectar, Himalayan salt)

This could easily be the first time I enjoyed a home-made salad. There was just enough radish that it didn't burn my tongue. The dressing is to DIE for! I think that next time, I need to change the portion size. I think I put in too many baby greens for the salad. The recipe didn't specify how many baby greens need to go into the salad while every other ingredient was measured. It also didn't specify how much 1 serving of dressing was, so I assumed it was a tablespoon as that seems to be generally how to works for dressing.  Overall, very satisfied. There's no way I'm going to need to eat my snack today. 

MID-AFTERNOON

Okay, we are supposed to drink this thing called "Alkalinize" and it is especially disgusting. I've read on the various boards all these different methods that people are using to help them get it down, but I don't know how successful it'll be. It tastes like awful terrible yuck. It's made of various grasses, so I guess if I were my cat who loves to eat grass, I'd be okay. Alison said it gets better. We both drank it together: she was successful I gagged 5 times. She told me not the puke it up, and I barely obeyed. Eww.

DINNER

Like lunch, I was barely hungry for dinner, but it was fabulous! The only problem was that I didn't read the recipe ahead of time, so I didn't realize that the meat needed to marinate for an hour. Ughh. I knew that I needed to plan ahead from reading posts on the boards, but I didn't. Lesson learned!

Meal 3 of 63:
baked chicken (in place of salmon)
(parsley, basil, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, Himalayan salt, herbal seasoning)
steamed asparagus with lemon
boiled baby potatoes 

This has been the longest evening in recent history. Mon dieu! My mom and I prepped and worked in the kitchen from about 5:45 until 8:00. The chicken took longer to cook than the salmon did, so we ended up waiting for the chicken to finish while also prepping for tomorrow's meals. I made 3 times the chicken because for lunch tomorrow, we have a Greek salad with chicken. The salad will be so delicious with this chicken!! I remember Alison mentioning how during this process, I am going to identify many habits that I have. The program is a bit strict on not mixing eating and drinking. However, during my prep of each aspect of this evening's and tomorrow's meals, I found myself licking the spoon, licking my finger, or eating the stray piece of corn on the counter. Each time I did it, I thought about it and how that's a habit that very sorely needs to be broken. I would be eating to eat because the food is there. I wasn't hungry when I'd lick the spoon, but it's a habit that we develop from such a young age that we don't think about it.

It's 9:00, and I'm exhausted. I feel like it's back during the school year when I have a 9:30 bedtime. I will easily fall asleep tonight. I have one more minute, and then I can drink more water. I'm really trying to get a gallon in each day. I did really well with this the week before I started, but today it's been more challenging. I still have about 20 oz of water to drink to reach the full gallon.

Cheers!