Day 11--Halfway There!!

A few people who are also doing the reset recommended that I drink more than a gallon of water to help get things moving in the right direction. People have found more success with movement when they drink an additional half gallon of water each day. It's tough enough to drink a full gallon; I don't know how I'll do with drinking an additional 64 oz...

I knew today was going to be a rough day because Brandon and I had scheduled to meet with a DJ for the wedding at noon which is typically when I eat breakfast. Upon waking up, I decided to postpone breakfast for as long as I could to make waiting for lunch a little easier.

BREAKFAST
Surprise!!

Meal 31 of 63:

fresh fruit

LUNCH

Meal 32 of 63:

quinoa-lentil salad

cucumber and tomato salad

Yet another dish that Brandon would eat again. The cucumber salad was a little overwhelming with red onion, but it was still delish....even though my eyes were burning and watering for a good hour, and I didn't even cut them..

DINNER
I wasn't terribly hungry for dinner. I was turned off by the idea of eating the hearty-miso soup...that is until I saw what my mom made. I was already invested in making the sweet potato and roasted red pepper bisque again.

Meal 33 of 63:

sweet potato and roasted red pepper bisque

steamed swiss chard

Brandon helped out this time. I used a different setting on the blender, so it wasn't as smooth. It still had some chunks in it which was great. The flavor of the ginger wasn't as strong this time. However, the hairs of the gingers were EVERYWHERE. That got distracting. Next time, make sure no ginger hairs get into the soup. I used a barley miso as opposed to a sweet rice miso. I don't know if the barley is necessarily reset-friendly, but the shopping list didn't specify a type of miso. I think the miso flavor helped masked the flavor of the ginger.

Here's what mom ate:

Definitely more appetizing than the miso soup from phase 1. Maybe I'll make a serving for lunch tomorrow instead of eating the bisque...again. She also used the barley miso which is why the color of the broth is dark. I barely ate dinner tonight. Hopefully I can manage with just water. The swiss chard was great--less bitter than spinach, but a very similar consistency.

It was a tough day. After lunch sometime, I started getting a bad headache. I don't think it was from the Oxygenize but rather from my neck muscles tensing. I really tried sticking it out, but I had to take something for my headache. At 7:30, it was difficult enough to keep my eyes open from the headache. I knew that I could either sleep which would result in lots of bad stuff for tomorrow, or take medicine to help it immediately. I gave in. My headache has already improved greatly since I took it.

Okay, so we're halfway done. I definitely do feel like my stomach is shrinking. That or I'm just drinking so much water that I don't even notice. Either way, I'm generally feeling good. I have a lot of energy, and the cooking is getting easier. I'm not so stressed about prepping the food anymore--at least not when I'm quadrupling the recipe and doing the math. THAT part is stressful. But when I'm just making for me and mom, it isn't so bad anymore.

Here's to the next 10 days!!

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... :)

Produce and Problems

I went shopping today at ShopRite for produce and some of the grains and spices.

This is a picture of just the produce section. This will be good for 4 days for feeding just me and mom. I forgot to double the recipes to include Brandon and Stephanie since they aren't doing the reset. This could be problematic.

My truck after finishing the entire shop. Looks like enough food for a week....but it's not.

The top shelf and the two larger drawers have the produce that I bought today. The one long bottom drawer has the tempeh that we will need. Some of the food in the middle is food we will need; others are not. We actually set up my fridge that I brought home with me from work in the kitchen. It will hold the "non-UR" food that we can't fit in the main fridge. We do have a larger fridge in the main garage that we could set up that will hold more food than the mini one I have. This could potentially be a big problem. Neither Brandon nor Stephanie are planning on doing this reset, but food still needs to be available for them.

I wish there was more shelf space.

Later today, I'm going to be prepping food for tomorrow's meals. Perhaps the fridge will look different after that.

Starting to feel some stress. At least I can call Alison whenever I need to. It's nice that my sister is also my coach in this. She's finishing her reset tomorrow, so she can really understand what I'm experiencing and can give me some great advice. Thank God.