Day 5 - Testing Rye

Today was more challenging to stay on target with my plan, but I walked into the day prepared.  For both lunch and dinner I knew that I would be away from my home.  My school had an outdoor workshop event with food (hot dogs, deli sandwiches, salads, etc.) and I knew everything besides the salad was NOT an option for me.  Instead, I packed my own lunch, arrived 30 minutes earlier, went into my classroom and enjoyed my lunch by myself, which included a spicy vegetarian soup and a salad with goat cheese and carrots.  My snack was a rye cracker with yes, my favorite....raw almond butter....YUM, YUM, YUM!  A friend had asked me to go out to dinner and I told him that it would be a bit challenging since I wanted to stick to this as best as I could, so I made dinner for him.  Instead of chicken, I made quinoa with an apricot glaze....again, delicious.  The quinoa was spread over a bed of arugula accompanied by a side of beet and carrot salad and sauteed zucchini and onions with basil and manchego cheese.  If you've never had manchego cheese, you should.  It's made from raw sheep milk and aged between 6 and 12 months.  It was the perfect touch!  I forgot the chocolate, BUT I did enjoy a few glasses of Cabernet.

This morning I weighed in and lost another .8 pounds.  I was a bit shocked at that because I always thought drinking wine late at night would make me gain weight, but obviously this wasn't the case last night.  In fact, red wine can aide in losing weight, interestingly enough.

I have not exercised at all, btw.  In fact I haven't exercised in months due to my sciatica.  I am nearly healed and hope to start exercising soon.  I tell you this because even without exercise I am still able to shed pounds.  I know, however, once I building more muscles, this may change my scale number.

Day 4 - Testing Cheese

I do love cheese.  And today I tested goat cheese because it's the least culprit of inflammation.  I will work up to other cheeses, but this one seemed do fair out just fine.  My salad and roasted veggie combo for lunch tasted amazing with the added goat cheese.  My snack and dinner ended up being a little later in the day than I had expected, but with two little kiddos expecting a Friday night out for dinner, I didn't have many choices.  But I did snack on my raw carrot sticks with some raw almond butter.  Raw almond butter to me is a bit of Heaven.  I was slightly full by the time dinner came so I did skip part of the plan.  BUT chocolate was on the lineup for dessert.  Yeah, it was a glorious moment.  

One thing I did notice with my body was that I wasn't able to use the bathroom as easily as I have....if you know what I mean.  I have a feeling that's what animal protein does to me.  So, I think from now on I will substitute quinoa for chicken and see how my body responds to that.  We'll see how fish fares out.  

I did weigh in and lost another .2 pounds.  Not bad for some indulgences.  :)

Day 3 - End of Cleanse

I was skeptical today because I was introducing meat protein back into my diet.  I would consider myself a part-time vegetarian.  I wasn't like this in the beginning, but I do occasionally eat ethically raised meat.  My snack before lunch helped to subside my hunger and I wasn't really hungry until dinner came.  No lightheadedness today.....thank the Lord!  

Breakfast was the same, except I added almonds since I didn't have a reaction to them the day before.  I also had an amazing spicy vegetarian soup that was LOADED with zucchini, squash, broccoli, carrots, onions, garlic, chickpeas, etc. for lunch accompanied by a salad without any dressing of any sort.  Dinner consisted of a small portion of chicken with roasted veggies.  All of it delicious, filling, satisfying and again....NO CRAVINGS!  I drank another gallon of water as well.

This concludes my cleanse.  I lost another 1.2 pounds, which brings my total fro this cleanse to 8.2 pounds in 3 days.  That's pretty fantabulous!  For the next couple of weeks, I will be testing different foods everyday for inflammation in my body....even chocolate, wine and cheese.  :)  Ooh-la-la!  

    

Day 2

Day 2 of my cleanse went well again.  One thing that I will change today is to have my snack in the morning rather than the afternoon because the time span between my breakfast and lunch is longer than my time span between my lunch and dinner.  I was a little light-headed at times from getting up too fast after bending down to help a child.  This is why there's no exercising during a cleanse because your energy levels are down.

My tested almonds and brown rice yesterday to see if those caused inflammation in my body, but the scale this morning said NO!  I was down another 2.6 pounds so no weight gain here!

I will say the food on this plan is very tasty.  My dinner last night rocked my world with sauteed kale, shiitake mushrooms and chopped zucchini smothered in a spicy coconut sauce and topped with some brown rice.  I'll be having that one again for sure!

Another key is to drink A LOT of water!  I can't express this enough.  A whole gallon went through my system yesterday and will again today.

Day 1

Today's meals were delicious and definitely filling.  I am extremely pleased and amazed at the fact that I went through my whole day without one craving.  People were walking by me with brownies and other desserts and I'm usually tempted by those, but not at all today.  I'm a bit shocked.  Just goes to prove that when you put really great food in your body, the cravings subside.  I also drank large amounts of water today, which isn't going against the norm, but man....I had to excuse myself several times to use the restroom.

Tomorrow I am testing my body for almonds to see if there is any reaction.  Crossing fingers that it's a big fat NO because I love, love, love almonds.

On to day 2 tomorrow.  My lunch bag is all packed with it's goodness.

Update:  10/2/13 - The scale said this morning I lost 4.4 pounds from my first day of the cleanse.