Day 4 of 33

I made our usual breakfast smoothie this morning. Since I have to drink a half gallon instead of my usual pint for this cleanse, and since I had company this morning, I was still drinking my quarter gallon of smoothie at lunch time! But, that didn't stop me from eating a salad! It was pretty simple (romaine, red pepper, cucumber, celery, carrots, chia seeds, salt, pepper and Green Smoothie Girl's basic dressing with garlic) but I really, really, really wanted to put some croutons on it.

Today was the day to start getting active again. Sydney and I took a nice long walk after we dropped Quinn off at school. It felt good to get out there in the fresh air! I figured I'd just walk this week since my knees have been hurting and then maybe next week I'll start my 5k training again.

I made another Cabbage Cool-Aid smoothie for our snack and had a few Teriyaki almonds with it. I made popcorn for the girls and really wanted some of that too!

Dinner was an arugula salad with pear, spiced pumpkin seeds and meyer lemon dressing from one of my raw cookbooks. It wasn't too bad - the dressing was too sour for me and the girls (I finally added more honey to mine and then the remaining dressing) but the salad was good.

Sydney and I made some Chewy Chocolate Freezer Fudge (another recipe from one of my raw cookbooks)so we had some of that for dessert. YUM!!!! I'm not real sure if I'm supposed to be having it on this cleanse - probably not since it's not exactly plant-based - but that's okay. I can live with myself if I eat some:)

Right now I am relaxing with some home brewed Kombucha tea.(I'm not technically supposed to have tea for the cleanse, but I figured the Kombucha is good for me so why not?!) It's not as good as the store-bought stuff so I've added even more grape juice to it (I added some when I bottled it). I think I don't care for it because I'm using green tea to brew it and it's a strong flavor. I'll have to experiment with some other teas I guess.

I never did get around to eating that avocado! But, my tummy didn't growl once today:) I stepped on the scale and think I lost some more weight, but we'll get the 'official' results on Wednesday (and I'll see how close my new scale is to Marrisa's).

It's good to be chewing food again! :)

Day 3 of 33

LAST DAY of just smoothies! I gotta tell ya, I don't think I could take another day of this!!! It didn't help at all when I went into the break room at work to get some more water and the company had bought pizza for us!! I almost cried - I wanted to eat it so bad. I think if there wasn't a room full of people, I would have taken a whole pizza - wouldn't have mattered what kind, just the first box I grabbed - and shoveled it into my mouth. ~sigh~

Today's smoothies:

K.C. made our usual breakfast smoothie this morning so I had some of that. Then I finished off the rest of the Tomato Tonic. I have to say, that one really grew on me:) In fact, I was wishing I had it after I saw that damn pizza! I think it would have helped. But, since it's heavy on the garlic, I spared my co-workers in the vault my nice garlic breath. Tonight I was trying to finish up the rest of the Kiwi Banana Krush, but I just can't do it. I'd rather my tummy growl at this point! I think it's because I drank a pretty sweet one all day at work and I just can't handle any more sweet. If I had more Tomato Tonic left.....

Anyway, this is the new one I made today:

Cabbage Cool-Aid

-water/ice
-green cabbage (I used napa cabbage)
-frozen mixed berries (blueberry, raspberry and blackberry)
-bananas
-tart apples
-agave

Can I just tell you how stupid crazy this stuff tastes like cherry kool-aid?! It's freaky! I made my co-workers taste it and they thought the same thing. SUPER good! I already know we'll be drinking this one A LOT this summer! If we add even more ice to it, it'll taste like a slushy. YUMMY!

Things I expected: more breakouts and a small headache.

Things I didn't expect: no more than usual bm's, more knee pain, some finger aches (think arthritis) and questioning my sanity (okay, so that happens pretty frequently). :)

I am so freakin excited to EAT tomorrow!!! I've cut up some carrots and celery and made some raw salad dressing in preparation. I threw some carrot sticks in the dehydrator too so I can toss them with some olive oil and salt tomorrow and eat them like chips. I hope they turn out how my mouth is hoping they will! I'm going to clean some romaine and chop up some red peppers and cucumber and onion and maybe have a salad for breakfast (okay, I won't but it is going to be REALLY hard to get another smoothie down first!)! Oh, I almost forgot about the avocado!! I hope I at least peel it before devouring it:)

Day 2 of 33

Today's smoothies:

Tomato Tonic
-water
-English cucumber
-celery
-carrots
-tomato
-spinach
-garlic
-salt
-pepper
-tobasco

Sounds like a bloody mary without the booze, right? I was hoping it would taste like one too. It kind of does I guess, bit it's super garlic-y so there will be some tweaks to it next time. It was a nice change from the usual one that I drank all day yesterday! Since this was a pretty strong one, I decided to make another one to have today too - for a little variety.

Kiwi Banana Krush
-water
-chard
-spinach
-kiwi
-banana
-pears
-frozen berries
-agave

This one is good! Will be even better when I let the fruit ripen more - oops! :)

I got to bed late and was up early but, I slept like a baby! Of course I've been grouchy all day because I'm tired and because I'm not acting on my food impulses! Tomorrow, aside from being the last day of just smoothies, I'll be at work for part of the day so I think that will help. And getting some more sleep, that ALWAYS helps!

So the things I expected that happened: breakouts, fatigue and grumpiness.

Things I didn't expect: knee aches and peeing all the time! You'd think I'd have the other bathroom issue but, no. I swear, I haven't peed this much since I was pregnant! It makes sense though, considering all of the smoothie recipes start with water!

Day 1 of 33

Here I go! I'm not expecting too much today, other than reminding myself to drink my food instead of eating it!

My smoothie today is my usual one - the one we have every morning for breakfast:

-Water
-Flax Oil
-Coconut Milk Kefir
-Hemp Protein Powder with Fiber
-Bee Pollen
-Vitamineral Green
-Agave
-Rainbow Chard(I try to very my greens week by week but usually end up with some sort of chard and collard greens)
-Bok Choy
-Spinach
-Cilantro (just because I have extra on hand)
-Cayenne Pepper
-Banana
-Frozen Mixed Fruit (peaches, white peaches, strawberries, pineapple, honeydew and blueberries)
I forgot to add my 1/4 of a lemon to this one, but it still turned out good!

The weightloss challenge I'm doing is 12 weeks so I'll just post my stats from that. I have my begining weight and measurements and will weigh in once a week. We'll do measurements again at week 6 (2/17) and then again at the end (3/31). My 33 days of detox and cleanse takes me to about the end of February so we'll see how well I do to maintain for another 30 days after that!

Let's see,these were my stats as of week 1 of the challenge (1/13):

Height = 5'1"
Weight = 131 pounds
Upper chest = 32.75"
Chest = 33.75"
Waist = 27.75"
Hips = 35"
Right thigh = 22"
Left thigh = 21.75"
Right arm = 10"
Left arm = 9.75"

At the weigh-in this week I was at 129.8 pounds. I'm already off to a good start!

WLC - 2# down!

So the weight loss challenge. My friend Cindy saw an add in our local paper for Maple Valley Biggest Loser. She went to the meeting, joined the challenge and lost around 30# in 12 weeks! She was so excited about it and wanted to keep going so got a challenge going with her friends!

Turns out it's an Herbalife deal, but they aren't pushy about you buying the stuff or anything. You pay $35 into the pot and the challenge lasts 12 weeks. You weigh in each week at the meeting, where they go over nutritional stuff (and just so happen to have a product that goes along with what they are talking about) and we did measurements at the first meeting (last week) and will do them again at week 6 and finally at the end. If you gain weight you pay into the pot. The top three losers (they say they go by body weight so we'll see as I'm one of the smallest) win a share of the pot (1-50%, 2-30%, 3-15%) and then whoever loses the most inches that isn't a top 3 winner, wins the remaining 5%.

So, my goal for myself is to lose 15-20 pounds. Their goal is for me to lose about a pound a week. At last week's weigh in I was 131 pounds. Today I was 129.8, so almost 2 pounds lost in a week - without taking any Herbalife stuff!! So far so good!

I'm Pooped!!!

Ugh! Sydney was up all night last night (she has a stuffy nose), which means I was up all night too! I think the two of us got a total of 3 hours sleep - on the couch no less. I say it again - UGH!!!!

I would have just laid on the couch all day but we had a little birthday party planned for Sydney. More on that later.

So, on top of feeling like crap because I'm tired, I feel like crap because I've been eating like crap. I am starting a weight loss challenge this week so am eating all of the crap still left in the house before the challenge begins (more on the challenge later).I was eating really well when we got home from our trip - mostly raw. I've even gotten compliments - one friend asked if I was pregnant. She said I was glowing. In fact she's asked me more than once about that. I'm not, for the record. Another friend said my skin looked really good - I didn't even have makeup on that day! I haven't really noticed a change (aside from my 'pizza face') so those compliments were nice to hear.

I'm bummed about our dinner tonight. I had raw tacos planned. But, the "beans" are taking longer in the dehydrator than planned so that is throwing everything off. I still have to make the shells in the dehydrator, but now there is not enough time for them to get done for tonight. So, we are having a cooked meal (left over pasta and sauce from the weekend) and will do the tacos tomorrow I guess. I got some money for Christmas for some more dehydrator accessories so I really need to order those!!!

So back to being tired. I tried napping but that didn't go well. My next plan was to plop the kids in front of the TV upstairs while I sat in front of the TV downstairs and posted this blog. Somehow the girls have made their way downstairs and the chaos is swirling around me again. So, maybe I'll head upstairs and post pictures or something. I want to try to do something productive this afternoon!!! Wish me luck!

I have the face of a teenager!

To have tight, unlined, bright skin is awesome! Too bad that's not the kind of teenage face I have. Nope, I have the blemished, pizza face skin right now. But, I'm okay with it! That's because I expected it. I know that the more good stuff I eat plus the less bad stuff I eat will equal my body purging all of the crap by any means it can. So, I look at it as a good thing....just as long as it doesn't last too long! On the positive side, my friend Tina asked if I was pregnant. She said I was glowing. Must just be the lights bouncing off all of the blemishes! :)

In other news, my Kombucha tea is almost ready for tasting! I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Let's see, what else....oh, I started my period early and boy is it a doozy!! I really hope my new eating plan will help with that! I'm just so tired of feeling tired, feeling like my body is being pulled apart and not being able to deal with things rationally! It's just getting worse. And we don't want that!

And finally, I go back into the vault next week! I'm so excited! I actually got to go in there for a few hours on Saturday. It was a little hectic as I was in there by myself during a really busy time! But, I managed. I found out today that I'll be closing by myself a few days in the next couple of weeks - yikes! I'm sure it'll be fine.....I hope anyway:)

Raw

Guess it's been awhile since I blogged!!

I'm in a nice Kombucha stupor right now so thought it was a good time to post something new. I'm just starting to enter into the world of raw eating. I made our first raw dinner last night. It was red peppers stuffed with a smoked paprika & cashew 'cheese' and some slaw. It wasn't horrible, it wasn't super great, it was good in fact. The girls didn't think so. Quinn ate only the red pepper. Syd opted to not eat any of it at all. I 'roasted' the red peppers by putting them into the dehydrator for about an hour to soften them up. Then, after stuffing them, put them back into the dehydrator to warm them. I tell you, it is just fascinating what we can do with raw food! I think I'm going to have to get a second dehydrator soon!

I'm also brewing my first batch of Kombucha tea (thanks for the scoby Tami). I brought a little back with me from Wyoming but had to buy some to get me through until my batch is ready. I really like it and hope it does all it claims to do. I'd post links and all that, but just don't have the time/desire right now:) K.C. has even drank some so we'll see if it helps him out too.

I also made some granola in the dehydrator. I've made some before that tasted similar to what seasoned cardboard would taste like. I was a little skeptical about this new recipe but it promised to be crunchy so I gave it a try. SO good! I think I'd better get on a regular schedule for making it so that we always have some in the house.

I also made some raw hummus. It's made out of cashews instead of garbanzo beans/chick peas. I think my next batch I'll add lots more garlic and maybe a little heat in the form of cayenne pepper or something. It's not bad by itself and gets better with fresh veggies dipped in it. Again, the girls have no interest in it. It's going to take some time, but, they'll eventually get hungry:)

I also made some chocolate chia 'pudding'. I think I'm the only one that likes it. The others just haven't given it a good chance I think. We'll see what happens when it's the only chocolate thing in the house! It just might suddenly become appealing to the masses:)

Gee, I guess I've been a little busy since getting back from our vacation! Yesterday is when I did all of this and by the evening my nerves were shot. It's actually PMS - I confirmed it with the calendar. I'm curious to see if eating mostly raw will help me with my issues in that area. Everything I've read about it is promising. Fingers crossed! On with a new journey....