Bringin' it back.

I feel like i've fallen off the wagon.  I need a jump.  Sugar has creeped back into my diet on the regular.  I've decided that I'm going to do the first week of the cleanse again.  I know it was the hardest week, but that'll be it.  Just 7 days.  Tomorrow until next Friday.  There's even some new recipes in the 3 day reboot.

I know this is all in my head.  I need to have a challenge to change my habits.  I need to write it down and tell other people about it in order for me to actually do it.  So I've been mentioning it to folks and now I'm writing it down.  There.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

Looks Like We Made It!

The cleanse is officially over for me!  Woot Woot!


So all in all, I think this was a good experience and I'm glad I did it.  There were some struggle moments but I made it through.  And I'm so happy that other people in my life joined me in the cleanse.  I really don't know if I would have stuck to it past week 2 had I not known that others were in this with me.  


In the past month I think I've cooked more than I ever had, thus sweeping my kitchen floor, loading and unloading my dishwasher, wiping down my counters, and going to the grocery store more than I ever have.  I also think I have consumed more nuts, nut bars, and nut butters more than ever.  


I might take it easy during the next few days (I've taken a week off of work!).  But really, in the future, I plan to continue to bring healthy lunches to work and eat healthy breakfasts.  I also plan to continue to cook at home cleaner meals.  Going out to eat will, hopefully, be the only times that I'll have less-cleanse worthy meals.  Even then, I'm hoping I'll be choosing menu items that I know are better for me, like fish.  I think there has been a lot of great new recipes that we've tried and I've started to Pinterest recipes that look good to me (most of them that would fit into the cleanse).  I know now that if I'm craving a special something to eat, like a sugary treat, that I can probably do without.  I just eliminated caffeine, dairy, gluten, processed foods, alcohol, and added sugars from my diet for a whole month!  I'm pretty impressed that I've completed this challenge!  Thanks for all of the support from everyone in my life!


And for those of you who might still be on this cleanse, feel free to use this blog for some added support!  Good luck!  

Pizzahhh!

That's right, I just ate pizza.  Sure, it was gluten free and dairy free, but it was still pretty great.  And, I didn't have to cook it!  Yesterday I ate chicken pho that I also didn't have to cook.  Week 4 is easy shmeazy so far.  


So yeah, I'm going to keep on the cleanse for the 4th week.  I'll probably depend less on the Whole Living recipes but continue to cut out the six off limit things as much as possible this week.  


Once the month is over, I'm hoping to continue to bring clean lunches every day and, at least a few days a week, eat a clean dinner.  For breakfast I'll likely bring back my greek yogurt, fruit, and Milk & Honey granola parfaits as well as continue to have smoothies.  I'm hoping to only have coffee a few times per week.  I definitely don't need it every day. I think one of the more important things I'm going to continue to try to do is keep up with working out on a regular basis.  I've been averaging twice per week and I'm fine with that.   


That being said, after weeks of very little added sugar in my diet, I don't think I've lost my sweet tooth.  I think now though I've got a lot of good natural alternatives that I can choose to have!

WE DID IT!

Hey Everyone!

So the cleanse is officially over, although I think everyone is still trying to maintain a some of the cleanse rules this week. I know I am.

This whole cleanse experience has been really great. Yes, at times it really sucked. But I really believe it forced me to take an honest look at my eating in a way that I never have before. A lot of the times when I'm craving things it's purely psychological or because I'm dehydrated. Additionally, the foods I choose were often the wrong things to be snacking on. I like to think that the cleanse taught me to use my brain to choose what and when to eat instead of relying on my stomach (or my emotions) to guide me. It also helps that I've seen a ton of positive changes in just three weeks.

The first big change is in my digestion, and how I used to have constant stomach aches after eating. When I was a kid it was a daily occurrence, but when I learned to avoid dairy it only happened maybe twice a week. Since I've been on this cleanse it hasn't happened at all. No stomach aches. It's freaking amazing.

The second big change is in my skin. I've struggled since I was 10 years old with acne. Over the past month I have had almost no new breakouts. And the breakouts I have had are the kind that disappear in a day and not a week. Amazing! That alone makes me want to keep eating 'clean'.

And the third change is that I have lost a few lbs (I never weighed myself at the start of the cleanse, but I assume I lost about 3-4 lbs). More noticeable though is that I lost a few inches. I just had a wellness screening where they took my measurements and I couldn't believe it. I've lost several inches around my waist and hips. I can wear my skinny clothes to work that I haven't been able to wear in a few years without feeling uncomfortable. WOOHOO!

So yes, I am plan to keep this up. In moderation though. I'm still figuring out exactly my 'plan', but I think it will follow these guidelines:

Every day eat two meals that are vegan. The third meal of the day can be pretty much whatever, but in general I will be avoiding gluten, dairy, refined sugar, and grease and trying to load up on the veggies. I am adding espresso back, but I'm only drinking it black from now on (because then I drink waaay less of it) and I'm going to try and do approximately 1 shot of espresso before 11 so it doesn't impact my sleep. The rest of the day I'll just rely on green tea. This is still a work in progress, but for now I feel like I can stick with these guidelines.

Homestretch!

It's here people!  We'll be in week 4 (yes, bonus week) before we know it.  We've almost completed a 21 day cleanse!  Nice!  Even though Whole Living sometimes only calls this thing a 21 day cleanse, since they give recipes for the 4th week, I'm going to try my best to keep this going until the end of the month. 


I went shopping yesterday and made the sweet potato soup vegetarian style (we made it with chicken prior to the cleanse starting and we thought it would have been just as great without the chicken).  I forgot to take a pic before I froze it.  I keep forgetting to take pics of my food lately.  


This weekend was a long weekend for me (yay Presidents' Day!).  On Friday we made the rice noodles with broccoli almond pesto.  It was kind of bland, but I did think the rice noodles were a nice substitute for regular pasta.  I had to work all day on Saturday but thankfully the location where I was working is attached to a Whole Foods so I got a mixture of stuff from their salad bar for lunch.  I happened to be by another Whole Foods yesterday so I stopped in again for dinner.  We had a late dinner at a steak house.  A steak house!  I know, how on earth did we have a cleanse meal there?  We did our best.  4 out of 11 of us at dinner were actually on the cleanse, but it was a special occasion (my sister got married!) so we all allowed ourselves to stretch the rules a bit for a night.  I had a salad, the salmon, mashed potatoes, and strawberry sorbet.  


We've made a couple of great recipes lately from this website.  Specifically this green bean and quinoa is great.  We've made it twice.  I made it with red quinoa because it was cheaper.  I definitely like red quinoa better than white quinoa.  And tonight we made these springrolls.  I substituted honey for the brown sugar.  Mine didn't look quite as nice, but they were really delicious.  


Finally, Jennifer, my solution this coming week to the not-wanting-to-get-up-earlier-to-make-breakfast-dilemma was this fritatta that I made this morning.  I plan to eat it for the next few mornings.  All I did was throw some veggies in a skillet with some oil until they were pretty much cooked.  Then I poured 4 scrambled eggs in there, let it cook for about a minute, then put it in the broiler for another minute or two until it was fully cooked.  When I'm not cleansing, I usually put some shredded cheese on top.  It puffs up nicely and then falls down.  Today I ate a quarter of it with some sliced avocado on top.  
So that's about it!  Tomorrow I'm going to do some yoga!

Workin for the weekend

Weekend Breakfast Bowl

I have been doing pretty well and can't believe it's already half way through week 3. I'm going to continue with bonus week 4. I have some goals, though, that I'd like to try to accomplish from here on out. 

• Try recipes using beans. I especially love black beans, so I need to take the time to find a recipe I will know is worth the effort.
• Make a soup. I haven't made soup yet, only because I thought it might be a cop-out. The soups Colleen has made look delicious, so I just need to get over myself and make one!
• Make breakfast on weekdays. I like to sleep until the last possible moment before I need to get up for work, which usually means I'm grabbing some fruit to eat at my desk in the AM. I love making a big breakfast on the weekends, so at least one day this week I'd like to make myself some eggs & veggies to eat before I leave. 
• Get to the gym for a run. I have not been exercising. There I said it. I love to run, but just haven't been. So week 3 & 4 is where it all comes together (hopefully).

I've definitely been off-plan a few times but nothing that was so deep I couldn't pick myself up the next day & get right back into the Cleanse. Guilt of slipping off plan has always been part of my repertoire and it needs to stop. 

Anyone's clothes fitting better? Mine are! Woot Woot

Is there a post-Cleanse party in the works yet?

Hello Week 3

Well yesterday we tried our first raw food restaurant.  Yeah.  Not good.  I don't really want to talk about it.  Moving on...


We've finished week 2!!  Half way there!!  Yay, gluten free grains and eggs here we come! Tonight I made us this.  I love wild rice.  Definitely something I want to eat more of.  


As far as my week 2 assessment, I'm still down about 8 pounds from my pre-cleanse weight.  Pretty much the same amount of exercise and same energy level.  And I still have hives.  I don't think I've mentioned on any of my other posts that I've had chronic hives for over a year now with no known cause of them.  I've been to multiple doctors many times and taken many blood tests, but nothing.  I had not tried cutting any certain foods out of my diet thus far because I'm on so many antihistamines that it would be hard to tell if the experiment was working (and the last time I wasn't on antihistamines I was in the ER) since I'm not actively breaking out most of the time.  Once I decided to go on the cleanse I thought this might be an opportunity to see if something in my diet was causing the hives, especially after I watched this documentary.  But no go.  Hives are still surfacing periodically.  Ahh well.  


Recently I was thinking about why on earth I'd commit to doing this cleanse for a whole 4 weeks when Whole Living clearly calls it a 3 week cleanse (Week 4 recipes are a bonus). I'd be 2/3 of the way to the finish line right now rather than only halfway there.  But I'm going to do my best anyway.  Matt and I talked about trying to make that 4th week a test week where we try easing back into our normal eating habits but incorporating some of the things from the cleanse into it.  For example, we could try out some of the dishes that we'd normally cook but start to modify them.  That would probably mean mostly cutting out more dairy and gluten than we're used to.  I think we'll continue using almond milk after the cleanse and I'm hoping to continue to bring my lunch to work everyday.  After the cleanse, I'd like to see myself eat by the cleanse rules about 3 full days per week.   


For those of you on the cleanse, I'm wondering how you hope to move back into your non-cleansing self?  

Sugar, How I Love Thee

Work was hard today.  There was multiple chocolate frosted cake donuts from Bennison's staring into my eyes for TWO whole meetings.  I stayed strong (even after the tempting suggestion was made to lick the donut and then stick it in the freezer for March).  I've definitely had a bit of a sweet tooth today(and most days).  And the dates aren't cutting it. 


After Matt and I scoured the internet for a gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free dessert that wasn't simply fruit, we ended up with the ol' blend frozen banana until it looks and tastes like soft serve ice cream.  I added a swirl of peanut butter to mine.  Matt added PB, cinnamon, and a date to his.  


Now I'm ok.  


In other cleanse-related news, Sophie made a lovely meal last night.  At the end of the meal I actually said "I'm full."  Then I came home and made the kale soup that's part of Week 3 that's in the freezer now.  


Tomorrow is Valentines Day and Matt and I are trying out Karen's Raw.  And then we'll be ready to start Week 3!  

still going strong

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick update this Monday. Things are going well. I'm still cleansing. It definitely is the hardest on the weekends, and when people who are not on the cleanse are around me eating delicious food. This weekend we went to a housing warming party, so I made sure to eat a really big dinner before going so I wouldn't cheat. At the party I stuck to pistachios and crudite. I feel good though. In general I have all my energy back plus probably a little bit more. I think cutting caffeine out of my life has been a good thing. I'm not quite as anxious and I can sleep better. I can also focus pretty well now without having to rely on caffeine. I still have strong coffee cravings though. Post-cleanse, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to handle coffee. Maybe only for special occasions?

This weekend I made some meat-free green pozole with pumpkin seeds and tomatillos and a lot of jalapenos. That should help get me through the last few days of week 2. For dessert and snacks I relied on almonds, strawberries, frozen grapes, and smoothies. It will be so nice to add rice, oats, and eggs back into my diet.

In other news, the 4 boxes of thin mints I ordered just arrived. BOO. I already gave one box away and I'll probably freeze the other boxes to put into smoothies once I'm post cleanse.

Took a Night Off

Yeah, I cheated.  As much as I want to be on this cleanse, I also like to get my money's worth.  We had bought tix to this roller skating party thing a while ago and the ticket included drinks.  So I took an evening break from the cleanse, had a few drinks, roller skated, and had a good time.  As for this morning, back on the cleanse with this again along with a smoothie.  We don't have anything else like that planned for the rest of the month so I have no other plans to take any more breaks.  


But I am really looking foward to March.  Especially March 2nd.  

Turning Point?

I feel like this week was a turning point.  I'm not feeling like I'm on a cleanse anymore.  I'm just feeling like I'd really like to go eat something that I didn't cook for myself (ok so maybe I do still feel like I'm on a cleanse).  I'm not feeling hungry all of the time.  I'm not always thinking about what my next meal is going to be.  I think the real turning point was when I popped an almond inside a date and as I was eating it I thought, "this is just as good as a candy bar."  Yeah, that actually happened.


This weekend has been a lot easier than last weekend, so that's great.  Yesterday was the first time I was at work and free lunch was offered.  I was the girl who passed up the sandwiches and cookies and filled her plate with a salad.  Ug, I never wanted to be that girl.  I felt the need to explain myself to the girl next to me.  I'm assuming the Italian dressing that was on my salad had something that is probably not part of the cleanse, but oh well.  Even though I'm not really into fish, I think adding salmon and beans has helped me to feel more full.  I've even been able to eat the Week 2 breakfast recipes like the miso soup and the sweet potato which were pretty good.  Last night we roasted enough vegetables for a village and this morning had the scrambled tofu with kale.  Good stuff.  


Also, I think I need a tutorial on what some vegetables look like.  At Chicago Foods it seemed like they labeled everything a raddish so I bought this thinking it might be a rutabaga.  It was not.  So if anyone has any ideas of what to do with it, let me know.  

Yum.

I haven't really stepped into beans, lentils, seafood, & organic soy yet. I am excited to bring organic dairy back in next week though, for eggs. So it's good Colleen has asked about some recipes appropriate for Week 2. I recently started looking at google chrome apps, and found Gojee and I kind of love it. So I found a few recipes:


Fava Beans with Carmelized Onions


Broccoli Pesto with Cannelleni Beans


Salmon Baked in Foil with Green Beans & Pesto


Aloo Gobi


African Sweet Potato Soup with Peanut Butter & Black Beans


Butter Beans with Olives & Roasted Tomatoes


Sockeye Salmon with Cilantro, Grapefruit, Green Beans & Sweet corn


Mango Avocado Salad with Black Beans & Lime Vinagrette

and what a colorful Valentine's Day meal!:

Scarlet Seared Scallopshttp://norecipes.com/blog/2011/03/09/scarlet-seared-scallops/

Week 2 Recipes?

Does anyone have any good week 2 recipes to share?

Assessment Results: Week 1

Huzzah! We made it! And I am probably not alone when I say there is no way in HELL I would have made it past day 1 without the support of fellow "cleansers". Thanks everyone!

I realize it might not be the most kosher research practice to create your own measures/questionnaire and participate in your own study AND check the results only after completing 25% of the study, but alas, I will not be submitting this to a journal and I wanted to know if I my sacrifices paid off. So I took an assessment this morning and compared it to last week.

Some highlights:

• Almost 7 lb decrease in weight - yowza! Too bad it will likely come back by the end of this month. But I'll take it for now.
• Improvement in sleep quality - with a few exceptions, I slept more soundly and was a awake earlier (though still rolled out of bed at the last possible moment - no changes there :-\ )
• Energy - moderately improved; not groggy throughout the day yet still not enough energy to exercise consistently
• Mood - overall it was mildly improved; my PHQ-9 score, however, vastly improved by 8 points!

Some Disclaimers/Deviations:

• I've drank about 6-8 oz of coffee/day with almond milk. Could not let go.
  
• I had to bake a ton of cake for my nephew's birthday party and it was pretty hard to not take a few swipes of frosting to ensure that it was peanut buttery enough (it was not changing color). It was also REALLY hard to not eat cake batter (there's no excuses other than it is irresistably delicious) so I had a few tablespoons from the bowl. Strangely enough, just that tiniest bit of added sugar, dairy, and gluten had me buzzing before bed and when I woke up the next day.

Alright! Time for beans and fish! It finally gets better!!

1/4. Quarter. 25%. Only 3 More Weeks!

This was one LONG week.  But we did it!  We made it through what I think is going to be the hardest part of this cleanse.  Tomorrow we can start eating beans, soy, and fish!  I'm soaking my black beans now.

How is everyone feeling?  I'm feeling pretty good.  As was expected for me, not eating bread and sugar has been the hardest for me. I did some yoga on Sunday and made and froze the lentil soup.  We got some Lara Bars and I've been popping an almond inside a date as a snack.  Pretty tasty.  I've had dreams pretty much every night that I just accidentally ate/drank one of the non-cleanse ingredients without even thinking about it.  I went to the Olive Garden with coworkers and just had salad with olive oil and vinegar.  Other than that I've just been continuing to get through our frozen soup.  We made the kale salad recipe the other night and that was the last of the recipes on Week 1's menu so we got a spaghetti squash and other veggies and improvised recipes that were great.  I forgot to take pictures of all of them.  We've got a lot of ideas of what we're going to eat on March 1.

In addition to how folks are feeling, I'm wondering if there have been any ingredients that you've been having trouble finding.  We couldn't find kale any place but Jewel.  It's been hard to find dried fruit that doesn't have added sugars and I didn't see almond milk without a bunch of preservatives.

Finally, I thought some of you might be interested in this blog by a girl that I went to high school with.  She did the Paleo diet for the month of January and blogged about it.  I haven't read all of it yet but I have a feeling we'll have some similar experiences to her.

Don't forget that you can print a copy of the Whole Living recipes in a Word doc here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f0KR3esvArPzuKtunTjIEckjCsho16PRwtzHtzUfPek/edit?hl=en_US

Long week!

Well. We're at day 6. Just one more day left before we can finally eat BEANS! Yay! I'm afraid my stomach is going to explode because I'm likely to overeat them this week.

To recap the last few days, there were definitely some rough spots. Some highlights include:

- Sitting next to someone eating pizza at a meeting and being SO distracted I couldn't think.

- My office having a happy hour last week that I had to miss out on.

- Not wanting to go out in the evening at all this weekend, because that would tempt me to drink.

- Anytime I smell coffee.

- In general, I notice I can't concentrate at work like I usually can. I blame the lack of coffee.

I have noticed some good things though.

- I am so much more aware of what I eat. In turn, I am aware that I must typically put a ton of crap in my mouth without giving it a second thought.

- I think I'm relearning what feeling hungry feels like. Usually anytime I'm bored or thirsty, my first instinct is to eat. With the cleanse though, I find myself being more particular of what and when I eat. Also, I don't feel hungry even though I'm really eating a lot less than usual.

-I've been falling asleep within about 5 minutes every night versus the typical 20-40 minutes.

I'm definitely glad I'm doing this, but it is tough. More than anything, it's just tiring to constantly have to think about what you're putting in your mouth.

whole living staffer drank coffee, so will i darnit

Whole Living staffers blog about experience with the Cleanse

read some of the comments. interesting to see how people reacted to this cleanse. the sleeplessness especially because I haven't experienced that.

it's day 5 and I still feel great! I look forward to coming home each night and making my dinner and dessert.

have any of you noticed your body feeling better? (or worse?)

Yesterday. Oh yesterday.

Yesterday was rough.  It was Matt's dad's bday so we went out to the burbs to hang with him and Matt's brother.  Of course that must include eating at some point.  It was not easy to find an acceptable place to eat for two cleansers and to who are kind of the opposite of cleansers (and who also really don't understand why someone would even want to do a cleanse).  Cooking was not an option.  That being said, I think I ate more yesterday than I have during the whole cleanse.  We ended up going to Francesca's and Matt and I got some salads and apps.  They were really good, but it was excruciating watching them eat the loaves of bread, pizza, and pasta at our table.  The waiter even brought by a second loaf of bread when he saw Matt and I not eating any of it.  When all together, we also talk about food A LOT.  There's a lot of reminiscing about food, discussing restaurants, planning for future meals, etc.  It was tough.  But we made it through.  


Then we moved on to my parent's house a few hours later and thankfully my mom is also on the cleanse.  So we cooked one of the cauliflower cleanse recipes, split some of the butternut squash soup, and baked some sweet potatoes with rosemary and scallions.  It may have been a little more than one serving's worth, but we're pretty sure we had been eating less calories than we should have during the last few days.  It was delightful. 


The plan for today:  check out what ingredients we still have left, figure out what we need for week 2 recipes, grocery shop, maybe cook another soup.  This week is a busy one.  I've got something planned for every evening so I'm going to have to really plan my meals well. I also have two lunches planned for work.  Not sure how I'm going to deal with those. I'm guessing that when week 2 begins on Wednesday, I'll probably stick with smoothies for breakfast because they seem easier than cooking.  We decided that once we get to week 2 of the cleanse, it's going to be easy-breezy because we can have BEANS!  That's huge!  Only 3 more days of week 1!  

My Milkshake Substitute

Ok, so I've been making a version of this smoothie for about a month now and I think it's really a great substitute for a delicious milkshake, which we know I'm a fan of.  It works for the cleanse and it's gotten me through the after dinner hunger for the past two nights.  

2 frozen bananas

1 tbls almond butter

1 tbls honey

a splash of vanilla

a pinch of turmeric (i read somewhere that it's good for you)

a shake of cinnamon

a couple of pinches of flax seeds

and enough almond milk to make it blend until smooth.  

This makes two smoothies.  

When i wasn't on the cleanse I added some oats (blended them with the flax seed before any of the other ingredients).  Dee-lish.  

Alternative Pizza Crust for Week One (recipes)

My crackers are in the oven, and I started thinking about an alternative pizza crust we could have in week one. I found a few ideas:

Raw Vegan Pizza recipe with an Eggplant Crust

Raw Pizza Dough

Raw Vegan Pizza with a Mushroom Cap

But I'm sorry, I just don't ever see myself eating this vegan cheese made out of cashews movement. See a recipe here for an example. I just can't do it. I'd rather go without cheese. Some of these raw-vegan recipes just seem like you're going out of your way to eat like, cardboard and goo. Ew.

But omg, just got a parsnip at the store today and am SO trying this recipe for fries!

I'm on lunch from class and ran to the store to get some food. Clearly I didn't plan ahead. This AM I finally stocked up on Lara bars!!!!! For lunch I'm having some roasted sweet potatoes and roasted edamame from the whole foods salad bar. Totally delicious! www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferenorton As an aside, I feel great. I usually have a lot of stomach issues daily, and many of those have subsided I think due to less carbs. Can't wait for class to be over so I can go home and eat a great dinner. And work on the final due tomorrow! Also, FYI: whole foods ready made guac is all natural, and only includes avo, onion, tomato, hot chile pepper, cilantro, lime juice& salt!!! I'm making Michelle's crackers tonight. I'm going to dip them in the guac. I also bought hummus gluten free! And no gum guar or whatevs.

Try the spiced apple butternut squash soup! It's thick but not rich.  I didn't really measure the butternut squash but knew I had more than 4 cups.  I added another small apple and doubled the spices and added 2 extra cups of water.  Even my 7.5 month old son loved the soup!  I couldn't shovel it in fast enough, which doesn't happen usually.  It's his first spiced baby food.

I strongly suggest the coop method of cooking.  I couldn't find cardamom at the store and the ground cloves were too expensive for just a "dash" in the soup so Susie and Demian graciously lent me some and in exchange we gave them some soup and in addition, they gave us some stew too!  We're neighbors too so the exchanging and borrowing is very easy. 

Can't wait to try more recipes!

More Recipes

for whenever.

Spicy Sun-Dried Tomato soup with White Beans & Swiss Chard

Pistachio Crusted Eggplant

Reverse Risotto

Brown Butter-Roasted Cauliflower, Sauteed Plantains, and Parsley Root Puree
Cinnamon Roasted Chickpeas &
Almond "Feta" Cheese (I'm intrigued)

and I'm going to write my friend Mandy, because she wrote me that her husband made a "mayo" out of eggplant?

I'm not sure I"m ready to move out of week one yet. I'm still having fun finding new veggie recipes! but I'll welcome the incorporation of beans. 

Random stuff

So apparently the Kitchn had us beat to finding healthy snacks for our superbowl parties.  Here's one that looks good to me:
Rosemary Roasted Almonds


...and then I got sidetracked and found some other recipes that would work for Week 1:
Raw Kale and Grapefruit Salad
when can we eat potatoes?
another butternut squash soup


I was also looking around for other folks who are doing/have done this cleanse and I found one:
http://yummyrunning.blogspot.com/2012/01/whole-living-cleanse-week-1.html

Today has been a bit tough so far.  I made the mistake of just having OJ this morning rather than making a smoothie.  And quickly realized that's not enough.  I meant to bring some cherries to snack on during the training but I forgot them and wouldn't have had time to eat them anyway.  So I rushed home starving at 3 to eat some soup.  Today would have definitely been one of those days that I'd have gone out of my way to eat something really great after work.  And by really great I mean Epic Burger, or a Hoosier Mama chicken pot pie or a slice of pizza from Dante's (because I did think about taking detours to or stopping at all of these places on my way home).  But I refrained.

This whole community support thing is working though.  At the training today I found out the Susan is also doing the cleanse and Yesenia is still going strong!  I talked to my mom last night and she's on board but missing her coffee.  Knowing all of this helped me not eat one of the granola bars or mini candy bars that were staring me in the face today.

I've also realized that simple things like checking my email are a bit harder because apparently I inundate my life with blogs, pictures, articles, & deals revolving around eating.  I get multiple emails each day specifically about food or restaurants.  Many of the links that pop up on my facebook wall are regarding food.  I only check a few websites on a daily basis, and they all have to do with food.  So basically, the internet isn't quite as much fun without being able to eat whatever I want.  But alas, I'll live.  I also enjoy looking for healthy food options so I'll focus on that.

Last night I made those crackers I had posted about earlier, and they are delicious! Super easy, and I actually feel full after eating them. I think the secret is the chia seeds. They get a bit sticky after you add water and help to hold the cracker together.
I used my crackers as a base for a peanut butter and banana snack last night. So good!

Oh, and here is the left over kale salad I ate from Native Foods yesterday, along with some vegan/gluten-free pea soup from Target. Both were excellent.

I'm feeling good and sleeping good right now. I feel like I'm eating more than usual just to get my normal amount of calories, but that hasn't been too bad. Yay to Colleen for thinking about Super Bowl Recipes! I would add Guacamole and Salsa to the list.

Let's Get Ready to SUPERBOWL!

Headache. Check.  Falling asleep early. Yep (9:30 last night). Other than the fact that all of these recipes are pointy and acidic and killing the burned roof of my mouth (I don't know when that happened, but it's not going away, ug), I'm feeling good.  The mango smoothie I made this morning was great.  I barely thought about being hungry while at work today because I was extra busy getting ready for this training tomorrow.  


But let's get serious, the weekend is coming!  I've already had to be reminded that I'm on a cleanse when I suggested we take Matt's dad to dinner for his birthday this weekend.  We'll figure something else to do.  Otherwise, I'm not even sure exactly who is playing the Superbowl this weekend, but I know a lot of people will be going to parties.  So what can you bring and what can you eat while continuing to be on the cleanse?  


Send some links of good Superbowl party recipes!  


I will say that the Minty Pea Dip would be a totally acceptable veggie tray dip. I've been snacking on it and I like it.  It doesn't have a pea-y flavor, so even if you don't like peas, I'm thinking you might like it.   


Oops! Almost burned my kale chips.  Gotta go!

This sucks.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. This sucks. Yesterday I was feeling really good until about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. At that point my caffeine withdrawal began to surface. My head hurt. I couldn’t work. I think I spent two hours just staring at my computer screen wanting to curl up in the fetal position. I typically have about 180-225 mg of caffeine a day (that’s a tall coffee at Starbucks in the morning and maybe a diet soda at a night). So, going cold turkey was difficult. Around 4:30 I ended up finding some decaffeinated green tea in my office’s kitchen, and drank a cup. It definitely helped. Decaf green tea has about 0-12 mg of caffeine in it, so who knows if that little bit of caffeine helped my symptoms go away, or if it was just psychosomatic.

The food sitch is fine though. I ate a delicious kale salad at Native Foods last night. I was surprised at how many food items on their menu contain gluten, beans, or soy – but at least I could eat their kale salad. Also, I was definitely really hungry throughout the day yesterday, so I just kept snacking on blueberries and nuts. I ate about a pint of blueberries yesterday.

I was exhausted when I got home and ended up falling asleep on the couch at 10pm. I didn’t wake up till 8 this morning. This morning though, I feel good. I made a ton of green juice and ate a few walnuts. I also now have a bit of decaf green tea next to me in case my headache comes back. This afternoon I’ll be eating the leftovers from my salad last night, and some split pea soup.

This does suck, but I can handle it.

One Day Down

It's the end of the first day of my cleanse and for the most part I'm feeling good.  I have a headache though and it feels much later than the 9 o'clock hour that it is.  The food that I ate today was delicious: antioxidant smoothie, sweet potato/celery/apple salad (i forgot to take a pic, but believe me, it was really good), minty pea dip with carrots as a mid-afternoon snack, broccoli & squash with tahini dressing for dinner, and now i'm eating some cherries for dessert.  

Other than the food changes I'm trying to make, I'm also trying to improve other eating-related habits that I've started to form in the past couple of years.  So today at lunchtime, I actually took a lunch break.  I didn't simply eat my lunch at my desk and I didn't just skip lunch, which was happening most days.  I told two of my coworkers of my plan to not eat my lunch at my desk and they then joined me in the kitchen instead of going back to their offices.  (One of them was my awesome supervisor who is currently on Week 2 of the cleanse)  After we ate, I went on a 15 minute walk around the neighborhood.  

I feel like this is going to be a good move if I can keep it up!  

Thanks to everyone who have written some awesome posts.  I took my assessment today and I love the alternate recipes and ideas!  Keep 'em coming!

Day 1 is here

Let me tell you a secret... Last night when I looked at the clock just after midnight, a deep feeling of dread crept over me. "What have I signed myself up for?!", I thought.

This morning I’m feeling good though. I had a few realizations in the past few days of foods that I can eat, which will help keep me going. The first is Almond Milk, which I think will be a nice way to make morning smoothies taste a little richer and keep me a bit fuller. The second is, broadly, seeds. Seeds? Yes. Seeds. Chia seeds. Flax seeds. Pepitas. You get the idea. It doesn’t sound exciting, but what I like about seeds is that they give you a crisper texture than you can get with nuts. I actually found a great recipe for crackers made from just seeds, garlic and onions, then either dehydrated or baked low. I plan on making these in these soon. Let me know if you want in.

So, here is my plan for the day:

This morning I had a mixed berry smoothie with almond milk, with some raw pepitas from trader joes.

For lunch today I think I’m going have an avocado and tomotoes with some salsa.

I’m actually meeting a colleague for dinner, which would probably be a disaster, but we’re going to Native Foods Café which has a number of raw and vegan options. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something.

Snacks today include almonds, dried seaweed ‘chips’, and maybe a Lara Bar. Lara Bars by the way are just dates and walnuts along with maybe another fruit.

Best of luck folks!

Any research geeks in the house?

I recently helped my boss submit a health services research grant and am still suffering from PGSD (post-grant stress disorder) - nightmares about missing narrative pieces, pdf packages, figure formatting, and of course, health outcomes measures. So as an outlet, I wrote up an "assessment" to measure claims that the challenge makes as well as my own personal goals in participating. These include weight loss, skin quality, increased energy and exercise, sounder sleep habits, and a generally better mood (I am especially interested in how the lack of gluten will affect this). I am one of the participants who will likely not complete the cleanse by 100% but say, by 70-75% (heading to Kansas City in the middle of the month!).

I aim to take this assessment tomorrow morning as a baseline and ideally would like to take it at 2 more time points and on the very last day of the challenge. I would also like to see how the challenge affects mental health so I will be taking the PHQ-9, a very common measure for depressive symptoms, every week. This is probably not necessary for most people, but I think it would be interesting for those who suffer from perhaps cabin fever/winter blues, like myself, to observe how food affects our brains/emotions.

Feel free to use this or to expand/adapt it to your own personal goals/research interests. Also, if there are any other research-y people out there, I'd love to hear your suggestions for additions/edits/better measures for some of the goals I have.

The Night Before the Cleanse

Well tomorrow starts the cleanse...Feb 1!  Matt and I decided to head to Publican for a pretty awesome meal tonight (we had a gift card!).  When we got home we prepped tomorrow's lunch and snacks:  the sweet potato, celery, apple salad and the minty pea dip.  I plan on making the antioxidant smoothie for breakfast.  I didn't have any coffee today and i'm feeling good.  I'm going to head to bed to try to get a good night sleep tonight.    

Superbowl Snack Ideas

Patriots are playing some other team :)

As a side note, I'm in a class some weekends. When we saw the schedule of the class was to meet on Superbowl Sunday- we asked our professor to add the hours elsewhere so we wouldn't need to meet that day. Her response was so great: "I don't care about Football!".

Here's some recipes I thought might be perfect for having/going to a party while trying to stay as close to your goals for this cleanse as possible:

Oven-fried Potato Chips

Vegetarian Posole

Warm Chickpea & Artichoke Pate

Savory Sausages

Green Chile Hummus

Truffles

DessertsstresseD

Yeah! that we can eat fruit during this cleanse! I've tried doing the no-carb/low-carb plan for a little bit, but struggled because I couldn't have fruit. Eating fruit as a dessert will totally fullfil my sweet tooth. Here are some recipe ideas that I'm thinking about trying:

Butternut Squash with Walnuts & Vanilla

Baked Apples

Cardamom Citrus Fruit Salad

Baked Apple Slices

Moroccan Orange Dessert

and, omg:

Delicate Raw Fruit Crepes With A Chocolate Brownie Filling

Anyone else have any ideas?

Gearing Up

Lots of cleanse talk yesterday and today...


Matt and I made a Wed/Thurs/Fri food plan of action (in addition to eating a pretty heavy Thai meal).  
Sophie was interested in cooking a meal for/with us at some point.  
My supervisor at work has been on the cleanse already for a full week (when she had only expected to do it for 3 days!), and has gotten some of her friends on board. 
My mom decided that she's going to do the cleanse.  
Rose decided that she's going to do a "cleanse lite".  
Jennifer wrote a blog post, is going to be taking pics and posting them of all of her meals, and she sent me a bunch of additional links to recipes that we can make during Week 1: 


Avocado salad:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tomato_onion_avocado_salad/

 Cauliflower steaks:
 http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cauliflower-steaks-with-spiced-corn

 Vegetable soup (staple recipe, but add or subtract whatev veggies you want):
 http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/RecipePage.aspx?recipeId=99961

 Warm Cinnamon stuffed apple:
 (omit the agave nectar. Buy a sweet apple like fuji, honeycrisp, or pink lady-no need for added sugar. I'm thinking about using frozen cherries instead of blueberries)
 http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2010/01/microwave-baked-apples-two-ways.html


These look great!  Thanks everyone.  One more day to prep!  

More Recipe Resources for Week One

Some think eating vegetarian cuisine is going to deliver lacking flavor, sense of less-than-full stomach, and little variety to meal plans. This is only true if you take a lazy approach to cooking & baking. Each year I have friends over during the holiday season, and continually hear positive feedback about the meat-free meal I've shared (they even ask me for the recipes!). I enjoy sharing vegetarian recipes because I'm proud of the delicious food lifestyle I've chosen, and am confident if I can do it, so can anyone. With exciting resources abound on the internet, cooking tasty vegetable-based meals should be in everyone's weekly meal plan. The purpose of this post is to provide you with some alternative recipe resources for this cleanse (especially during Week One), while helping you build your recipe box for a healthy lifestyle change to utilize long after this cleansing month.

101 Cookbooks is a site that I've been following for years. Heidi provides sophisticated vegan & vegetarian recipes alongside beautiful food photography. Her cookbook, Super Natural Everyday, can be bought on Amazon.

The Chubby Vegetarian is a blog that I recently was turned on to after watching The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. These recipes are hearty & southern-inspired. (BTWs, a vegan food truck was featured this season! And made it pretty far in the competition!)

Though VeganYumYum doesn't really post any longer, their archives are full of meat free cooking & dairy free baking.

These boys at The Bitten Word are blogging as a result of all the food magazines they've compiled over the years. What a great idea! Add some color to your plates by making this creamy cauliflower soup with greens from Martha Stewart.

If you have a meat-based recipe you really love, transform it into a vegetarian dish. Simply substitute vegetable stock for chicken and beef stock, extra-firm, marinated tofu for chicken, and large, portobello mushrooms for steak. Search for other alternatives by using keywords on websites like Epicurious, Cooking Light, and Weight Watchers. This is how I've found great suggestions on how to create textures in veggie tacos, bulk up burgers, add color for fries, and build a hearty curry.

I'm sure you've seen the commercials to take the Least Challenging Challenge from Silk soymilk! ::::::::Doooo ittttt::::::: Start slow, substitute it for dairy in your baking, and work up to drinking it out of a glass (if that's your thang).

After this month is said & done, I hope you'll consider a meat-free lifestyle. Meatout Mondays is a wise first-step. Consider small changes at first, like picking one day a week to eat a vegetarian-based diet. On this site, you can sign-up to receive a weekly e-mail that delivers new, meatless recipes to your inbox. Easy. Peasy. And after all, research has proven that a diet rich with fruits & vegetables will make you a better person*.

Jennifer

*Well, not in so many words, but check out Vegetarian Times for some facts about why to go meatless.

The Cost of Cleansing

As I've chatted with folks about the cleanse, many have shared with me their concerns.  Some people think they won't have enough time to do so much cooking, some have never eaten some of the foods in the recipes, some don't have a juicer or blender, some are concerned that they won't be able to cut out some of the foods/drinks that they love out of their life, some have stuff going on in February that will make it hard to be on a cleanse.  I'll probably address some of these concerns in other posts, but Sophie was curious to know if being on the cleanse would cost more money than not being on the cleanse.  So...

Yesterday I went shopping with my cleanse list for Week 1.  I went to Stanley's because I know that going to a produce market is going to be way less expensive than your average Jewel or Dominicks.  I ended up getting all of this food for $28.16.  The most expensive item that I bought was arugula for $2.98, which was one of the two items (I also bought 7/10ths of a pound of cherries for $0.88) I purchased that are not actually ingredients included in the cleanse this week.  Unfortunately they didn't have any kale, so I headed over to Trader Joe's.  They too didn't have kale, but I did pick up some of the ingredients for snacks like olives, frozen peas, and trek mix.  The trek mix that I usually eat is pretty much the same thing as the trek mix recipe for the cleanse.  Maybe I'll throw some sunflower seeds in there.   Plus I had a TJ gift card (thanks mom and dad!) so I got myself a little bonus, which made me happy.  I did stop at Target earlier in the day and picked up a bottle of pomegranate juice for $4.50, yikes.  Once I got to TJ's I realized I could have bought a bottle there twice as big for about the same price.  That being said, all in all it was a good shopping day.  I got a whole bunch of goods that we'll need for the next week and a half and only spent about $35.  Because I wasn't spending money on processed goods, there wasn't a whole lot at TJ's to buy.  We did already have pretty much all of the basic spices and condiments at home and there's still a few things I'll need to buy, but I think my conclusion is that being on the cleanse might cost us less than not being on the cleanse as long as we're doing some smart shopping and being organized.  


Being organized.  Doing this is definitely going to take some forethought (I've thought about creating an Excel spreadsheet, but haven't moved to that level of nerd just yet.).  As I was looking at the recipes, I decided to spend a little time this weekend making soup.  I put them in the freezer so that I don't have to worry about making them during the week and they'll be an easy grab and go meal.  Plus there's no worries about that produce going bad. Matt and I could potentially take that Butternut Squash soup for 3 days of lunch.  If we get tired of it though, it can just stay in our freezer for the future (or if any of you are doing the cleanse and want a serving, let me know!).  Another little tip is that I saved the seeds from the B-Squash and I'm going to toast them and use them in the Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage and Carrots recipe this week because I didn't bother buying pumpkin seeds.  Yay substitutes! 


Ok, I'm off to make the second soup recipe while we watch the Bulls game!

The Jist.

Just so we're all clear, this cleanse is not one of those all-juice-all-the-time cleanses.  Nor is it anything too extreme like totally fasting (I love food way too much for full-on fasting) or trying to sustain yourself on a lemon water detox.  We'll be eating plenty of food on this cleanse.  Well, probably not plenty in the sense that we probably eat way more food than our bodies need right now, but we'll eat enough food.  But it will be healthy food.  And the cleanse part comes in that we'll be cutting out some of the unnecessary stuff from our food intake.  Just for one month.  One month out of our ENTIRE life.  Hopefully clearing our bodies of anything harmful and getting into a routine of eating healthily so that once March comes we won't go right back to our unhealthy habits*.  So here's a real quick run down:

What's Off Limits During the Plan: processed food or beverages, added sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, and alcohol.
What You're Eating During Week 1: fruits, vegetables, and plant-based fats, including nuts, seeds, and oils
What You're Adding Back in Week 2:seafood, beans and lentils, and organic soy
What You’re Adding Back in Week 3:gluten-free grains and eggs


*Note that I'm speaking for myself here realizing that I have unhealthy eating habits.  I think everyone will be participating in this cleanse for their own reasons and to whatever extent they are interested in doing so.  I'd love to hear from folks (in the comments or in their own blog posting) as to why they are doing the cleanse!

February. 2012. This is happening.

For the past month or so I've been talking to everyone that will listen about a cleanse that I'm planning to do for the month of February.  I know, February isn't the typical month to start a cleanse, but I've been spending January recuperating from the holiday gorging season.  I've been bringing my lunch to work on most days, drinking more smoothies, exercising more, and laying off coffee at least a couple days per week.  We've also made a few of the recipes from the cleanse to try them out (and they've all been great!).  This has been a way to ease into the cleanse month.


So the reason that I've been telling everyone about this cleanse is because I need social supports.  A good portion of my life revolves around food.  Going out to eat is a means of socializing and something that I love to do.  Going out to eat will be almost impossible during February.  (Plus I'm way more likely to stick with it if everyone in my life knows that I'm doing it.  Accountability, woo!)  The more people in my life who are also on the cleanse (even if you don't want to do every part of it or for the entire time), the better.  We can plan meals together, cook for each other, go grocery shopping together, and support each other.  It'll be fun!


This is my first blogging experience ever.  Whoa.  I figured this would be a good way to get folks talking about what they're eating, what they're struggling with, planning group meals, etc.  So please let me know if you'd like to write some posts.  I think I have to add you to something.  I'll try to post at least a couple of times per week.  


So let's get started!  


Here's the link to all of the details for the cleanse:
http://www.wholeliving.com/152870/2012-whole-living-action-plan


To make things a little easier, I've put all of the recipes into google docs so that they can be easily printed for when you go to the grocery store.  Here are those links:

Week 1 Recipes: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MgfOM6qASEN7twzQS5kvUI_Ve4Nqz-kU6KTMCY84Rss/edit

(note: I only included the smoothie recipes, not the juice recipes)

Week 2 Recipes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f0KR3esvArPzuKtunTjIEckjCsho16PRwtzHtzUfPek/edit

Week 3 Recipes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UgW4MBK9pqnwNwR4pvVntK-BSmoZZnB3W0H8jfCjtgY/edit

Week 4 Recipes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15u8rnaH4lUkOMwiDcnzCfJ-P4dN075Z7MtdFb3d3vQE/edit

Snack Recipes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QOpM2RSAMteShxY1Zyy19DIGKLERpRGGO8GhibXDifY/edit