Elimination Week 3

We went from this nasty stuff and being ready to give up.......

....To a week with meals like this:

Salmon with Broccoli (the boys also had bread, but that was off limits for me)

Lamb Shank with beets from our CSA and black bean noodles (these just looked really cool)

Lemon Chicken with Asian rice noodles and a cauliflower and broccoli mix

We had other good things as well but I am sure you are getting the idea by now.

I have also lost 10lb since I started and feel pretty good.

I did have one night that I knew I was going to cheat going in. I signed up for a 'South Indian Delight' cooking class way back in October that had to open a second class and still has a waiting list. Needless to say I wasn't missing it. I learned all sorts of things about Indian spices, met some wonderful people and ate some amazing food.

Spoiled Rabbit

We own one very spoiled rabbit. Really-not joking. The last few days when it has been in the negative numbers (-18 when we woke up this morning), we moved the the bunny from the cold mud room to the kitchen where her water would not freeze.

She would come in the house and roam around a few times a week anyway, but now she thinks she is queen of the house. Someone needs to tell her that's my job :)


Then there is little man, who thinks he needs to read to her every night before bed. As you can see, she is very interested in the book.

She just figured out there were carrots in her cage.

Clean Week 1: Adjustments needed

For starters, this really stinks - or did, until I made some minor adjustments. On the bright side, I have lost 9 pounds since Christmas, so it is a worthwhile pain--kind of.

Starting out the week, I had a plan and was going to follow it by the book. By the end of the week, I was ready to bail and head for the first fast food joint I could find. So, what went wrong you ask?

For starters, I hated cold soup going into this, and the soups they had on this plan made the ones that I have had in the past look like the best food I have ever eaten. I spent my evenings trying to choke down some of the soup and then tossing the rest into the compost. No wonder I have lost so much weight.

Secondly - and this might be too much information (so feel free to skip to the next paragraph) -the man who wrote the book was adamant that you have a bowel movement every day, and if help is needed go for it. Given my previous history with constipation, I was bound to have a day that would go all wrong and I was freaking out thinking I was going to die. I even invested in castor oil to help things along, however, upon reading the terms "explosive" and "extreme cramping" on the back of the bottle, I decided that there had to be a better way. My alternative: eat a bag of prunes. I would not recommend this option to anyone, ever!

Following the prune incident, and a day in which I was ready to bail on the whole Clean diet, I decided some adjustments needed to be made. I gladly went back to the Elimination stage and life is much better. I am still not eating the forbidden foods for the next two weeks, but at least I am feeling a little bit more in control again. I think the lamb we cooked last night also helped a bit as well :)

Clean-Elimination Week

If you read the previous post, you know I am doing the Clean program for the next few weeks. Basically raw food diet, meats cleanse. I decided to do it because I was drinking way too much coffee, eating way too many sweets and putting a bunch of junk into my system around the holidays, and it was starting to take a physical toll on my body and even lead to a few health issues. I decided I would share my mishaps over the next few weeks, more as a means of laughing at myself.

While the program is technically a 3 week program, they recommend that newbies like myself that have never done this before do an elimination week. Since I am at the end of the elimination week, I have determine that they do this, so when we screw up, it is during a "trial" week and not the actual Clean. For example, there is a list of "banned food" that I am not allowed to eat, such as coffee, sweets, processed stuff, dairy and grains with gluten. Makes perfect sense right? Then there are items that you don't think of, like tomatoes, oranges, strawberries, peanuts, etc. There is a reason for those that I won't go into (you can read the book if you really want to know), but my point being you have to think a little harder on these. For example, my second day of the elimination we had a play date and little man was hungry on the way home, so I picked up one of those all natural mango smoothies and a container of mixed nuts and berries. About halfway through, I realized that the base for many smoothies is orange juice and there were some peanuts in my fruit and nut mixture. Little man gladly finished my part of the snack. Then my wonderful loving husband picked up a few gluten free snacks, problem..... they were not potato starch free or tomato free. You guessed it: both banned items. Thankfully I picked up on that one before I ate anything.

Our pantry now consists of several gluten-free grains. Most of which I have to read the labels to figure out what they are, and even then I need to go on the Internet to figure out how you prepare them. I have to admit, it has actually been fun sampling some new foods and seeing Andy's reaction when he comes home from the health food store (he says that it's a little expensive and a bit like shopping in a foreign land with a witch doctor showing you around).

The next obstacle I needed to overcome was being in a world where all of the tempting foods still existed and are eaten in front of me or having to prepare it for little man. I managed to overcome two birthday parties so far, although I think I downed an entire bowl of carrot sticks at my friend Julie's house in an effort not to eat the pizza or cake. And that whole licking your fingers thing when you get peanut butter and jelly on them making a sandwich for your child, it a really tough habit to kick. Thankfully, I am really not a milk person to begin with, so this was not tempting at all. (Pasteurizing the milk).

Then my most epic mistake was my green smoothie. We purchased a new blender for this since next week I will be making a lot of soups and smoothies. Most breakfast foods are on the banned list, and just eating fruit in the moring is not filling enough so I decided to start the smoothies in the morning. Another adventure at the store to get chia seeds(yes, just like the Chia Pet!), agave syrup, almond milk and a few other obscure items and I was set. Problem, I rushed through the first green smoothie and did not blend it enough. Ever drink chopped up kale leaves? I choked it down while my toddler looked at me like I was crazy and when I offered him some, politely (and happily) declined my offer of food. I may be sticking to the fruit smoothies for the next few weeks.

My smoothie counter (minus the wine, that is banned also)(and hubby - showing off his skills at balancing pineapples!)

Overall, I do actually feel better this week and have had quite a bit of fun exploring new food options. Let's stick out another week, on to week 1 of the actual clean. I'll let you know how it goes.

Beautiful Food

I realized that I have been slacking on the blogging, but it is winter. It's cold. I am in hibernation. Although, there is some wonderful looking local meat in the fridge that I am really hoping my husband waits to cook until after I finish my Clean Program (basically a 3 week cleanse, a little more detailed than that, but that is the best way to describe it, if you really want to know, click on the link). Today he brought home this wonderful looking Vermont Sausage, and he and little man proceeded to eat it for dinner in front of me; can you tell I am a little bitter?

Anyway.....I am posting some pictures of my beautiful food. I have realized life is so much better when your food looks good! And since the farm we do our CSA though does not stick to your run of the mill vegetable varieties, the food always looks cool at the dinner table. Sorry for the quality, I am working on my food picture taking skills.

Acorn squash stuffed with wild rice and cranberries (there were supposed to be hazelnuts also, but Andy does not like them). Also, I would like to bring attention to my beautiful new teapot in the background - provided by my hubby; he may annoy me by eating forbidden food in front of me, but at times he truly gets it right.

Potatoes from our CSA. I really wish I could remember the type, but we get them every time we go and they are beautiful and taste great. I should also mention that there was one vegetable that we got that it took me so long to figure out what it was and how to prepare it that it went bad. I really should bring a notebook with me when I pick up veggies, but I am trying not to look like the amateur, so I quickly run home and write down anything new. Sometimes I forget and spend the next week searching for said item on the Internet.

I know I have posted these before, but I really love my carrots. They have a sweeter flavor then the ones you buy at the grocery store. Once again, I can't remember the type.

Tinsel

Our first Christmas together there was some serious debate about placing tinsel on the tree. I love it, my dear husband does not. I love the sparkle against the lights, he views it as not ecologically sound and unnecessary.

So we struck a deal, I was allowed to buy one package of tinsel and when it is gone, it's gone. So every year I carefully pull each an every strand of tinsel of our tree and store it in a baggie. I have even enlisted my two year old to help me in my craziness, although he quickly loses interest after two strands. I am proud to say that after 8 Christmases together, I just pulled an almost-full baggie off my tree before it headed out the door.