Thursday, December 29, 2011

Days 17 - 20 Almost There!

This may be difficult for some of you reading this to believe, but the hardest thing about this whole detoxifying cleanse has been blogging about it and trying to keep it interesting.  

I realize that I have gone down a few rabbit trails dealing with things that on the face of it, may seem to have nothing to do with my 3 week cleanse. (bike rides for instance) but the point is that this whole process has not been disruptive to my life at all!  (aside from stuff like destroying my old blender, totally redoing what I thought was a healthy pantry to begin with and monitoring my BG and insulin intake a lot more closely) Melissa and I even ate at some friends house this week and forced them to blend their dinner plans to our will :)

So 20 days down and only 24 hours to go.  I am officially done at 6am tomorrow morning.  I must say that I am anxious to find out if I will need to make more long term adjustments to my basal insulin dosage once I go back to eating 2-3 solid meals per day again, but Dr Junger was certainly right when he commented that this cleanse would change the way that I want to eat.  Simply from a psychological standpoint, I feel better about myself knowing that every mouthful of food I eat is good for me (I will admit that this feeling is amplified when the taste is delicious too :)

So as I prepare to drink my 21rst smoothie in 21 days here are some hurdles that I have faced and overcome during the last 3 weeks.
  1. The first comment that I got on a regular basis was that I had certainly picked the wrong time of year to do a cleanse.  I realize why most people would think this, we live in a culture where the last 5-6 weeks of the year are centered around 2 things, eating and shopping. (doing both to excess)  It all starts the morning after eating way more than you are comfortable day with the traditional, get up early and trample or be trampled by other shoppers day.  Frankly non of this has been an issue for me.  I still feel that this was the best time for me to do this.  My family and friends have been very supportive and not pressured Melissa or myself towards giving up our cleanse so that we could join them in traditional fare.  (more food for them :)) My opinion, great time to start this as I was not tempted (not unbearably anyway) to eat a bunch of stuff that I would normally have indulged in on at least a limited basis and I feel better for it.  Plus I have positioned myself for better health heading into 2012
  2. The next hurdle was getting the start date going.  I had to change my pantry over to maximize it for detoxifying action.  As I mentioned it was pretty healthy to begin with but we had a number of perishable items that needed to be used before we could start, so the target got pushed back from Dec 1 to Dec 9.  I fully intended to have this finished before Christmas but I have to say that it did not hurt to ease into it. We actually started doing the pre-cleanse elimination diet on Thanksgiving day. Once we figured out what we could and could not have, it has been pretty smooth sailing.
  3. Then I overloaded and smoked our blender.  The timing was bad and messed with our breakfast smoothie one day, but the bright side is that we now have a fantastic Ninja blender.
  4. Of course, figuring out how to manage my BGs was a challenge, more so than a hickup, but in the process I had to do some things that we not part of the cleanse. Such as having a juice in the middle of the night and breaking my 12 hour fast up, eating first GU and then honey packs at other times to manage BG dips due to exercise.
  5. Sunday I figured out that my protein portion of my Reliv is soy based. (should have read the label sooner but oh well)  So this was not the cleanest cleanse, but there will be another and this only gives me something to shoot for next time around.
So not to bad.  My younger brother came over on Christmas day and we established a new traditional Schwab household Christmas feast of hummus, tabbouleh, marinated kale and cabbage.  We were all pleasantly full from when this sumptuous repast was concluded and not ready for a nap.  It is so nice to have so much energy.  We had planned to watch a redbox DVD after our meal, but the DVD player decided that this was the day that it was no longer going to function properly, so we changed our plans and watched a movie on Netflix instead.  We appropriately chose "Forks over Knives" .  I have watched a number of food documentaries over the years extolling evils and virtues of how what we eat effects us, but this was not only the most believable, but the best as well.  I highly recommend this movie if you are interested in spending your time in this world with a high quality of life. (not that the movie will provide that, but the ideas just might)
I will save the net results for my next post, but just to end today with a couple of positive things that have happened as a result of embarking on this journey.  I finally got set up with Green Bean Delivery. I like using this service for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I get healthy groceries delivered to my door and I don't have to take time out of my schedule to do something that I hate to do anyway, which is shop.  The food is organic, I don't make impulse purchases and I get to support a lot of local businesses.  BTW you can get a lot more than just produce from them. Things like bison, fresh eggs, chicken, flour, granola, cereal, etc..... Check them out, after 2 weeks I give them 5 stars.

Another positive that has come from the last 3 weeks is that I am firmly on track to getting my life more organized. A very cleansing thing for my mental well being and clarity of thought, also something that will prove helpful in my coaching business as well.

OK so that's it for now, tomorrow I will post the results of my final weigh in plus a recap of all the changes and positives that I have experienced to close out 2011 a good year for me.

Michael

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Days 15 & 16 - Fuel and the Ride

It seems that the hardest thing about this cleanse is blogging everyday.  I guess that is a product of how busy I am and wanting to get to bed early every night.  Part of the detox is making sure that you are getting adequate sleep and I am averaging a little better than 8 hours every night so I can chalk that one in the win column.
So I had Friday off from work and decided that this would be my day for my December century.  For those of you who do not know, 100 miles in biking terms is a century.  I got up at 6am on Friday and had every intention of getting out the door by 7 but of course I could not find all of my gear and by the time I was done being delayed, it was 7:45.
I started with lights, but decided that I would keep it to a minimum given that it was starting to get light when I left home.  I headed out to Wanamaker and was intending to ride a loop around to Greenwood before I headed home.  My plans got derailed a little when I got to Lawrence and stopped at the Starbucks at Pendlton Pike and Sunnyside.  My intention was to drink a hot cup of tea, check my BG and have some fruit, which I did.  The only trouble was that I was freezing by this time.  The temp had been 35 when I left home and it was difficult not to sweat even though I was only wearing 2 layers of clothing on my top, plus a jacket. When I got to Starbucks, I broke out the toewarmers and handwarmers, I switched to a lighter set of gloves and ditched my Jersey and arm warmers. That was a good decision and I was comfortable the rest of the day.  So my stop came after 22 miles and I think in the future, I will stop at 10 just to access how things are going.  I had extra stuff in my Camelbak backpack and ended up only adding to it.
My plans for my 2nd stop was to go 30 miles and stop circa 52 which worked out pretty good.  I rode up across the causeway at Geist and did the cross Fishers and Carmel tour stopping for lunch at the Marsh in Carmel at 106th street and Michigan Road.  I had a packet of Honey and a bowl of mellon for lunch as my BG had dropped to 88 at this time.  I had adjusted my basal down to -80% but went ahead and dropped it on down to -90% while I ate.
I was doing good at this point as far as time, routing and comfort, but I had a few little hitches after lunch.  First I forgot to start the timer on my Garmin until I was headed south out of Zionsville, so I shorted a couple of miles from the tally. Then I missed my turn to go around the north side of Eagle Creek park and then accidently road into the park a little way, suprising a large heard of deer that seemed not to mind me riding through the middle of them in the least. I got back on Lafayette road and headed south to 56th where I intended to skirt the park.  I then made the mistake of jumping on the bike path to go under I-65 and it was flooded and some numbskulls had apparently throw bottles from a car so there was a bunch of glass and I had to get off my bike and walk it a little ways and then clean my tires thoroughly before I headed on.
I suprised another small deer herd (this time only 3 and they were spooked by my presence) and the wind which had been out of the North earlier seemed to have shifted and was now coming from the west.
I thought all was going well, I intended to skirt Avon to the west but somehow with the overcast and twisting roads ended up going back north at one point and only when I noticed that the sun was on my left side did I stop and check my location with my Iphone.  I was headed north out of Whitelick.
So I turned my bad self around ended up in Avon and realized that I was not only running out of daylight, but if I stuck with my original plan I would end up with somewhere close to 140 miles. So I downed a couple bags of cashews and decided that I was only going to go to Plainfield and then head home on US40. By the time I rolled into my drive, I had 101 miles on the Garmin and felt like I had put in a full day.
Melissa had a nice dinner of cold avocado and cucumber soup, which we ate together and then went to bed.
My net insulin use for the day was a paltry 6.8 units and I was 100% in target.  Even riding solo and with all of the wind and cold, my average speed was 15 mph and my total fueling for the day was somewhere south of 500 calories.
Today, Melissa and I mostly stuck around the house after an early morning trip to Trader Joes for some frozen fruit and nut milk.  But before we left we had a delicious pineapple and coconut milk smoothie laced with Chia seeds.  For lunch we had Humus and Quinoa and for dinner the rest of the soup from the night before.  After dinner we settled in to watch After Midnight and discovered that some inconsiderate oaf had apparently damaged the disc.  Why in the world people mistreat these RedBox DVDs is beyond me, but I think that there will be a special place in Hell for them.  We finally bailed on the movie and Melissa went to bed leaving me to finish my 2 day blog.
So that is it, only 5 days left and I will have finished my first 21 day cleanse!  We both feel great and my clothes are fitting me better tha ever! Stay tuned!
Peace
Michael

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Day 13 & 14 - Willpower

One of the things that Dr Junger promises with this cleanse is a more clear head.  In other words the ability to gain perspective.  He also recommends cleansing your lifestyle as well. He contends that we need to get rid of things in our life that are toxic, from thoughts to bad habits or clutter.  Dr Junger recommends clearing our mind for 5 minutes per day and just thinking about nothing.

  While I do not consider my thoughts "clutter" as if I am awake, I am always thinking about something, I do recognized that there are distractions that can cause thought to get...... sort of jumbled.

With that in mind, I have been utilizing my commute time more effectively this fall by listening to a number of unabridged audio books, dealing with subjects that I feel will improve me as a coach, sales person and just in general.  Shortly before I started this 21 day program I came across this book simply titled Willpower by Dr Roy F Baumeister. I started listening thinking that I might need to know a little more about willpower in order to be successful with this cleanse. Dr Baumeister put forth some ideas that resonated with me and I decided to give them a try.  One thing was that we only have so much will power available to us at any given time and if we have to use it to much we will deplete us and it will cause what could be a simple thing to be difficult.  Something that he stressed (and I don't remember what the reason is that this depletes our willpower) is that a neat workplace or living area is very helpful in maintaining our willpower reserves.  I think that the idea is that if we are not constantly having to make decisions as to what to do with our stuff, we have more energy to resist temptation, perservere in our endeavors (like sticking with a meal plan)  So I started by cleaning up my workplace.  I only regret that I do not have a before for the above picture, but trust me when I say, that it is night and day.  I have spent 51 years being messy with my room, desk, shop etc...    One tip that I took to heart is not to move a piece of paper without a purpose and not to move it more than once.  It works, I am doing the same think with dishes, dirty laundry, basicaly everything and I am loving the clarity of thought and peace of mind that it is giving me. I truly believe that this is a factor in why this program seems so easy to me!

Speaking of the program.  I got up this morning and spent an hour on the stationary bike while Melissa fixed a wonderful pineapple coconut smoothie this morning.  For lunch everyone at work got Texas Roadhouse (one of my favorites) but I had my big Green Salad and some azuki beans.  It was not a huge challenge for me to resist the Rum Balls, Christmas Cookies, Fudge, BBQ, what ever all else was available.  My sales manager gave me a Ham, Cinnamon Cake and candy, I have not had even a small urge to cheat.

For supper tonight we had a squash and kale soup, which while not the best recipe that we have tried was certainly adequate and filling.  So now Day 14 is in the bag and only 1 week to go.
I started weighing myself last Thursday morning and the rounded numbers look like this.  I weighed 171 last week and have steadily dropped all week.  This morning I weighed in just south of 168, likey I will not see 160 which was my original target by this time next week, but I think that 165 certainly looks likely.  I know once I get the weight off, it will not be difficult to keep off, so I may take another run at this in a few months if I come up a little short this time arround.  All in all, if I had not shed a single pound on this cleanse (which is really only a side benefit anyway) It has been totally worth it.

Oh yeah, and Melissa and I just celebrated our 3rd anniversary today!  What a great wife I have to want to do this with me and put off our night out until next week! 

That's it for today, tomorrow I have to get up and jump on my road bike for a little ride that I have planned.

Michael

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Day 12 - My Wife is Brilliant

After 11 full days on the cleanse my wife made a shocking discovery this morning.  Turns out that the reason that we feel like there is to much food to eat on this cleanse and keep having leftovers is because all the recipes in the book are 2 servings.  One little sentence at the beginning of the entire recipe section meekly proclaims ...all recipes are 2 servings.... that's it.  I should mention that I had previously looked all over the recipe section for some sort of indication as to how many servings was provided in each recipe.  Some of them seem larger than others, but there it was buried in a paragraph at the beginning of the recipe section.  I should point out as well that I read the entire book and that the rest of the book was very well layed out but I personally think that the recipe section leaves much to be desired.  So I drank 2 full glasses last night of that disgusting seaweed crap and I only had to drink one.... Oh well.   I am rewriting most of the recipes anyway as the directions are presented in an easy to follow format.  For example, the Big Green Salad recipe jumbles all of the ingredients for the prep, salad and dressing together.  I am going to segregate things so that you can have a better sense of what order things are going to happen. 
Having an order of operations helps me so that I cna get the almonds soaking in water first thing, chop all of the salad stuff at the same time, place it in a bowl out of the way while I prepare the dressing or visa versa. The recipe in the book reads like this:
Big Green Salad
·        ½ head of Romaine lettuce, leaves washed dried and torn into bite size pieces
·        1 bunch of Arugula washed and dried
·        Dandelion leaves, washed and dried
·        1 carrot shredded
·        6  Radishes, cut into 4 pieces each
·        1 cucumber, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise, then cut into half inch chunks
·        1 avocado, cut into slices
·        Handful of sunflower sprouts
·        3 scallions sliced thin
·        ¼ cup of soaked almonds, chopped
·        1 clove garlic, crushed
·        Juice of ½ lemon
·        1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
·        1 tablespoon agave syrup
·        Fresh thyme, basil and parsley, chopped fine
·        ½ cup grape seed oil
·        Salt and pepper
OK I am going to interrupt here to comment on a few things.  According to this ingredient list, after the dandelion leaves, nothing needs to be washed and dried. Some of the quantities are nebulous and do not give a start point.  I.E.  I am sure that arugula comes in bunches, but I have not been able to buy it that way, fresh thyme, basil, parsley, salt and pepper, no reference whatsoever. But continuing on…
1.      To make the dressing, put the lemon juice, garlic, agave syrup, herbs and grape-seed oil into a glass jar with a screw-top lid and shake vigorously.  Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.
2.      In a large bowl toss the greens, carrots, radishes, scallions and cucumber with the dressing. ( You can use individual plates if you choose.)
3.      Decorate with avocado, sprouts and almonds.
If desired, you may add 2 ounces of shrimp or chicken per portion.
Soaked almonds are easier to digest.  To soak almonds cover in pure water and leave for at least 2 hours or overnight.
That's it.  All of the directions are there aside from the fact that I have 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar unaccounted for and I am not sure what to do with it, if I follow the directions to the letter and of course some quantities that are a bit nebulous.  I will just have to throw in handfuls of thyme, a pinch of Basil, and a big bunch of parsely then stand here holding this measuring spoon trying not to spill the apple cider vinegar.  The following is how I would present this recipe.
Big Green Salad
Makes 2 servings
Garnish
·        1 avocado, cut into slices
·        Handful of sunflower sprouts (can substitute alfalfa sprouts)
·        3 scallions sliced thin
·        ¼ cup of soaked almonds, chopped – soak almonds overnight, to make them easier to digest
Dressing
·        1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped fine
·        Juice of ½ lemon
·        1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
·        1 tablespoon agave syrup
·        Fresh thyme strip leaves from 2 sprigs
·        Fresh basil ½ tbsp chopped fine
·        Fresh parsley ½ tbsp chopped fine
·        ½ cup grape seed oil
·        ½ tsp Salt and pepper
Salad
·        ½ head of Romaine lettuce and torn into bite size pieces
·        1 bunch of Arugula
·        1 carrot shredded
·        6  Radishes, cut into 4 pieces each
·        1 cucumber, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise, then cut into half inch chunks
Preparation – start the night before by soaking ¼ cup of almonds in pure water soaked almonds are easier to digest. 

1.      To make the dressing, put all dressing ingredients into a container with an airtight lid and shake vigorously.  Set aside.
2.      In a large bowl toss the greens, carrots, radishes, scallions and cucumber with the dressing.
3.      Garnish with avocado, sprouts and almonds.
For a non-vegetarian version you may add 2 ounces of shrimp or chicken per portion.
After reading this recipe, I am sure that you can see how wonderful that I actually am.  I fully intend to re-write this entire section of the book and add a few of my own tweaks.
So moving right along, this morning I woke up with a significant amount of GI distress and apparently had a little taste of that stomach virus that has been going around, so I did not go to my spin class as I was afraid that I might shart.  So wisely I went back to bed for a bit and then got up and helped Melissa make our morning peach and almon
d butter smoothie.  It was pretty good! Melissa started an azuki bean concoction and some rice for our lunch, unfortunately the beans were not ready but will be delicious tomorrow I am sure. So for lunch, I had rice, mandarins and a pear.  It was delicious and very filling. 
So moving forward, I am very happy that we got that serving size thing figured out so that the portions will be a bit more reasonable from here on in. 
Did I mention that I am drinking a lot of water?  The good Dr Junger says that if you are not urinating at least once per hour, you are not drinking enough water for this cleanse.  Well I do that all day long, but at night I only have to get up 2 times to go, but I will be happy to go back to sleeping through the entire night. At the same time, while I am sleeping I am sleeping deep deep sleep.
So for supper tonight we had a yummy cashew and squash warm soup.  The end of a perfect cleanse day!

See You Tomorrow!

Michael

Monday, December 19, 2011

Day 11 Somethings Fishy





Today started off great! I slept 9 hours after the hard ride yesterday, still managed to get up before 5:30 and spend a couple of hours working on a Yearly training plan.

Then with the help of my lovely wife made a delicious pineapple, mango coconut smoothie. Then we made a great salad for me to take to work complete with homemade dressing! YUM!

For some reason today was a high blood sugar day and for whatever reason I could not seem to keep it down until this afternoon, which of course was fitting because I had to visit my endocrinologist (diabetic doctor) so maybe I was stressed thinking about my visit. So aside from getting a 7.5 A1c which is an average BG of 169 (I was expecting something more along the lines of a 6.5 which is what my meter average would indicate and I am suspicious that they are not calibrating their equipment, just based on my interaction with the person who administered the test) my weight was down 2 lbs, and I had a fine visit with my doctor, then I got ripped off by the parking garage. I got to the doctors office at about 3:10 and left at 5:15 and they charged me for 3 hours, $5 I guess is not so bad compared to the cost of the visit.

So I came home to find that Melissa had been shopping today, which let me know that she must be feeling better! Unfortunately she bought Dulce flakes which I think must be made of old rotten fish and seaweed,,,,,, bleh. She mixed up this awful concoction and then made me drink it while she laughed raucously and took pictures.

Needless to say we will not be adding the blended whatever it was to the regular menu once this cleanse is done.

Ok this drink not only looked hideous, it smelled and tasted worse, no joke there. But the good news is that we are well over the hump with this cleanse and it really has not been starvation. I feel like I am eating as much as I want, but simply controling the times and what I am eating. True, I have not had beer, wine, chocolate, eggs, coffee, grapefruit, pizza, oatmeal, toast, tacos, burritos, bacon, cheese, ginger snaps, christmas cookies at the office, pasta when we went out to eat with Melissa's family at the old spagetti factory or a bunch of other stuff for 2 weeks counting the elimination phase. But I am not craving this stuff either,,,, at least at this point. I mentioned to my endo today that it was really a great time of year to do this because I will not nickel and dime my nutrition, like I usually do in December and I am not even tempted to do so. Pretty nice actually!

Seaweed shakes on the other hand :( I say again,,,bleh. If I was starving it would be ok and we put enough valuable produce in this shake that I am not going to throw it out, but Melissa has made it clear that she is not going to drink it and I don't blame here.

So that is my report for the day, I am getting up to spin at 5:45 hopefully with some friends, but for now, I have to go and find some dog poop to get the taste of that awful drink out of my mouth
Michael

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Day 10 - Back in the Saddle

I know the title is day 10 but it really is more like....20 with my extended elimination phase.


I feel Great and am unbelievably feel like I am improving. Melissa told me this morning that the color in my eyes looks more vibrant. I still have people asking what the program the purpose is. The short story is, I saw and article online, bought a book and read it. I became convinced that I needed to jump start my body's detoxification system. You can see a cute little video about it on this website http://www.cleanprogram.com/ They sell supplements there, but you do not need to buy the supplements to do the program.


OK so Day 10 in my cleanse. Either my stomach is shrinking or there is a crazy amount of food on the lunch portion of this program, all I know is that I have leftovers every day. I ate more of the hummus and tabbouleh today and still have some left over for lunch tomorrow. I am taking a pro biotic as well 3 times per day that I purchased at a local healthfood store so that is the only supplement that I am indulging in besides my Reliv shakes.


We had almond butter mango smoothies for breakfast which were Delicious! Leftovers for lunch and leftover soup for dinner. We are drinking prodigious amounts of water and herbal tea as well.


Talk about energy, I did a spin class at LA fitness this morning, came home did some work around the house and then went to the CIBA winter training ride on the northside and did 44 miles non-stop, with strong winds that seemed to shift every time we changed direction and.... dare I say it.... HILLS! Yes more hills than I would have ever thought possible on the north side, mostly rollers actually but they looked a lot like hills.


All in all another great day in the Saddle.
Michael

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Days 7 - 9 (The last 3 Days)



OK so I haven't posted for a couple of days but things were crazy


I stopped by home on my way to a JDRF Ride committee meeting on Thursday evening after work and saw that Melissa's car was in the garage, so I walked into the house expecting to see her in the kitchen blending something yummy but instead the house was dark and cold with no sounds of industry in the kitchen.
I walked in the bedroom and Melissa was buried under the covers with a bowl of Vomit sitting on the floor next to her, she claimed she didn't feel well.... I would guess that is totally true.

Our order from http://GreenBeanDelivery.com/ was supposed to have arrived so I went back outside found the insulated containers, brought them inside, deposited them in the dining room and headed back out to my meeting at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub. The Brew Pub had absolutely nothing on their menu that I could have for dinner so I had a bottle of water and some herbal tea for dinner.

After the meeting I returned home to survey the damage. I realized it must have been bad when I tripped over Melissa's coat in the kitchen before I could get the lights on. The breakfast dishes were still in the sink and my containers from my lunch had to be washed, so I planned to do that and work on a speech that I had to do for at 6:45 in the morning. It was about this time that I discovered that the bowl in the bedroom was not the only place Melissa had left her lunch. The sink was splattered with puke and there was not a rubber glove to be found in the house. So I sucked it up and put baggies on my hands to clean up the kale laced puke that seemed to be everywhere. Melissa was thirsty (obviously needing some more ammo to vomit with) so I got her a glass of water and set about my gruesome task. The next thing I knew it was late and I was not feeling well, but I did not want to take a chance on sleeping in the same bed with Melissa and taking a chance on getting the plague, so I slept for a few hours on the couch and got up at 3am to work on my speech.

The hard thing for me in writing Toastmasters speeches is making them fit the manuals. I had a couple of false starts in 2 different manuals and decided that I would just rewrite one that I had done a couple of times already. By the way, did I mention that I was feeling sick myself about now (so much for the quarentine) I had a Reliv shake for breakfast because I had squandered all my time for making a smoothie and I wasn't feeling all that hungry any way.

Needless to say I had my own little miniplague, but I went to work because I was hoping to go for a bike ride today and I didn't want to take off the day before and then go to work on monday and have them find out that I rode 100 miles over the weekend. I didn't feel well enough anyway, so I did an hour and a half on the indoor bike this afternoon instead.

This morning I got up and made a most excellant coco and mixed berry smoothie. Melissa was still not feeling all that great but she managed to swallow a little. I then packed up and went to the Winter Farmer's Market where I stocked up on $20 worth of local produce and bought $10 worth of granola that I can't eat right now, because I am a sucker for kids selling stuff.

The lunch portions today were like American portions, way to much so I felt stuffed after lunch. But we had marinated kale salad with pine nuts and radishes, the best tabbouleh and hummus that I have ever had and yes we made it ourselves!

We ate lunch late, so we are eating dinner late tonight as well. Melissa is still a little under the weather, but I am back at full fighting strength. :)

So 9 days in and I am getting the hang of eating this way and managing my insulin dosage. To give you an idea of how this is going, here is a log of how this cleanse has affected the amount of insulin that I am using.

The week before I started the precleanse elimination phase I used between 32 and 42 units of insulin per day which is normal. During the elimination week my use dropped to between 28 and 33 units. During the first day of the cleanse I used 21.6 and since have dropped to between 16 to 11.8 units. So the results are looking good.

I have a ton of energy and am picking my activity level steadily as I am becoming comfortable with how to manage my insulin.

So that's it for today,

See you next time

Michael

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Day 6 Bolus Basal & Unit


Today is a happy day! My Scale Came! Not just any scale but the Tanita BC-554 Bodyscan monitor! This little jewel doesn't just tell me my bodyweight, it tells me how much of what I have and some other neat things. I jumped on for a test run as soon as I could get the batteries in and give it a test run. This is not my official base line as I want to do that in the morning but here is what I got Body Weight 174.2 (I was wearing all my cloths except my socks and had stuff in my pockets) Body Fat percentage 18.5% Water weight 55.1% Muscle 134lbs, physical rating 5 (out of 10 and I guess 10 is best) Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) 1862 calories, metabolic age 32 bone 7lbs viseral fat 9lbs. A lot of cool and some unhappy but not unexpected information. Tomorrow morning, I will take it for the official test run and start recording for real, since my LA fitness weigh ins have all been morning.

Kudos to the Competetive Edge for getting it out to me so quick, I wasn't supposed to see it until Friday. Going forward they should learn how to pack boxes to survive UPS. There was one little scrap of paper that was a waste and it is only by grace that my new bodyscan monitor arrived undamaged, no thanks to UPS or the shipping department at the Competetive Edge. Next time guys take that extra 5-10 seconds to FILL the shipping box with paper. The guys where I work would never let a package leave the building like that.... ok I'm done.

So I started my day with a lovely coconut water and pineapple smoothie that I chased with my vitamin protien shake (Reliv from here on) Note to self, drink the shake first and it won't taste as foul.

I have had a few problems in the night with low BG and I should explain briefly what I am going through as a T1 diabetic to do this cleanse and maintain a high enough Blood Glucose level. First of all for those of you who don't know my target range is between 80 and 180 (I won't bore you with what these numbers mean, just know that healthly non diabetic will run between 90 and 110 almost all the time, our bodies are amazing things when they are working the way they were designed to work) I like to be between 90 and 150 but am comfortable as long as I don't go below 70 or above 200 after that I start to feel ...... let's just say less than optimal.

I mentioned in a previous post that I am checking my BG 10+ times per day, but what I failed to mention is that I am talking a 24 hour day. My meter is on the night stand by my bed and I am to lazy an low (yes I am low at the moment, but my Pod is temperarily turned off and I have treated and expect to be ok in 20 minutes or so. But as I was saying I have to check a lot and that means even getting up a couple of times in the night to see where I am at with my BG (I have to get up to pee anyway as much liquid as I am consuming, but it would be much nicer to flop back into bed and not have to draw blood etc...) So last night I tested before bed time and was at 51 so I drank an apple juice (ruining my 12 hour fast) oh well, I had to do it to treat for that low. I also turned down my basal rate to 40% of normal so that I would not go low again in the night..... I went low again about 4 hours later and at that time just turned my pump down to 10% which worked out good and I woke up this morning at 101. (read about Basal, Bolus and Unit at the bottom)

Today was a bit of a trial for sticking with the plan and the dos and don'ts of the Cleanse. I went for my 5k run at lunch, check my BG before leaving (it was 135) ate a mandarin for good measure, was having a tremdously enjoyable run when the bottom fell out of my glucose and all that I had to treat with was a caffienated GU pack (expresso love flavor) I had 2 no nos in my book, with #1 being the caffiene and #2 the non-organic GU when I had honey packets sitting in my office that I forgot to bring with me.

It wasn't the best run ever, but I got through it and returned to my office to eat a Red Delicious apple and a yummy salad for lunch,Yum it was very satisfying.

I head home from work and give my lovely wife a call to tell her I am on my way and what's in the blender for tonight, only to find that she is out foraging for ingredients at the local Asian market, so we were a little late eating tonight but I have to say that she did good in her selection for tonights dinner. We had Miso, Carrot, Ginger, Mushroom and Kale soup. I was full when I finished eating it and it tasted great. So here I sit (I can am already feeling better than I was a couple of paragraphs ago) and the one thing that is hardest for me to believe about this cleanse is how much I am not hungry.

Almost 1 week in and I am certain that this 3 week portion of my life is going to affect sustainable change in the way I eat that I will most definitely reap positive health benefits from in the years to come.

And now as promised Bolus = taking insulin to cover carb intake, the equivalent of a shot Basal = my base insuling, the amount that is required to process the glycogen from my BMR Unit = for insulin purposes 1/100 of a CC There are 10CCs in a bottle and that is normaly a months supply for me.

OK Kids, I'm off to bed! Thanks for stopping by and if you have a moment why don't you follow my blog so that I can look good to people that want to see if I'm popular or not!

Michael










Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Day 5 - Some Questions Answered

I had a couple of questions asked after my post last night and I thought that it would be a great idea to post and give the answers to them here as it gives me something to write about besides what I ate today, posting a log of my BG, bragging about what a manimal I am for working out and doing the best spin class ever at 5:45am this morning.


Work interfered a little bit today thought (while we are on the subject of how awsome I am for working out all the time) so I didn't get to run at lunch (read, the spin class this morning left me whimpering like a little girl and I was to tired to run so instead I sat in the break room and ate possibly the best salad ever, that my loving wife prepared with me)

So on to the interesting stuff the questions.

So we are going to go in reverse order in our answers tonight.

The first question was called in on my special type 1 shoe phone by my new friend Erin. Erin is the midwest captain for insulindependance club captain and works to encourage T1 individuals to pursue active healthy lifestyles and Erin asks, "I'm intrigued by the term "clean food". Where can I learn more?" The way I heard about it was in an article online that I talked about on the first day, but initially I downloaded the book Clean by Alejandro Junger, M.D. to my Iphone (I wouldn't recomend this particular book for that) then I chased around Indianapolis and the surrounding area so that I could actually have a useable copy. I would say that this is a great way to learn what it really is about instead of reading my inept ramblings about my experience so far. Also you can go to http://www.cleanprogram.com/ if you need instant gratification. Now I will take this opportunity to warn you that Dr Junger does not recomend Type 1 diabetics doing this. I can only guess this is because of the things that I have experienced so far with some of my lowest insulin usage in years, I know that you have a pump Erin, but I will warn you that if you do the cleanse as I am, you need to be prepared to do a lot of monitoring of your BG (I am checking 10 times or more a day right now) and expect to drop your basal. I have not been bolusing for my carbs because I have been using less than my basal until today when I dropped my rate to 50% for the whole day today and bolused 50% for my carbs. This is definitely not something that a type 1 who does not have a pump should think about, the cleanse. Clean eating on the other hand is an excellant idea for diabetics of all persuations in my estimation. DISCLAIMER since the good Dr Junger does not recomend the cleanse for type 1 diabetics, I do not either.

This second question was called in by my nephew's finance, soon to be my niece in law, Karsyn on my alien hotline, and Karsyn asks, and I quote, "How's the ninja?" In a word the ninja is great and so is my new Professional Grade Ninja NJ600 blender is great too! If you ever want to do professional blending some day, this is the power tool for you.
The Ninja® Professional Blender is a professional, high-powered innovative tool with a sleek design and bone crushing performance, a true asset to any kitchen. It is perfect for ice crushing, blending, pureeing, controlled processing and disposal of unwanted bodies.
This little baby has 1000 Watts of power, a gianormous 72 oz. Pitcher and Lid (yes it comes with a lid) the destructive mechanism of this beast is a rotating razor sharp multi Blade agitator that must be made of Samuri sword steel that can likely turn large rocks into sand in seconds.

In a word, I love it, ok 3 words. BPA-free construction, this blender is non-toxic on some level.

Karsyn says she wants my nephew Steve to buy her one for Christmas, so much for the perfect wedding gift.

One of my goals with this cleanse besides getting all of the toxins out of my body is to drop off a little baby fat. As I mentioned earlier, my bathroom scale somehow got lost, but I did find a scale at LA fitness, so until my new Ninja scale arrives I will use those results. On Sunday I weighed 175 at 9am in the morning after my spin. This morning I weighed 174 at 6:45am. My ultimate goal is 160. For those of you who don't believe that I have that much to give up, I have weighed as little as 150lbs as an adult, albeit a 20 year younger adult, but an adult non the less.

One final note, I am not doing this cleanse because I have to, but because I want to. I am not concerned about living longer as I really believe that everyone of us has a predefined amount of days that we will live. What I am concerned about is keeping the life in my life. That's why I ride and do a lot of the things that seem crazy to others. I enjoy life and each day is a new adventure and I am happy that I am able to share this one as it happens with many of you!

Ok so 5 days and I am really getting the hang of this with managing my insulin delivery, eating and exercise in a more practical way stay tuned as the situation develops.

TTFN

Michael

Monday, December 12, 2011

Days 3 & 4 Ninja Clean

OK so I have had a lot of people ask me, what are you eating on this diet.

First of all I would like to be clear,,,, this is not a diet, it is a detoxifying cleanse that is designed to be non-intrusive on your life. I have had people say a lot of things to me about what is wrong with what I am doing, without really knowing what this is about. So please allow me to reiterate. We live in a toxin filled world, we get toxins from the air we breath, the water we bath in and the food we eat, just to name a few sources.
The concept of this cleanse is to jump start our bodies natural ability to detoxify and to go forward and eliminate all of the toxins from our own personal environments that we reasonably can. The cleanse itself only lasts for 21 days, it is not about weight loss, but a clean diet is likely to allow your body to achieve homeostasis as far as our body weight goes, which is likely to result in weight loss for many of us.

All that said, here is what you do eat
Organic foods as much as possible
Fruits – whole fruits, frozen fruits as much raw as possible, fresh fruit juices (excluding Oranges, Grapefuits, Strawberries, Grapes and Bannanas) apparently some fruits interfere with the whole detox process
Nut Milks – Rice, coconut and almond milk – no dairy including milk, butter and cheese. Etc…
Gluten Free Grains and Starch – quinoa, brown rice, millet, buckwheat and amaranth. (no wheat, corn, barley, rye, couscous or oats)
Cold water fish, wild game, lean lamb, duck, chicken and turkey
Split peas, lentils and legumes (no soy products of any kind)
Nuts, Seeds and Nut Butters (excluding pistachios, macadamia, peanuts and peanut butter)
Alkaline Vegetables raw, steamed, roasted, sautéed and juiced ( no tomatoes, eggplant, peppers or potatos)
Oils – Olive oil, walnut oil, safflower oil, etc… (excluding butter, margarine, processed oils, peanut oil, mayonnaise, salad dressings and shortening)
Non-Caffienated drinks – pure water (distilled or reverse osmosis), herbal teas, yerba mate, seltzer or mineral water.
Sweeteners – Brown Rice syrup, agave nectar or stevia (no refined sugars or sweet n low type products ).

I think that is quite a list and many of you are by now likely surprised by all the things that are on the list of things I can eat. Ok so now that this is put to bed time to talk more about me.

I discovered this morning that my Iphone alarm application has a setting that does not give you an alarm at the specified time, so I overslept, missed my bootcamp, only had time for an hour workout on the recumbent bike at home, discovered that the blender I set on fire last night trying to blend to much raw squash was not coming back from the dead and as a result, no blog this morning, so I am going to change my posts to evening until something catastrophic happens on this end so that I have to go back to mornings.

So Sunday, I left you with “I’m off to a spin class.” I did the class and it was amazing what happened. I sipped my sports drink the whole time of the 45 minute class, to the tune of a full liter 17 carbs, I had left the house with a BG (from now on read Blood Glucose) of 94 took in 60 carbs in the form of a Reliv vitamin shake that I generally supplement with twice per day and that normally requires 3 units of insulin, worked out intensely for 45 minutes and my BG was 95. If only I could always have my BG at 95,,,,, but then I wouldn’t be diabetic if that were the case now would I?
I came home and enjoyed a lovely blueberry cocoa smoothie and worked around the house until time for lunch we met Melissa’s family for lunch at the Spaghetti Factory downtown. I had chopped romaine with avocado and basalmic dressing, endured the servers advice for what we should do on our cleanse, had a nice visit with Melissa’s family came home and had some chickpeas and Quinoa (which by the way is the only vegetable product known to man that actually contains all 8 essential amino acids making it a complete protein). More on that subject at another time along with the answer to the question that many of you are asking right now, “Michael, if you don’t eat meat, where are you going to get your protein?” Just laying this out as a teaser for a future episode to keep you coming back J
For dinner, we decided to duplicate the squash bisk from the night before, except we ran into a problem,,, the squash was bigger and rather than do the smart thing and dump it out when it was obviously straining our 10 year old $49 blender, I did the thing any power tool crazy man would do in this situation and I continued to blend even though a prodigious amount of smoke was coming off the motor. We had bisk and I didn’t have to dump it out and blend half at a time…. Actually I did. More on this in a minute.
So I went to bed early last night in anticipation of my boot camp this morning and you know what happened with that.
I turned my basal insulin down by 40% when I went to bed at 8:30 with a 119 BG but woke up 2 hours later with a 79 so I turned it down to almost nothing 10% of normal which is as low as my Omnipod will allow, apparently given how low my basal normally is any way.
This worked out great and I woke up this morning with a 96 at 6:15 to late for my boot camp. I wanted to be a little higher than that for the workout I had in mind and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t crash so I turned my pump completely off for 1 and a half hours and had a 121 when I was done. That worked out good, but next time I will turn it down to 10% instead and I think that will be better. I was kind of pressed for time to get to work, but I thought I would have time to put a quick smoothie together, that would have worked out good, except for the fact that I had truly killed the blender the night before and it wouldn’t budge this morning. So Melissa said that she would get a new one for me and tried to get me to spend $500 on our dream blender, I talked her down and we got a really nice commercial grade… should I say? Just read on.
So, I ran 5k at lunch, but it was a snails pace (31 minutes) I just wasn’t feeling it. But in spite of the slow pace it was nice to be out in the warm 40 degree weather! Came back and had a nice lunch of apples, mandarins,beans and Quinoa. Drank herbal tea and finished the day.
I headed home in anticipation of the new, yes you guessed it, a Ninja blender,, KKKEEEYAAHHH!

http://www.ninjakitchen.com/Ninja-NJ600-Professional-Blender.shtml
Melissa had blended up a wonderful dinner of cucumber mint soup and we ate it with great gusto.
Ok, I have to get to bed and get up for an early spin class in the morning (I will be sure to use the alarm that gives and alarm tonight)
See you tomorrow for Day 5!

Michael

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Day 2 Not to Bad

So I started off yesterday planning to circumnavigate Indianapolis on my bicycle. I have done a lot of cold weather riding but all of my road biking in really cold weather has been limited to trips of 10 miles each way to and from work. My longer experiences have been on Mountain Bikes and last year I was out for 6 hours in 5 degree weather.

So I figured a 100 mile trip on a road bike with the temperature hovering between 16 & 17 should be no trick. What I found out were some crucial differences as a result of the speed you travel when road riding vs trail. Read windchill. I have some really good gear that has kept me plenty warm on short road trips and on the trail in the past and I had counted on using hand and toe warmers at some point as well. Next time it will be about an hour in.

My hands started to get cold about that time (1 hour) and so I was pulling them back into my mittons (I have these special lobster claw bicycle specific mittons) to warm them up. Just my fingers and thumbs were cold. The sun had just come up and I figured that even though I was pretty sure any rise in temperature was negligable, that I would be ok to ride about 30 miles before I stopped and put in my warmers. My core was at a perfect temp and my feet were still comfortable by this time, but when I would stop at stoplights my breath was billowing out in clouds that kind of made me feel like I was breathing fire,,,,, only a lot colder.

So this was my second day on my cleanse as you all know and I have to admit to a little bit of trepidation in doing this trip with this recent change going on and not sure exactly how it was going to effect my blood sugar, so I turned my OmniPod down by 60% on my basal rate and I was armed with lots of Stinger Packs of Organic Honey fortified with Bee vitamins.

For those of you who are not familiar with type 1 diabetes, your basal rate is a steady drip of insulin that a pump gives you to mimic the way a pancreas gives a variable steady rate of insulin to your body. When you exercise a non diabetics pancreas will slow down the flow of insulin, I have to do it manually.

So I think the sun had been up for maybe 20 minutes when my Garmin started flashing a low battery indicator to me. Under normal circumstances, I would have kept going, but givin the weather and the cleanse, I did not think it was a good idea to continue without knowing how far I had gone or had to go, plus my heart rate is always a good indicator of how I am really doing and without it I am prone to push a little to hard. So I cut my trip short and headed home netting 30 miles yesterday. Next week I will give it another try.

So I got home and was freezing indicating that I should have stopped sooner for the hand and foot warmers. I only warmed up after a nice hot shower. Melissa came home and had made a trip to the Winter Farmers market so she had lots of cools stuff for us to make out lunch.

We cut up and steamed a wonderful combination of cauliflower, bok choy, butternut squash and kale, which we covered with a yummy lemon, garlic, olive oil dressing, toping off the meal with some Trader Joes Organic Black Beans and Quinoa! It was delish and there was a lot of it.

Dinner was a simple Butternut Zuccini Bisk that we made in the blender and through all of this we had some fantastic herbal teas in our little teapot that our friends Brusce and Elizabeth Tapp brought us over from Britain! We are getting a lot of use out of this teapot lately.


So finally the changes that I have noticed so far. This morning my teeth felt really clean and I think whiter. I have not take a bolus for a meal since Friday afternoon at roughly 3pm. I am having to drop my basal rate on my insulin to keep from going to low. Last night I left it at 55% of normal and still dropped 10 points on my blood sugar through the night.


So far so good, and now I am off to a spin class at LA fitnes and in to day 3


Eat Well

Michael

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Day 1 a day late

Ok so I am technically on Day 2 but I just got out of bed and was so busy getting ready for my first Sub Freezing Circle City Century ride last night that it slipped my mind.

Yesterday went well, with a couple of minor hickups since I had some soup that had been heated that needed to be eliminated. The short story is that I did good. I resisted the temptation for elk beef sticks at work (even though my gut reaction was to snap one up and I even reached for one when offered before I realized what I was doing) I inadvertantly ate a bag of peanuts. But I ran my fastest 5k since I started back and my first Sub 30 in a while. I felt really good after that. It was less than ideal conditions, with the wind at my back on the way out and of course in to the wind on the way back. I still managed a negative split!

So today I am going to go to the store after my ride, I plan to forage for lunch while I am out, but should have everything together by tonight.

Those of you who I have promised more information to, I will definitely be lighting up your emails tonight as well, so when I say everything together, I mean EVERYTHING!



Oh yeah and I bought a new scale yesterday, but it will be a week until it arrives :(

Thursday, December 8, 2011

My Clean Beginning

Today I am 11 days in to my latest lifestyle change. I have made a commiment to clean up my diet and it has been relatively painless.


A week ago Saturday, I started to wean myself off of coffee. I have been a hard core coffee drinker for years and I was not relishing the thought of giving up the wonderful taste of my favorite morning beverage, let alone going through the headaches that were almost certainly going to be apart of this withdrawel, but I had a plan.


On Saturday, I started cutting my coffee with half water. On Monday, I switched to green tea, which has 70% less caffiene. By Wednesday, I was down to a single cup and on Thursday, I was free of caffiene! I have to tell you that it feels great!


The idea is to eliminate toxins from my system, or rather eat in such a way that my body has a chance to catch up to it's apparent toxin overload. Caffiene was just the start, I am currently in the pre-cleanse portion of a cleanse, or what I will henceforth refer to as the elimination period, because I am gradually elimenating elements from my diet, so that my cleanse will be less intrusive on my busy life. Same idea as gradually quiting coffee.


It all started when I read an online article in Outside Magazine onlineabout this guy who decided to do this 21 day cleanse and I read the book "Clean" by Alejandro Junger. The idea is to get your body into a situation where it can detoxify like it was mean't to.


So now I am at the end of day 11 of the elimination period (a little longer than the book recomended but this is what is working with my schedule). In the last 11 days, I have mostly eliminated Dairy (had to consume a few things so that they did not go to waste) eliminated all flesh food (meat) with one minor exception at my family dinner, I had a half slice of ham, one piece of bread (at the same family dinner) plus I have successfully instituted a 12 hour fasting period every evening.

The results so far is a slight loss of weight (no idea how much since our scale has misteriously disappeared) A persistent pain in my foot has gone away. I am running easier than ever and I have a tone of energy, waking refreshed every morning. Also my insulin use has gone down by about 20% per day and my ability to hit my target blood sugar has gone up from 60% to 85%.


So this weekend, I will start the real cleanse and we will see what supprises are in store...... Think I need to order a new scale