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

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

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