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

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