My Journal

.......or is it?

Well, I decided I needed a clean start because I had been allowing a few no-no's to sneak into my diet. I am on a raw, vegan, organic adventure! I like to call it that because it makes it sound more interesting than the food I'm eating:)

Every day I start out with a concoction of 2 oz. unsweetened cranberry juice mixed with 6 oz. purified water, the juice from 1/3 lemon and 1 tsp. vinegar. If that's not enough to wake you up, you drink it again before lunch and then lastly before dinner, yikes!

Breakfast has consisted of an apple and soaked raw nuts. Mind you I do let them air dry:)

My post workout meal consists of hemp protein powder with water. It's not for taste here, it's merely to get protein in my body after my weight lifting. Hemp protein is certified organic and raw!

Now if that excites you, you can imagine what is for lunch, kale salad. I have actually come to like kale quite a bit because it is very crunchy and I feel so good eating it. I also add some beets, sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, avocados and a little flax oil and vinegar on there for some pizzazz.

I enjoy my afternoon snack because it is a Larabar. According to the book I'm following I am not supposed to have dates, raisins or any dried fruit of the sort, but I'm desperate! I figure the 18-23 grams of natural sugar from dates won't kill my liver since that's all the "sugar" I get in a day.

For dinner I have been mixing it up and having a spinach salad with much of the same toppings as the lunch salad. About an hour later I have a cup of blueberries to finish off the day.

Mind you this craziness is only for two weeks because with my workout regime I could not sustain this for any length of time. I do feel a TON better on this eating plan. The first four days of headaches were killer though! I don't drink coffee on a regular basis but I do enjoy it every once in a while as a treat so it's been hard to not have any.

I don't think I ever realized how much I use food as a comfort or reward until now. I start to feel detached from the rest of the world when I am really strict with my food intake. It just goes to show you how much food plays a role in our social lives. For me, it's time to change that. I need to eat to live, not live to eat!

By the way for those of you who are wondering I am following Dr. Eric Berg's book, The 7 Principles of Fat Burning. I have Hashimoto's disease which is a form of hypothyroidism. I have tried bumping up my workouts, eating less and diet after diet but it's tough to find something that works 100% of the time. Dr. Berg has done many studies on different "body types" and found that our body has outward signs that tell us what's wrong with it. Go figure mine is the "thyroid type". I am hoping that through this journey my thyroid will start working like it's supposed to and I can enjoy the feeling of total health.

Also, this week was my first week of ChaLean Extreme. I LOVE it! Chalene is so motivating and fun to workout with. None of the workouts are over an hour and that's a plus for me. I'll go into full detail when I review it on February 1st. I'll share my 30 day stats with you and let you now how many inches and pounds I lost.