Food and Bargains = Love.

After my terrible episode on Sunday, I decided it was time to start the ease-out process of the Master Cleanse. I've concluded it was the cheap, regular syrup that I substituted for the authentic grade B that was my downfall, and I think in a couple of months I will try the cleanse again. Not wanting to break precedence, I'm going about the ease-out phase my own way, starting with chicken broth and then soup.

But this round wasn't a total loss: I learned to better appreciate food, and I also look and feel a little better in my jeans. :) But oh how I love taking something other than that spicy lemonade.

You know what else I love?

This Dolce & Gabbana purse I bought from eBay for $25.
I don't know what I love more -- the purse or the price!!

Master Cleanse: Day 4

So that 3-day-hump think I was hoping applied to the Master Cleanse? It doesn't. Not for me. Not this time.

It really didn't help that my husband and I got to bed at 2am before waking up at 9am for church. 7 hours of sleep for me normally isn't bad, but every other day since I started the cleanse I grabbed at least 11. So that answers the "is-extra-sleep-vital" question. I was definitely feeling the difference.

While I was getting ready for church I could tell that going was a bad idea, but it seems like something always gets in the way on Sunday mornings and I wasn't going to have it. I felt about as frail as a twig -- I'm pretty sure a five-year-old could have fought me and won. I also felt starved, exhausted, and nauseous. I understand the exhausted part; I hadn't eaten for four days, and went to bed at 2 o'clock in the morning. But starving? I didn't even have a chance to roll out of bed and drink that stupid crap, and I already felt starving. And the nauseous is just as much of a mystery as yesterday's indigestion.

And I felt like I was going to collapse. No, scratch "felt like": I was doing everything in my power not to collapse. I tried to drink the mixture but I could feel the heat of the cayenne seeping through the pours of my face and coming out my mouth like a fire-breathing dragon. Our apartment had to be 75*, but I felt like it was a burning 95*. I fixed a new mixture, which I tried to drink during church but it made me more nauseous. I forced a couple burps which alleviated the nausea, so maybe it was like faux nausea? (Does that exist?) Anyway we ended up walking out of church half way through the service because I was unable to fight the combination of overwhelming fatigue, faintness, and nausea. I was so sick of resisting how I felt and so afraid of throwing up (I hate and fear regurgitation about as much as needles) that I was fully crying by the time we got to the parking lot. Funny the things that evoke my tears, because I promise I'm not usually the crying type. I'm so very glad I didn't throw up on the car ride home because we were in my pretty new car on Texas interstate with no where to pull over. I sipped some hot chicken broth when I got home, took a long nap and I'm now feeling a lot better.

I do not think that my experience is normal. I have read nothing but positive reviews about the Master Cleanse and its effects, and I think I'm supposed to feel as good every day as I did on day 1. But I've made some mistakes:

* I haven't been using the right syrup. You're supposed to use Grade B maple syrup, but I was kind of hoping that good ol' pancake would do the trick. (It was $19 cheaper. Can you blame me?) This may explain the nausea...?
* I haven't been drinking enough regular water.
* I failed to realize that the Master Cleanse permitted a three day ease-in process. Instead, I just jumped into it.

I also failed to realize that the Master Cleanse can be done in as little as 3 days! The longer you go the more effective it is I'm sure; but after today I'm kind of tempted to bring my goal of 10-days down to 7.

Yesterday my husband and I went to Ikea. Worst idea during a Master Cleanse ever. You cannot go in to that place without craving at least a cookie. I ended up watching my husband devour a plate of their famous Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese... that was the saddest thing ever. It was torture. Oh and also, don't cook a big beautiful breakfast of pancakes, toast, eggs and bacon for someone when you're not aloud to have any, because I was dying for a bite of pancake so bad it was almost a deal breaker. (And of course my husband left all of his delicious looking unfinished pancakes on the plate, with his fork still there, in the kitchen for me to face yet again and yet again muster the will power to scrap it into the trash and not eat any... yeah, it was definitely the most insensitive thing he's ever done.)

So that was day 4 and your list of what-not-to-do.

As for me? I don't do nausea: I plan to sip a cup of chicken broth for the rest of the night, and I don't care.

Master Cleanse: Day 3

Day three.

Very irritable. My blood pressure seems to spike at every semi-loud sound, or the slightest discomfort such as my husband putting his less-than-warm hands on my skin. And I have a headache.

I'm sure that drinking more of the mixture will alleviate some of this. But it doesn't change the the want for food. At one point I felt so frustrated I thought I was going to hyperventilate. My husband encourages me to eat just a little something, but that will only make me want more. And besides, I'm not doing this to myself so that I can cave here and cave there. It's all or nothing.

On a positive note my stomach is as flat as a sheet of paper, making me love my favorite pair of jeans even more.

About to go have some fun with the hubby, just hoping this irritability doesn't spoil our day.

I dread the thought of doing this for one more Saturday.



Later...

It was a rough day. Had some very bad indigestion. Not sure what I'm digesting?

Hoping that this is all part of the "three day hump"!

Master Cleanse: Day 2

I know that there are at least a few of you curious about my progress with doing the Master Cleanse. It seems like there are a lot of people who have been wanting to do it themselves, but unsure of its actual difficulty or effectiveness. I am glad to be the guinea pig. And so here is the first of the updates I promised!

The first several waking hours of the first day were arduous. A person who is awake at 6 o'clock in the morning is not usually a happy person. But a person who is awake at 6 o'clock in the morning to start a day of grueling homework and can take no solace in food nor coffee -- the cleanse does not allow coffee, and I don't drink it either way -- is a very unhappy individual. The combination of being tired and super hungry was too much, and by the time 9am rolled around I was very fatigued. I added more syrup to my mixture and laid down for a long nap. It seemed to do the trick; I was A-OK for the rest of the day.

Actually, I'm surprised at how good I felt. I wasn't just fine, I was in a better mood. This could have been due to the extra sleep; I suppose it's too early to tell. All I know is that my husband and I were running errands that evening and I could have completely forgotten I had nothing to eat that day.

(Alright, confession: my husband demanded I eat something when he got home so I had about 100 calories worth of the tomato basil soup I made him. I honestly didn't want to, but he was convinced I should ease myself in to it... though I'm pretty sure he's just afraid to come home to me looking like Mary Kate Olsen. And so I appeased him. However this was not necessary for the cleanse, and I would have been just fine without it. But mark my words mister, that was just for day 1.)

Today was just as good. All in all I feel perfectly fine, though to be honest I might tell a different story if I wasn't able to spend all day at home with no physical demands.

Here is my advice to anyone who is considering the cleanse so far:

• Keep drinking. If you do this, the hunger won't hit you. However if you wait until you're hungry to fix another glass, you've just made the challenge harder.
• Up the syrup when you feel weak. The syrup maintains your glucose level and tricks your body into thinking it's being nourished. People who do the cleanse aren't super heroes; the sugar is what makes this possible.
• Eat Macaroni Grill at least once before you start... because if you're anything like me, you'll randomly crave it. =(
  
• Don't use your love for food as an excuse not to do this because technically it will make you appreciate it all the more!
  

Also, get to bed early if you can. Yesterday I took a long nap as I had mentioned and this morning I also slept in an extra four hours. I have no idea if this is crucial to the process, but I'm doing it because it makes the days go by a little faster. However I am curious about the importance of extra rest and while I don't like the thought of being awake for my normal 17 hours of the day, I am the guinea pig so I guess I'll try.

So far the most surprising thing for me has been the fact that the real challenge does not come from withstanding hunger pangs as one may assume, but the real obstacle is not being able to look forward to food. I never realized that eating was something I had looked forward to! But apparantly I did, and frequently. It's true that I have been known to curse eating as the inconvenience that it is, but make no mistake -- I love my food. And to end the curiosity of those of you in the past who suspected me of being anorexic ( the reality of it was something I believe they call "exercise"), this is fo sho the longest I have ever gone without consuming something tasty like my favorite parmesan and garlic triscuits, or brussel sprouts with garlic and parmesan... anddd I just realised how huge a fan I am of the garlic/parmesan combination.

Ugh. I don't know why I torment myself.

This weekend will be soooo interesting!





I have FINALLY started drinking tea!!!! The cleanse allows it. You have no idea what a huge step this is for me... But that is an entry for another day:)

Master Cleanse

The other day my husband got it into his head to do a total cleanse. Coming from the guy that exhibits about as much discipline as a child when it comes to food (love you honey!), yeah, I was kind of impressed. So we're in the "cleanse" section of the Whole Foods Store (you know, my favoritest place ever), when this Whole Food veteran maniac girl (you know the kind... they wear earth shoes, baggy hats, and you just know they haven't had a piece of beef in about 20 years) overhears us talking and suggests that my husband try the Master Cleanse.

My husband is a lot of great things. But the reality of him consuming nothing but maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper in water for a minimum of 10 days was just not going to happen.

But the girl with the earth shoes had such beautiful skin. Oh jeez, I'm a sucker for great skin. She's talking, and I'm thinking Look at those pores. You can't! They're not even there!!! We thank earth-girl for her suggestion, and she walks off to her cart and her earth-boyfriend and I stood there in jealousy for about a minute. She had celery in her cart.

There are not tons of things or people on this earth that I have admiration for. As of late, I've admired Dr Laura Schlessinger and recently became a huge fan of the photographer Jasmine Star. I now add earth-girl to this list, and anyone else who has celery in their cart without a person that is holding a gun to their head in plain view.

I absolutely hate celery. You can't really mask its nasty taste and certainly not its disgusting crunchy, stringy texture. But that girl eats it willingly. She probably doesn't even add peanut butter. And while I'm just fine with my husband not looking like the lanky, hairy creature she was with, she's got some kind of crazy to be walking around talking about the master cleanse and throwing organic celery in her cart. And I want it.

So today my husband is starting his cleanse and I am starting mine. To be honest I've been thinking about a cleanse for awhile, but something more along the lines of what my husband is doing, not the master. And I have to admit, I'm afraid. I'm kind of really afraid. For the last couple of years I've experienced symptoms of hypoglycemia, which means I'm afraid of two things: number one, I'm deathly afraid of looking into these symptoms, as it will more than likely involve needles; and number two, while I'm not afraid that my husband will come home to see me passed out on the floor--I don't think that would happen, especially since the master cleanse does in fact involve sugar (maple syrup)--I'm afraid that I'm going to get really far with this thing and then decide I can't stand it one more second. Which means that I'm writing this whole blog with a huge disgusting glass of nasty sitting next to me, which I'm drinking for "breakfast", all for nothing.

I'm also afraid that prolonged consumption of acidic lemon juice will damage my enamel, which I constantly baby... ugghh.

So let's see how this goes. I'm going to try to go for at least 10 days. And of course, I'll keep you updated...

The Organic Housewife

Do you ever have those days when you're craving a particular thing? There's no
explaining it, but some days you could really go for a certain taste and texture. Today for me, it was lamb.

I love lamb. But I haven't cooked with it since we moved to Texas because I had no luck finding some at conventional grocery stores. Today however I rolled out of bed, turned on my computer, and at 9 o'clock in the morning I was making phone calls to every ethnic grocer within a twenty mile radius. No joke. If it was all I did today, I was getting my lamb.

Little did I know it was right under my nose! My local Whole Foods Market sells ground lamb for $6.99/lb. If that seems expensive, you may be on to something--it's twice the price of your run-of-the-mill beef. Though I've seen it for as much as $8.99, so if you consider that with how bad and I wanted it and the fact that it was organic, I stole that lamb.

If you've never been to a Whole Foods, not only do you not know what you're missing but you're apparently oblivious of what you've been eating. (I beg you to watch a documentary called The Future of Food and I am convinced that afterward you'll agree with me when I say a higher grocery bill is a small price to pay for the poison--yes poison--that you're not putting in your body.)

Though I'm not one to talk: I don't shop there nearly as often as I should. But when I do go it's a treat! The quintessential marketplace atmosphere, coupled with the overwhelming smell of everything good you've ever smelled but fresher is enough to earn your grocery shopping loyalties before the fact that what you're about to buy is quality. And the variety! They offer the largest variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, and cheese I've ever seen. You see things you've never even heard of before that make you want to revolve an entire meal around them. Every time I go there I get inspired to go all Martha Stewart on my kitchen. And I'm reminded of how much fun cooking is. The endless possibilities! The best part of cooking a meal is that when you're done it's something you can be proud of, and you can't have buyers remorse on whatever you spent to make that meal because food is a necessity and quality is a priority. The sky is my limit, and it's handed to me by the cashier in little brown paper bags that I find adorable (albeit inconvenient to carry).

It's a good thing I only grabbed a hand basket on my way in and not a cart because I just might have gotten ridiculous. However I'm proud to say I went away with only inspiration and what was written on my shopping list (plus maybe some parsley and organic apple cider vinegar...).

I'm not as proud to say that the ingredients needed to make this recipe cost me $30...


100% organic!


So, what is it exactly that I'm making, you ask? You can't take the suspension any longer, you say? I am making my favorite recipe: lamb, spinach and feta meatloaf. All of my favorite heavenly ingredients rolled (literally!) into one. I also love this recipe because it can be as simple or as pain-staking as you decide to make it. Today I chose the median route, adding some extra ingredients and following the recipe more or less verbatim. ("Verbatim" here means not saying "ah, screw it" and going off of Shauna inspiration: A dash of this, a fist of that, a curve ball for your tongue, and I think I like the sound of this temperature...) I usually start dinner about the time my husband gets home from work at 4:30, but today I absolutely could not wait to get started!



My picky husband LOVED IT so much, he demanded the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!



To conclude this entry, if you're not interested in taking preventative measures for your health, don't like paying $10/lb for almost everything, or don't like having to say "no" to the slow cooker magazine in the checkout lane for $9.95, then an organic food market may or may not be for you. But I do hope that you'll consider subsituting at least some of your foods now and again... and watch this video!

:)