My Week in Review

I’ve been feeling a little off lately, not as healthy as I’d like and I’ve struggled to keep my weight down, despite doing all the right things. I don’t generally diet, I just try to stick to a pattern of moderation. My personal motto is: even when I’m not hungry, I’m still pretty hungry. I didn’t make that up, stole it from someone else because it fit me so well. This is true, most of the time I’m thinking about my next meal. I finish breakfast, calculate the time remaining until I can reasonably eat lunch. And so it goes throughout the day. Therefore, I’ve never been one to do a fast. Well, actually I did try one many moons ago and made it until about 10:30 in the morning, no joke. I just like to eat. But, as I mentioned, I’ve been feeling not so great. And, it’s tough for me to have any sort of extra weight on me. I’m small, and even a pound or two makes a big difference. I’m also fairly active, I play tennis at least 4 times a week and if I’m not playing tennis, I’m doing some other activity. So, again, a few pounds makes a difference.

When shopping at Costco the other day, my eyes was drawn to a box of juices by Suja. The Organic Three Day Renewal Program was not a fast, just three days of “clean” eating, no dairy, no caffeine, no meat, no added sugars. As long as it involved food, I felt I could do it, and I could. Here’s a little summary of my 3 days:Day One: Monday

• Started the day with warm lemon water as a substitute for my normal cup of coffee
• My stomach started growling by 7:30 am.
• Drank my DAYBREAK juice about 8:30 am- still felt okay, a little lightheaded.
• Ate the overnight oatmeal I’d prepared (oats, unsweetened almond milk, chia seeds, apples, a little cinammon) at 9:40 am, delicious!
• Hungry again by 10:40 am but that’s the same as everyday 🙂
• Tried my best to wait until noon for my NOON GREENS, but broke down and started drinking at 11:50 am, took me until 12:30 to finish.
• Still hungry so ate my homemade salad (greens, white kidney beans, avocado, cherry tomatoes and lemon juice) about 1:25. This was quite satisfying and I could not finish it all. Yay me! I feel pretty good at this point, no caffeine headache.
• Drank my TWILIGHT juice at 5:00 pm, not too hungry, or no more so than usual
• Ate my dinner around 7:00 pm (quinoa, black beans, avocado, cherry tomatoes, garlic powder and lemon juice). All in all a successful day, felt proud for getting through it.

Day Two: Tuesday

• Also started this day with warm lemon water. Feeling woozy in the morning, almost like a mild hangover. My stomach started growling like crazy about 7:40 am.
• DAYBREAK juice at 8:40 am.
• Oatmeal at 9:25 am. Hunger is manageable but just starting to feel a bit of a headache
• NOON GREENS at 11:50 am, feeling a bit better, hungry but not desperately so. Ate my quinoa meal and some nuts. Still have a heavy feeling headache and cheated with some unsweetened iced tea to see if that helped. It did.
• Had a singles match at 4:00 pm and this proved tricky. I brought my TWILIGHT juice to drink in between games. Though I played well, I felt off the whole time. Headache, roiling stomach, arms tingling. I just did not have enough calories in me for the energy I needed on the court (I still won, don’t worry).
• After the match I was worn out. Exhausted and not hungry but I knew I had to eat, however nothing sounded good. My husband and daughter had ordered dinner from Panini Kabob Grill and I cheated again and had two chunks of chicken and one chunk of salmon from their kabob’s just so I ate something. I forced myself to stay awake until 10:00 (to me this is the earliest decent hour I can reasonably go to bed) and promptly fell asleep.

Day Three: Wednesday

• I’m down nearly 2 pounds at this point which is A LOT for me. It is a noticeable difference in how my clothes fit. I mixed it up and started my day with DAYBREAK juice and also cheated and had a little coffee with almond milk, hoping to avoid the yucky feelings from the day before.
• My hunger is far less noticeable and I feel good. I didn’t drink my NOON GREENS until 12:30 and had no problem waiting. Picked up egg white bites from Starbucks, also a cheat since they contain dairy but the calorie count was right and I couldn’t eat the quinoa/ black bean mixture again.
• Ate a protein bite snack about 2:30 pm, feeling good.
• Had dinner plans with friends at True Food Kitchen and drank my TWILIGHT juice on the way down. Ate a bit of their cashew pad thai, and another cheat, a bite of flourless chocolate cake because we were celebrating a birthday. It would have been no problem to avoid the cake, I ate a bite just because and could have eaten none and been fine.

Follow Up

It’s now Friday. On a visit to Target on Wednesday I noticed they carried some Suja Juices and I bought more of the DAYBREAK, which I drank both Thursday and Friday to start my day. I’m back to drinking my small cup of coffee in the morning (remember, everything in moderation) and I had a glass of wine after tennis on Thursday night. However, I wasn’t hungry (!) and couldn’t eat any dinner Thursday. I forced myself to eat some protein bites just to have something. I’m now down 3.2 pounds. How will I maintain this? Well, as always, my plan is to continue making my own food to take to the office rather than eating out. I’d like to severely limit added sugar. I’m not perfect, but I just keep trying!