Day 21-what's next?

First a little debriefing of day 19 (Friday) and 20 (Saturday):
Friday was a typical day. Donuts at school which are not even an issue anymore. Ate the typical and had some leftovers from the week for dinner. I did have a 2 by 2 piece of the family's homemade whole wheat pizza, so a little gluten and a little cheese.

I had been a little apprehensive for Saturday to come all week long. I had a 16 mile run planned and the furthest I had run since Columbus marathon in the Fall was 12 miles. The turned out to be sunny and about 30 degrees, and I have to say my run was a JOY. I ran out in Amish country, very few cars, a few Amish buggies. I felt great until the last 1-2 miles. Pace was better than expected. No issues with my knees or hips. I think this diet is helping with the inflammation. I was a little sore the rest of the day and this morning, but after 16 miles that is to be expected.
Of course, after burning over 2000 calories on my run, I needed a little extra as the day went on. I had a chocolate almond smoothie from the Thrive Diet book in the afternoon and a homemade energy bar.
We went to 5pm Mass and then had to go directly to see my neice in a play at 7pm, so dinner was a bit of an issue. I brought an apple and a Larabar and a bottle of water, but was starving...so I had stopped at Subway for my daughters. Lizzie got a veggie delite and so I had about a third of her foot long. Again gluten, and it had ranch dressing so some dairy. I also then had some popcorn at the theatre, with butter so more dairy.

I think to take care of those problems I just needed to bring more food with me, especially after a long run day.

So here we are on the morning of DAY 21.
When I started I was hoping to:
* get control of my cravings, which I feel I have for the most part

*lose a little weight, as of this morning I have lost about 7 pounds in these 21 days

*become more conscious of what I was eating before putting it in my mouth. I think I have improved on this. I want to continue making progress on this.

*see how some changes in my diet would make me feel. I feel like I have MORE energy, my skin is clearer, my body seems like it is recovering quicker from workouts, I feel lighter and my mood is better.

OTHER things that I did not expect:
I did not expect to feel like I wanted to give up all animal products for good. It had never crossed my mind that I would become a Vegan. Because of how I feel, and because I am immersed in reading The China Study, The Thrive Diet, and Quantum Wellness I do not feel like I should go back to animal products. It is partly for humane reasons, but mainly for health reasons.

I am not going to be an EXTREME vegan, which may offend vegans out there. I may have a piece of cheese pizza every once in a while. I may have soup that is made with Chicken Stock, or has cream in it every once in a while. I may have buttered popcorn. But in general these will be things I will avoid.


So...what's next?
When day 22 comes tomorrow, I will have 50%caf/50%decaf coffee beans in my coffee maker (Actually I am trying it out right now as I type this) and so reintroduce that small amount of caffeine into my diet.

I will reintroduce a glass of wine once or twice a week.

I will still avoid added sugar as much as possible. I will keep gluten to a minimum, but will reintroduce a piece of whole wheat bread now and then.

So for the most part, things will not change. My typical day will continue to be:
oatmeal
almonds/dried apricots
Big leafy salad
apple/energy bar
dinner of lots of vegetables and a little bit of grain (quinoa/brown rice...)

Hoping to keep out between 'meal' snacks and after dinner snacks. After dinner I will have Teavana tea as my evening 'treat'.

Hoping to lose another 7-8 pounds for vanity and to help me run faster.

I also want to continue to make progress on making my diet healthier. In the Thrive Diet Brazier talks about trying to stay as RAW as possible. He also suggests NO soy. He has some very different recipes in there. I want to continue making progress toward eating HEALTHIER. even more leafy vegetables, less of anything that is not WHOLE foods...there are lots of improvements I can make.

I would highly suggest people that are out there thinking about trying this to JUST DO IT. 21 days is such a small percentage of your life. You can do this for three weeks. Plan your meals, prepare some things on Sunday, as you walk out the door have something that you can eat if you are going to be out for a while.
See how you feel.

as I posted on my facebook status yesterday...not perfection, just progress!

Day 7- the end of one week already!

workout: 73 minutes on the bike with some pretty hard intervals. This was the third hard workout day in a row and my legs are tired.

nutrition:
bf: steel cut oatmeal/blueberries/protein powder/ almonds slivers/agave

green tea on the way to the meet

at Megan's gymnastics meet, left home at 6:45am and home at 2:00pm Again took my bag of treats which included almonds, Larabar, orange, water bottle

at 2pm: vegetable soup and a gluten free English muffin with almond butter

Accelerade in my water bottle while doing my bike workout

dinner: roasted vegetables (beets, potatos, brussel sprouts, carrots, turnips, onion, a little olive oil, minced garlic and dried rosemary cooked covered for about 45 minutes at 375 and then no cover for another 20 minutes.) I will be having leftovers of this as the week goes on.

also some brown rice with salsa

While watching the Superbowl I had a little blue corn tortillas with avocado/salsa. But didn't have much.


At Megan's gymnastics meet this morning I was really hungry, even after having a filling breakfast before going. I think the 11 mile run yesterday and not eating much caught up with me. But... had my almonds and Larabar and that took care of that.

I have a Math meeting all day tomorrow. We were told there will be donuts for breakfast and lunch will be served. I am sure there will be nothing served for lunch that I can have, so my lunch is packed. I think I am beyond the donut pull.

One week into this and I already feel like I have made good progress. I have been 'leaning' into this for 2-3 years. Diet has become cleaner and cleaner. I have read all kinds of information on nutrition, books, blogs, websites. I just needed something to get me over the edge. I needed to find a way to feel totally in control of my cravings and urges. This has really help with that problem, at least so far.

I leave with a quote from Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness book, as she discusses doing the 21 day cleanse:

"...any time you disrupt a pattern or meet a challenge, you create an enormous space for a quantum leap to happen"

getting started

After turning 44 last week, I have committed to making this a GREAT year. A year where I don't just maintain, but move forward. Make progress.

In order to start this off...I am going to do Kathy Freston's 21 day cleanse. In this I will give up:

*caffeine
*alcohol
*gluten
*all animal products including dairy, eggs
*added sugar

There are a number of reasons why I want to do this. #1 I want to get control over my eating habits. I think I can really look at food a different way.


I also want to see how my body reacts to eliminating these things. Do I feel more energy? Do I recover from hard workouts better? Can I sleep better? Do my stomache issues disappear? Can I tell in my knees and hips that there is less inflamation?

At the end of this 21 day trial, I am sure I will reintroduce some of these things into my diet. Maybe all of them, maybe only some of them.

One thing I will not let this experiment do is make my workouts suffer. I am 10 weeks out from the Boston marathon, and need to be running about 30 miles per week. I am hoping that this experiment will help my running. Of course I would like to lose some weight before race day. If I feel like I need to have some calories during my runs/especially my long run, I may have some sports drink at that time.

I am planning on blogging every day. Reporting how I feel, what I ate, what my workouts were...and will probably keep this blog going as I train for Boston, and then train for Steelhead 70.3 half ironman on July 31st.