Detox day 3

Day 3, hmmmmm. It was a mixed day for sure. The day started positively with my step on the scale! yippee! I had my yummy mushroom and parsley quiche I had made the night before for breakfast it was goooood! I also chomped my way through a salad at lunch which was quite the victory for me! I usually only like salads that someone else makes! I know it's a little strange. I even used a homemade vinegarette dressing. My salad had carrots, celery, cauliflower (was God a little bored when he made that veggie?) and some leftover turkey I had cooked. It was good.

So the first half of my day was positive, the second half has been a struggle. I have NOT cheated though I really wanted to. Food has been all around me this afternoon it seems. I cooked Jess a grilled cheese tonight and I think it was talking to me, saying "eat me", but I didn't. Then I had to make the grocery list and was trying to decide what to make the family so I was looking and thinking about food alot. I got depressed. Once I finish this "detox" what then? Never have sugar again, no more wonderful warm cup of coffee, bread!! TOAST! Chris can attest to this I could LIVE on toast!! So I read a little from the detox book about what is suggested after the detox and it is pretty much more of what I am doing right now if you want to be strict. There was a section called the "cheaters diet" which allowed for one type of "bad" food a week. WHAT! That's no fun.

So I felt defeated for awhile, but came to the conclusion that I won't be doing ALL that, but I will take what I have learned and tweak it to work for me. I definitely need lots more fruits and veggies and lots less processed crap, I get that and think I can do it! I also have learned that I do want to buy more organic fruits and veggie and meat that hasn't been treated with all those hormones. That alone will be a healthy change that I think my whole family can participate in.

Did you know that the fruit that Americans love the most are the ones that are the most heavily treated with pesticides. There is thought that this accumulation of pesticides can be linked to weight gain. Who knew strawberries could make you fat!

If your interested here are the top 10 toxic fruits:
strawberries, cherries, apples, mexican cantaloupe, apricots, blackberries, pears, rasperries, peaches.
the top toxic veggies:
spinach (one of the most heavily sprayed), hot and sweet peppers, celery, and potatoes.

I think these things are worth buying organic.

Food for thought I guess.

I am over my little crisis for the moment and my headache was much better today. It would come and go. I am tired and not sure if I am officially "detoxed" until I quit wanting to grab the
oreos and eat the whole dang bag!

Detox day 2

I have lived to see another detox day! Today was a little harder, but I stuck to it. I really like my smoothies that I have each morning. I think that will continue even after I am done with the detox, I love that I am not starving one hour into work like I normally am. I am currently finishing up my last bottle of water for the day. I haven't had coffee, tea, coke or milk at all. That's kinda weird.

I would like to say I feel great! But I have had a persistent headache all day. I really hope that it subsides tomorrow. It's dragging me down. If it weren't for the headache I could say that I feel really good. I am not starving and I think it might be working. I weigh myself everyday, but think I will keep that a secret till the end.

Ok I finished my water, gotta run...

Monday Report

So day 1 is almost over and I am not dead! :) I just told Chris that I went an entire day and had NO sugar! Not even some hidden sugar, not even high fructose corn syrup which is in everything!! NONE! Kinda crazy, I told Chris it was almost "unAmerican' of me.

The first day was good. I had this strange smoothie for breakfast that grew on me as I kept drinking, thought for sure I would be starving by 9:00 but I wasn't. I have had more water today than I have had in the last 5 days combined. Not nearly as irritating as I thought it would be, now if I have to get up and visit the potty all night long that WILL be irritating! I had serious sugar cravings at 2:30 which is the norm, I just didn't give into them. I have been known to come home in the afternoon and scarf down 2, count them 2, bowls of lucky charms cereal. I love lucky charms. That cereal shouldn't even exist!!!

Overall, I feel pretty good, I even made it to the gym tonight. I do have a slight headache which could be from a variety of things including lack of caffeine, lack of sugar, students, housework, laundry etc. You get the point.

Ok so that's day 1, so far so good. Maybe the scale will magically drop tomorrow. I like fast results!!

The daily detox

Two posts in one day wow! Look at me go.

Ok so I have decided to try the whole detox program starting on Monday and thought if I blog about the experience then maybe it would help hold me accountable. I won't be going into too much gross detail, but together we can see if this thing will help.

A little backstory for you:

I have been completely frustrated at my body lately. Trying shed just a few pounds has proven extremely difficult. I can go a few days of eating healthy, I can go a few days of excercising, but I don't seem to stick to it long enough to work.

While we were on our cruise I actually went to this seminar called "Detox for weight loss" which I thought was quite ironic because all we seemed to do on that ship was EAT. Anyway I listened to the fella explain how our livers have become toxic, and messed up due to so many things we put in our body. It can't do it's job properly and that messes everything else up. Etc.

I thought it was interesting and informative. We got home from our cruise and I tried to get back on track with my eating, cram train for my 10K and of course the scale didn't budge. Last Monday I got up and weighed myself and that was the final straw. I had spent a week eating healthier, ran a 10k and GAINED 2 pounds. Obviously something isn't working for me. That afternoon I got my mail and in it was my montly magazine from Lifetime Fitness, on the cover it listed an article called "11 day detox" and so that is when I decided to do it.

I shopped today. (dang it! eating healthy is expensive) and plan to start on Monday. I really wish I could take a week off of work to do this, but I kinda already did that for the cruise! So today I had some ice cream and tomorrow we will eat out after church then let the detox begin.

If anyone is even still reading this blog i have not gone off the deep end, I have not purchased some weirdo's "detox kit" and I will be consuming plenty of calories I think. It just doesn't seem like it will hurt to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet and maybe kick this addiction to sugar, caffeine, and all the other things in our highly processed foods. Nor will I preach to you about it either. :)

Check back Monday night for an update.

Joe

We recently decided to sign up for an "adopt an international student" through our church and UTD. We thought it would be great to get to know someone from another country, show them an American family (typical or atypical, depends on how you define American family) and to open up our home to them.

Well we found out this week that our friend is named "Joe" and he is from China. Of course Joe is not his real name, his real name is Yuxiang. I will have to work on how to pronounce it. He is an accounting major. So Chris emailed him and he was able to come to dinner last night. We had NO idea what to make, but we just settled on something simple like spaghetti.

Chris went to pick him up from campus because he doesn't have a car or driver's license. It was a really cool evening and I am just floored by this guy's bravery or crazy sense of adventure. We learned that he is 21 and a graduate student in accounting at UTD, he did his undergrad in his hometown and found out about this program online. So he boarded a plane, bound for a country he has never seen, with 2 large suitcases, landed in DFW and somehow made it to UTD where he was placed in an apartment with two Americans he didn't know. He knows no one and has been here only one month. He says he has only left campus to go to the grocery store and to do some volunteer clerical work at a nearby office.

He was of course pretty shy last night, but his english was impressive. We talked slower, but tried to not talk "louder" like stereotypical Americans do when they meet "foreeners". Joe brought some gifts to us too. They were some pretty little Chinese cut outs that you put on your windows for Chinese new year and them some little decorative ornaments that have the face of the Chinese opera on it. So sweet.

We told him that he didn't have to eat anything that he didn't like, we talked about how different food is here rather than in his country. I explained that Joshua doesn't eat most of what I cook anyway so I wouldn't be offended. So we eat and that fella ate like there was no tomorrow. I am sure after we topped it off with brownies he went home with a belly ache.

We brought him up to my school so he could see an American school and my classroom, we showed him our house that we were building. He seemed surprised it was made of wood, because he says everything is made of just concrete in his city.

We found out he likes basketball and soccer, so I am sure I see a few pick up games or a game of horse happening once we move into our new house. I hope he will come see the kids play one of their basketball games.

When it was time for him to go, he said, "I am sorry if I took too much of your time" broke my heart! I told him no of course not and how nice it was to meet him and we would see him soon. I wanted to hug him, but I didn't know...I just kept thinking how incredible lonely I would be if I was in his situation.

So I am looking forward to having more family time with Joe, thinking of things we can do for him, places we can take him etc.

Things I am pondering lately...

My mom said it was way past time for a post so I guess I still have a reader left so I thought I would write.

These are short snippets of things I have pondered recently

Why did I pay to run a race I didn't train for?

How can my son pick up a saxaphone for the first time 5 weeks ago, and already know how to read music and play several songs?

Why do Chris' sneezes hurt my ears so much?

How can I try to eat healthy all week, run 6 miles and GAIN 2 pounds?

Why can't parents be legally required to read to their children from a young age? It would make my job so much easier.

How did my daughter get to be so sweet. Some gene really skipped a generation or something?

How can I help 19 students individually all at once?

Why doesn't anyone want to buy my sofa and chair off craigslist?

I spend a lot of time pondering where to put my furniture in my knew house.

Where does the time go?

Why do weekends go so fast and weekdays go so slow.

How funny will the Office and Community be this Thursday?

Should I try this detox that I just read about. No not the alcoholic detox, a liver detox.
Would it really work.

As you can see I don't really have very deep thoughts! That's all I got for now. Maybe I can get back in the groove with this thing. If I do that detox then I can do a daily blog about that and give you all the fun details!!

Sometimes what you think you want, you really don't

So in early summer it was decided that Chris and the kids would head to Houston in August and I would stay behind due to a prior committment. Secretly all summer I have been a little giddy over this idea. I don't think I have EVER been the one at home while everyone else gone. I was secretly excited to sleep in the middle of the bed each night, to wake up late and not have to fix anyone breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. (Just FYI I had a pretzel from target from lunch, pathetic) To have a couple days off from being the "Recreation Director" at Camp Havard trying to come up with free, but fun entertainment. I was looking forward to staying up late watching something other than Sportscenter. I was looking forward to "getting things done" such as my scrapbook and some back to work shopping. I was excited about getting to have dinner with a girlfriend and catch up.

Well, it's kinda strange or maybe just a commentary on me, but this morning when this day finally arrived, I kissed my man and my babies bye, and went back into the house, I was sad. I just wanted to go with them.

Sometimes what you think you want, you really don't.