It's the Little Things...

Today started unlike most other Sundays around our house...we weren't busy. Somehow it seems like no matter how early I get up on Sundays we're never ready on time to leave for church. However this morning I'm not sure what happened, but not only were we ready on time, but we had extra time and the hubster even ran to the store before we left.
With all that extra time I did something I rarely do on a Sunday. I sat down and had breakfast.  A yummy breakfast of an over easy egg, toast with blackberry simply fruit jelly, and a glass of fresh squeezed juice.  The juice had one whole orange, 1/4 grapefruit, one whole lemon, and a little bit of pineapple.  Mmmmm....

So, I need to go to the grocery store pretty desperately.  After church I leaned over to the hubs and said, "we have nothing at home to eat for lunch unless you want a big fruit salad."  He leaned over and gave me a kiss : )  Then he took us to one of my favorite local restaurants, Kerbey Lane Cafe.  Oh my goodness everything there is so good.  Since breakfast had gone so well earlier in the morning I decided to go for it again.  This time it wasn't as healthy.  I got the Eggs Francisco; english muffin topped with fresh tomato, scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado, and queso.  Now, 6 months ago if I had ordered this I would have gotten a shortstack of gingerbread pancakes and covered them in syrup.  Not today!  Today I made a healthier choice.  I got black beans and a fruit salad.  The black beans were a great addition to the eggs.  I know it's not the healthiest breakfast, I mean it had bacon and queso.  But, I think little things like not getting the pancakes and getting something healthy instead add up.  I also realized that it really doesn't need bacon and I can probably order the queso on the side and use way less.  So, I have a plan for next time too.

I was so full from lunch that I completely skipped dinner.  I've just been drinking lots of water (lots of salt in that bacon and queso). 
We have a busy week ahead I'm really looking forward to it.  I'm taking the boys back to school shopping.   Lord help us all!

Ah...A New Day and Couch to 5k Thoughts

Yesterday was one humdinger! I was so glad to get that day behind me. And what a difference the fresh start of a new day can make! First, look at all these flowers my sweet hubs brought me.  Way to brighten up my gloomy mood!

I started this morning with overnight oats.  This time a made them a little different than before.  I used 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1 tbsp ground flaxseed, 1/2 cup Unsweetened Organic Vanilla Almond Milk, and 1/2 cup Nonfat Vanilla Yogurt.  I added chopped pecans and a teaspoon of maple syrup this morning.  So, here are my thoughts on the overnight oatmeal.  It's a great concept.  My problem is that I like my oatmeal a bit more chewy.  Does that make sense?  I'm going to see if there's a way to do this with steel cut oats.  I think that would turn out more to my liking.  Also, this one was too sweet, just too much vanilla.  I'm thinking regular milk and vanilla yogurt next time.  I'm not giving up on this!  I think there's definite potential I just need to find a recipe that works for me.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I had breakfast before the sun even came up! I had to meet a friend at 7am this morning and wanted to make sure I ate before I left. I can't remember the last time I was up that early. We met to sign our kids up for something and then went to grab some coffee together. It's been two weeks since I've had coffee and I decided not start again today. So, I had a bottle of water. A small victory in my corner!

Lunch was decent.  Nothing special.  I'm beginning to tire of smoked salmon.  Once this piece that I bought is gone I think it will be a while before I buy it again.  Today I had honey smoked salmon topped with goat cheese, and a side of fruit salad.  The salad was yummy!

We have some sweet friends that are moving from Austin to Denver and they invited a bunch of us to dinner at one of their favorite local burger joints for a going away dinner.  It was sad, but I'm really happy for the journey they're getting ready to take in their lives.  So this little burger place serves two things, burgers and hotdogs that have been cut up and mixed in chili.  Yeah, not any healthy options.  I ordered a burger and about half way through realized I was full and stopped.  Yea for another small victory!  Now just to repeat, repeat, repeat : )

It's been so unbelievably hot here so I've been drinking tons and tons of water.  Even my kids are asking for water (no milk or juice, just water).  The heat is awful and I'm ready for Fall.

I've been thinking a lot about the Couch to 5k program.  I really want to do it.  I really want to train and run a 5k in the Fall.  I keep starting and stopping because of our schedule.  Since the hubster and I share a car it's hard to know for sure when I'll make it to the gym to run on the treadmill (there's no way I'm going to start running in this heat).  It's a real pain.  So, I decided that I'm just going to do it.  Every time I get to the gym I'm going to do the program.  I'll keep doing each level until I feel ready to move on to the next level.  It may take me a little longer but at least I'll be getting it done!  I'm ready to meet one of my goals.  It's time to stop just thinking that I need to do it and just do it!

What about you?  Is there anything you need to stop thinking about and just do?

**by the way...my birthday is next month and I've asked the hubs for a new camera.  Hopefully I'll be getting some decent pictures up soon**

I Almost Lied

Hmmmmm....so this has been a day.
Let's just start at the beginning.  For breakfast I had an overeasy egg with toast and simply fruit blackberry jelly, along with a bunch o' water.

Oh and this is how I eat it.  Egg and toast in one big yummy bite.

Here's lunch.  Honey Smoked Salmon over spinach, arugula, and green leaf lettuce tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar with goat cheese.

And here's where I thought about telling a big fat lie.  I thought about telling you that I had chicken and rice for dinner.  And really that was the plan.  Until I pulled it out of the fridge and it smelled weird so I threw it away.  Then something happened and I lost it.  Today was super stressful and I think it just all boiled over into one big binge fest.  It started with a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats.  Frosted Mini-Wheats people!  What the heck?  Then I moved on to a Red Baron Single Serving Pizza.  At this point I was full (of course I was I just ate a load of crap) and it was time to put the boys to bed.  I got them all in bed and came back downstairs to eat an ice cream bar.  Why did I have all this junk in my house?  Ummm...coupons.  I'm getting ready to throw them all out.
And that was it.  After a day that went pretty well in the eating realm, the real life realm got to me and I blew it in the end.  It sucks.  But you know what?  I'm not eating anymore tonight and tomorrow is a new day.  I've already had 96 ounces of water and maybe I'll pee away some of the salt I consumed ; )

Weekly Weigh-in...and Goat Cheese

Okay so for the weekly weigh-in results, are you ready?  Are you sure you're ready? I weighed in today at 184.2 lbs.  So, not only did I not gain back any of the weight I lost on the detox, but I lost another .4 lbs.  Not a lot of weight, but after going back to eating regular food I thought I would gain.  Definitely not lose.  And it's only been 4 days since my last weigh in.  So I am pleased as punch : )  Looking forward to seeing what this next week holds.

I started my day with some overnight oatmeal. 

Have you ever had overnight oatmeal?  I hadn't until today and let me tell you, I will be having them again!  They were fantastic.  I saw this post about overnight oatmeal and decided to give it a try.  If you haven't checked out the post make sure you do.  There are some super great ideas for overnight oats.  Mine were pretty simple.  I used 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup greek nonfat yogurt, 1/2 cup low fat organic milk, and 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed.  When I heated it up this morning (I tried it cold, but wasn't a fan) I added a tablespoon of pure organic maple syrup.  So yummy!  Today I bought some vanilla yogurt because I think that will make it even better.  Oh and some chopped pecans.  Now that would be amazing. 

For lunch I had one of my favorite salads with a new variation....goat cheese.  Oh my goodness.  Goat Cheese is new for me.  I keep reading about goat cheese over on this blog.  I thought it looked like feta and I like feta, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I was wrong.  Goat cheese out shines, out classes, out does feta by a mile.  It's creamy and it's awesome.  Today I had the amazing goat cheese with spinach and arugula tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, topped with sunflower kernels and an over easy egg.  Delish I tell you.  Delish.

Tonight our friends came over for dinner.  It was my turn to cook and I made some amazing pulled pork tacos.  I got the recipe a couple of years ago from another blog, but it's no longer around.  So, I'll share the recipe with you.  Now, don't go thinking this is a healthy recipe because it's on this blog.  It's not healthy, but it's great.  My husband says he would eat this everyday for the rest of his life if he could.

Pulled Pork Tacos

1 large pork roast
20 ounces Coke or Dr Pepper (not diet)
16 ounces Red Taco Sauce (this is usually in the Mexican Food section of the grocery store)
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons cumin

Place roast in a crockpot and cover half way in water.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Drain water and add the rest of the ingredients.  Cook on low another 4-6 hours.   Using two forks shred the meat and cook on low for 2 more hours. 
Serve with tortillas, chopped cilantro, diced sweet onion, cilantro cream sauce.  (I find our cilantro cream sauce in the refrigerated section of the produce department at our local grocery store, but I bet if you search online for a recipe you'd probably find one).  Also, I just give time ranges because it doesn't matter if you're exact with how long you cook it. 
Enjoy for a cheat meal : )

 I also got in a Crunch Pilates and Yoga Blend workout this afternoon (I am so sore from yesterday's workout that I could barely get through it) as well as 80 ounces of water.  Good day.  Good day indeed.

My Stomach is NOT a Waste Basket

I decided that for right now Thursday is going to be my weigh in day. So tomorrow you'll get an update on how I've done since I finished the detox! Do you think I gained, lost or stayed the same?

Breakfast this morning was yum-o! I had an over easy egg, whole wheat toast with simply fruit blackberry jelly, and a glass of fresh squeezed orange, pineapple, and grapefruit juice.  The juice wasn't stellar.  It was a little too sweet for me.  I think it was too much pineapple or that I didn't add a lemon or lime. 

Smoked Salmon, oh how I love you!  Especially when you're honey smoked.  I'd never had this kind of smoked Salmon before but they had it at Costco so I decided to pick some up.  I'm so glad I did.  It was delish!  I also had carrot sticks, huge grapes, and Light Babybel cheese.

After lunch I decided to do my workout.  We couldn't get to the gym, but I still got my workout in at home.  I did the Biggest Loser: Cardio Max Workout.  It's so hard, but so awesome.  I've done this workout several times before and this was the first time I got through all the cardio bursts.  Today I saw this post that gave 10 reasons not to get up early in the morning.  They were pretty funny and basically said that you should get up early.  I just wanted to add one.  Do not get up early if you want to completely distracted by your children while attempting to exercise.  I was pretty dang proud of myself for getting through it all.  See here I am all happy and sweaty after I was done; because Sweat is Beautiful.  Yes, my hair is a total mess : )

For dinner I heated up some falafal balls and made some more of my fantastic cucumber dressing.  I also had some fruit salad which included apple, pear, nectarine, grapes, and cherries, as well as a salad with spinach and arugula topped with fat free feta and olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  I was FULL when I was done.

I've had about 72 ounces of water to drink.  Although it's not as much as I normally drink I was a total hermit today because it's too dang hot to go outside right now.  So, I stayed inside and just wasn't as thirsty.
Looking forward to tomorrows weigh in.  I saw something on Pinterest today that said, "Your stomach shouldn't be a waste basket."  Love it!  I'm so happy that I'm finally eating healthy nutritious foods and not filling my stomach with garbage.

Laundry and Two Recipes For You!

This morning started out really well. I actually got up when my alarm went off and didn't hit snooze a dozen times.
I got up and had some yummy oatmeal with ground flaxseed and blueberries.

After breakfast we took the hubster to work and then headed to Costco.  I think I deserve some sort of award for making it through Costco with all 4 kids without losing or one of them or my mind!
We got home and I was famished so I made up a Falafal Salad with Cucumber Dressing.

Yes, that's a lot of dressing, but I'm going to show you what's in it and then you won't think it's so bad!
I've never made cucumber dressing before so I kind of just winged it, and it still turned out pretty darn good.

First, put about 1/2 cup of nonfat greek yogurt and a clove of garlic that's been put through a garlic press (or just minced really really small) in a large bowl or glass measuring cup.

Then add a handful of chopped, seeded cucumber.

Next, use a hand held blender (or if you don't have one you could do all this in a regular blender) and blend up the three ingredients.

Taste it and realize it's missing a little something and add about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a dash of kosher salt.  Blend it all again and taste it again.  Ah...perfect.  Now cover your Falafal Salad in your perfect Cucumber Dressing.

After lunch we headed to the gym where I did 20 minutes on the Elliptical and just wasn't feelin' it.  I don't know what the problem was (I can do an hour on that machine), but today it just work for me.  So I hopped on a bike and rode for 4.5 miles (it took about 21 minutes).

I got home and was starving.  Have I mentioned that I'm always starving after I workout.  So I had a fuji apple smeared with a tablespoon of all natural organic peanut butter.

Are you ready for some "life of a mom with 4 kids?"  After my apple and peanut butter I folded and put away all these clothes:

It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but there were at least 10 towels, 15 pairs of shorts, 20 pairs of underwear, 10 pairs of socks, 20 sets of pajamas, and 15 shirts.  If I ever go missing from the blog come look for me under a huge pile of laundry.  It never ends!

For dinner I knew I'd want something easy.  With taking the hubs to work, going to Costco and gym, and then picking him back up I had been in the car for over 2 hours today.  Way too much!
So, I grabbed some left over brown rice from the fridge and pulled apart a rotisserie chicken we got at Costco and stirred it all together.  Then I cooked up some fantastic summer veggies and tossed them in a dijon mustard vinaigrette.  Here's my dinner plate...

Here's how you make the yummy veggies and vinaigrette.
First take whatever summer veggies you have on hand and scrub them til they're nice and clean.  I just happened to have some zucchini, squash, red bell peppers.

Then cut it all up!  Cut the ends off the zucchini and squash and then cut them in half long ways.  Then start cutting them into half inch half moons.  Like so...

Then cut up your bell pepper into nice big chunks.

Throw all of that into a big bowl and drizzle with olive oil and add a pinch of kosher salt and some pepper.  Then toss those yummy veggies!

Once they're coated with the olive oil then lay them out on a foil lined baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes.  After 20 minutes turn your oven to broil and move the veggies under the broiler for another 10 minutes until they're browned a little.

While your veggies are cooking prepare your marinade.  Grab the following 3 ingredients:  one lemon, dijon mustard, and olive oil.

Use the juice of the lemon, a tablespoon of mustard and about 2 teaspoons of olive oil.  Whisk in a bowl.  Taste it and realize it needs something more and add a teaspoon of honey.  Ah...perfect : )

When your veggies are done cooking take them out of the oven and they should look like this:

Put them in a big bowl and drizzle with the vinaigrette.  Enjoy the yumminess!

I don't usually make up recipes on the fly, but I was pretty pleased with how both of my fly recipes turned out today.  Oh, it's 10pm and I've had 96 ounces of water.  I'll probably have at least another 8 before bed.
Today was a great day.  (I'm refusing to acknowledge the laundry!)

Life After Detox...

So let's start with the Final Stats for the Detox:
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 lbs (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.6 lbs (-3.4 lbs)
Day 4: 186.2 lbs (-3.8 lbs)
Day 5: 187.6 lbs (-2.4 lbs)
Day 6: 186.8 lbs (-3.2 lbs)
Day 7: 186 lbs (-4 lbs)
Final Weigh In For Detox Results:  184.6 lbs (-5.4 lbs)

I lost a total of 5.4 pounds in 7 days on the detox.  That's pretty stinkin' good!  I've never lost that much in one week.  It's not the ten or fifteen pounds I've heard of other people losing, but it's great.  I'm totally happy with it because it's something I think I can maintain.  That would be awesome if I just kept losing and didn't gain it all back. 

I want to share some of thoughts on the detox now that it's over. 

First, it was hard.  Dang hard.  There were nights that I wanted a big greasy hamburger so bad that I felt like I might crawl out of my skin.  But I made it through to the other side.  I had headaches, but I made through.  I was grumpy, but I made it through.  I wanted to give up, but my husband got me refocused on the goal and I made it through.  I made it through and it was worth it!

Here's a couple of things I learned:
1.  I'm addicted to crappy food.  Seriously.  The withdrawal from nasty food the first couple of days was torture.  I felt like crap.  I've got to give that stuff up.  I don't want to be addicted to anything. 
2.  I don't need near the amount of food I think I do.  I got to point on the detox that I wasn't starving all the time.  I've heard of your stomach shrinking as you eat less and I don't know if that's what happened, but I definitely don't need the amount of food I was putting in my body every single day to be satisfied. 
3.  You have to do things your own way.  If I would have tried to do the detox exactly like Tosca Reno did and blogged about on her blog I would have dropped out the second day.  I had to make it my own and include fruit.  Find what works for you and do it.

Final thoughts on the detox:
I'm so glad I did it!  I'll definitely do it again.  I think next time I'll follow the Reboot Program and do the the Standard Reboot.  I can definitely feel the benefits of what I did and think the Reboot Program would be even more beneficial.  I'm thinking right after Christmas when we are all bombarded with food would be a good time to do the Reboot and maybe right before summer as we're getting ready for swimsuit season.  We'll see what works into my life at that point.

I'm really happy with where the scale ended up.  My goal was not to lose a ton of weight.  It was to rest my body.  Get the crappy food out and prepare my body with a clean slate for the good food.  Your body will work even better with good healthy food if there's no junk in the way. 

Moving on from here...I am ready!  This has shown me that I can do amazing things with food if I'm determined.  Yes, I'll screw up and eat junk every once and a while, but it won't blow me completely off my game and I won't get so side tracked that I don't know how to get back on the right track. 

For example here's what I ate today:
I started the day with whole wheat toast and a tablespoon of 100% fruit jelly, along with an over easy egg.  I couldn't wait to end the detox and eat an egg!  Yummy!  By the way, you'll notice no coffee here.  I was without coffee the entire detox and I feel like I've got the caffeine monster beat.  My goal is to no go back to it.

For lunch...oh my word!  Remember when I shared this picture with you about how 400 calories of different food stacks up in your stomach.  People I am taking that information to heart.  I want to get the most out of my calories!  So today I had a huge salad with green leaf lettuce, spinach, arugula.  I tossed it with a little of the good extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and topped it all with a veggie burger and some fat free feta cheese.  At the end I was stuffed and it only came to about 300 calories!  Perfect!

For dinner I went out with some girl friends for a girls night out.  It was a super fun kid free night.  We went to Daily Grill, which has a super cheap happy hour.  I had a plate of seared ahi tuna and then I split a plate of garlic, rosemary and Parmesan fries.  Super yummy.  I also had a couple of bites of a friends mac and cheese, another bite of her brownie, and another bite of another friends key lime pie.  I didn't order dessert because I knew I'd devour the whole thing.  Oh and I had a couple of awesome drinks  : )
I think it was a great day back to eating good healthy food.  I'm excited about where I'm going to go from here!

Day 7 of the Detox.....Done!

I'm done with the detox!! Woohoo!!
Here are the stats as of today (I'll post my final stats tomorrow morning after I weigh):
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 lbs (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.6 lbs (-3.4 lbs)
Day 4: 186.2 lbs (-3.8 lbs)
Day 5: 187.6 lbs (-2.4 lbs)
Day 6: 186.8 lbs (-3.2 lbs)
Day 7: 186 lbs (-4 lbs)

Today I had a banana while rushing out the door because we were late for church!  Most Sundays seem to follow that same routine : )  At church some sweet friends asked us to come over for lunch so we went and had a great time.  Luckily for me my friend is a fellow health nut and made some awesome and healthy food.  We had some of the best hamburgers I've had and they were made with turkey.  They even had applesauce mixed in!  She's giving me the recipe and I can't wait to try it at home.  We also had homemade healthy mac and cheese.  Seriously this stuff was made with whole wheat pasta, egg whites and skim milk, and low fat cheese.  It was superb!  I see my kids munching on this in the future.  We also had some yummy fruit!
That was a pretty big lunch so I wasn't very hungry the rest of the day.  For dinner I had juice made from one fuji apple, one granny smith apple, a bunch of spinach, and some cherries.  I also mixed in my TRI-Cleanse and Raw Green Super Food Powder.

For now I'll just saw that I'm glad I did the detox.  I'll share more thoughts on it and what I've learned from it in post this next week.

Day 6 of the Detox.... Almost Done

Here are the updated stats:
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 lbs (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.6 lbs (-3.4 lbs)
Day 4: 186.2 lbs (-3.8 lbs)
Day 5: 187.6 lbs (-2.4 lbs)
Day 6: 186.8 lbs (-3.2 lbs)

Today my sweet husband decided that we needed to restart a family tradition that we had stopped doing almost a year ago.  So, we all piled in the car and headed to our local donut shop for Saturday morning donuts.  Umm....yeah, I'm not gonna lie and tell you that I sat there and sipped on my juice.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Instead I enjoyed a quite yummy not healthy bacon, egg, and cheese croissant.  Here's some food for thought though.  I used to eat one of those and a donut and maybe a couple of donut holes too along with a soda.  Today I just had the croissant and a bottled water.  Not perfect, but progress.
After that breakfast I wasn't hungry most of the day.  Around 2pm I decided to make some juice.  This one had a fuji apple, a granny smith apple, a handful of grapes, and a nectarine.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. 

At dinner when my family was wolfing down there dinner I started to get really hungry and also started getting in a pretty bad mood because I wanted their dinner.  Man, I'm seriously addicted to food.  My sweet husband talked me down though and decided on some brown rice.  It was just what I needed.
I've also had tons of water today.  So, despite the pitiful start it's ended up being pretty good.  We'll see what the scale says tomorrow.

Day 5 of the Detox Complete...

Let's start with the stats:
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 lbs (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.6 lbs (-3.4 lbs)
Day 4: 186.2 lbs (-3.8 lbs)
Day 5: 187.6 lbs (- 2.4 lbs)
Yep, so my weight went up.  After last nights cheating I knew it would.  I wasn't surprised or upset and it just helped me get back on track today.

I woke up today so thirsty.  I guess there was a lot of salt in that food I had last night.  I drank 64 ounces of water with no problem today.
For breakfast I some awesome citrus juice.  Today's juice included a whole navel orange, a half grapefruit, and 1/4 pineapple.  It was super yummy.

I really wasn't hungry most of the day so I just went about my business and didn't worry about it.  Around dinner time I finally started getting hungry so I made another juice.  This one had one fuji apple, one green apple, one stalk celery, one bunch spinach, three kale leaves, and one carrot.  I had never juiced kale before.  It doesn't produce a lot of juice, but what I made was still really good.

I would never normally consume this little of food, but I seriously haven't been hungry. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be starving. I kind of feel like my stomach's getting smaller and it doesn't take as much to keep me full anymore. That's a great thing in my book.
On to some more exciting news. I got new pillows for our couch today. I think I've mentioned before that we're redecorating. We bought a couch about three weeks ago and I've been having the hardest time finding pillows to go with it. Today I hit the jackpot at World Market. I'm super happy with them and the hubster loves them. He even bought me a nice new rug to go with them. Score!  I can't wait until we're done with the downstairs so I can move on to the upstairs!

Day 4 of the Detox....I Cheated

First, my new stats:
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 lbs (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.6 lbs (-3.4 lbs)
Day 4: 186.2 lbs (-3.8 lbs)
So, still going down, but not as quickly. Still good.

Man today was weird.  First off, I didn't feel like eating.  Like at all.  Around 11:30 when I was feeding my brood lunch I had a half a banana just because I felt like I should eat something even though I wasn't hungry.  Then around 2pm I got a little hungry and had a juice.  I had spinach, carrot, pear, cherry, and blueberry.  It was so yummy.  I don't know why I'm obsessed with how the juice looks before I shake it up, but seriously it's so pretty.

Then I wasn't hungry again...until...we went to dinner with friends for one of their birthdays. Yep, then the hunger hit like a mack truck and I was not prepared. Not.at.all.  So, I cheated.  Big time.  I had chicken fingers and fried pickles.  Oh my word, the pickles.  Amazing!  I also had one of the cupcakes that I made for my friend.  Here's a picture of some of them.  I got the idea from here.  They turned out pretty good and they were super tasty too.  I finally put on my smarty pants and realized that I needed to send the left overs home with our friends so I wouldn't pig out on them tomorrow.  So, no worries there.  I had one and now they're gone.

Btw, my friend is a huge San Francisco Giants fan, thus the San Francisco Giants Cupcakes.

Am I upset that I cheated?  Nope.  I'm not going to beat myself up over it.  I've stuck to this detox for 3.5 days now and I've done awesome.  No cheating at all.  Even when I really wanted to.  So, I messed up once.  Big deal.  It's not going to kill me.  I fully expect the scale to move up tomorrow and I'm okay with that.  I'm still in the detox 100% and I know I'll be fine the rest of the time.  Life happens.  Birthdays happen.  Bad food choices happen.  We move on.  I love our friends and I'm glad we got to be a part of one of their birthdays.  It was an epic night.

Day 3 of the Detox

I made it through day 3! I have to admit though that I might kill someone if they walked in my house with a cheeseburger right now. It's really pretty sad how addicted I am to total crap food.
Here are the stats:
Day 1: 190 lbs
Day 2: 188.8 (-1.2 lbs)
Day 3: 186.8 (-3.2 lbs)
I'm pretty pleased with those results!

I started my day with a super yummy fresh squeezed citrus juice.  Here it is all cut up and ready to go in the juicer.  Let's see, we've got half a grapefruit, a whole navel orange, a lemon, and a lime.  I love fresh citrus juice, but let me just state for the record that peeling all this fruit is a total pain in my behind!

Here it is all juiced up and ready to get into my belly!  Yumminess all around!

A little while later I decided to try some Kambucha that I bought earlier in the week. I've read that it's supposed to be good for you because of the active bacteria in it (like yogurt).  Hmmm....it reminded me of beer.  I'm not a beer drinker.  Like at all.  I've maybe had two beers in my entire life.  So, yeah.  This wasn't rockin' my socks.  It wasn't horrible and I did drink it all.  I still have two more bottles in the fridge and I'll finish those, but I probably won't buy it again.

I can finally have some non-juiced food, so for lunch I had brown rice (which I cooked in beef broth) with some raw spinach, kale, and mushrooms.  It was yummy.

Then for dinner I had some more fantastic juice.  I forgot to take a picture before I juiced everything, but I had spinach, arugula, carrot, celery, apple, and pear.  It was sooooo good.  Look how pretty it was before I mixed it all together.

I followed the juice with some more brown rice with spinach, arugula, red bell pepper, mushrooms, asparagus.  I actually think this might be really good when I'm done with the detox and I cook the asparagus and mushrooms and add some feta cheese and garlic.

So, day 3 is done and I'm doing well.  No headache today!  Yeah!  Hopefully I'm coming out of the addiction to nasty food.  I didn't get in any exercise today.  We were super busy because I had to take the baby to the doctor (hate having a sick baby...boo).
On a side note, tomorrow is a good friend of ours birthday and I said I would make cupcakes for him.  There are currently 24 chocolate cupcakes cooling in my kitchen.  The smell is about to over power me.  I was good however, and rinsed the bowl and beaters immediately so that I couldn't dig into any raw cake batter.

Day 2 of the Detox

I made it through day 2!!!!

Ok, first let me give you the stats.  I weighed in yesterday at 190.  Today I weighed in at 188.8.  So, that's a 1.2 pound loss in one day.  We'll see what I weigh in at tomorrow, but it seems like things are working.

I woke up this morning with a killer headache (like couldn't get out of bed headache).  I'm sure it's my body withdrawing from all the crap I eat.  I took some pain killer and once the headache was gone I started my day out with some pomberry coconut water.  Hmmm....I had such high hopes for this stuff.  I see people at the gym drinking it all the time and I've read such good things about it.  I just didn't like it.  I was really bummed.  However, it didn't go to waste.  My 18 month old has been having some nasty tummy troubles and needed some electrolytes.  Well, this stuff has them so I thought I'd see if he liked it and he did!  Yeah!  So, he chugged the stuff while the thought of it made me gag.

After the nastiness of the coconut water I decided to make some juice.  I saw a juice on another blog that looked good so I decided to give it a shot.  I had watermelon, celery, carrot and cucumber.  Here it is prejuice:

Here it is post-juice.  Doesn't it look appetizing?  No?  Yeah, it didn't look great to me either.  It also tasted really bad.  Again, I was disappointed.   I think if I had followed the recipe on the blog it might have been better (there was a lemon and ginger in the other one), but I didn't have the ginger so I just made it with what I had.  I drank about 1/4 of it.

Next up I had some beef broth (@8 ounces). Not great (it's just broth), but whatever, I didn't expect greatness.

Then I realized that I needed some water so I grabbed a Blackberry Hint Water.  It was good.  Not as good as yesterday's honeydew hibiscus hint water, but still good.

I finished up the day with more juice.  This time I had two apples, a pear, a carrot, a bunch of spinach, and a bunch of blueberries.

Look how pretty it was straight out of the juicer!  Now this was good.  In fact it may be one of my new favorite juices.  Definitely going to be making this again.

So, how did I feel today? I actually felt pretty good! I'm definitely more hungry than I was yesterday, but once I got past the headache this morning I was good to go. I even felt like exercising. I did a new workout dvd that is on instant watch on Netflix.  It's Crunch Super Slim Down Pilates and Yoga Blend.  I loved it!  It was exactly what I needed.  About 3 minutes in I thought "this is really easy, I'm not going to get a good workout", but about half way through I was working up a sweat and it was a tough workout.  If you're looking for something new to try at home I recommend this one.  It's really easy to follow, the instructor gives great cues.  It's also just a lot of fun.  It's fast paced and won't bore you.  Now, it's not the kind of workout I get when I do an hour on the elliptical, but it was hard enough that I thought it was worth it.

After working out I sat down to fold laundry. With 6 of us there's always laundry to fold!  I like to watch a movie while I fold clothes.  Today I watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead."  It was AWESOME!!  Seriously, loved it.  There's a lot of health documentaries out there that I've watched and I always come away feeling slightly depressed and a little hopeless.  This was NOT the case with "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead."  I had a smile on my face and honestly felt hopeful when it was over.  It was very well made and not only incredibly informative, but also really entertaining.  I highly recommend watching it.  In short, it's about a guy who's fat and overweight and ill and he decides to get healthy by changing his diet.  What happens to him is amazing, but what happens to the people he meets on his journey is pretty incredible too.  Watch it, for real.  You won't be disappointed.

One of the pictures that they showed really stuck with me and I've been thinking about it today.  The picture is of how much space is used up in your stomach from 400 calories of oil, or chicken, or vegetables.  I never saw it presented this way and it really struck me.  You can get completely full on 400 calories of vegetables, but no where near full on 400 calories of oil or meat.  Here's the picture and it's from Dr. Fuhrman's book, Eat to Live.

So, that's my day 2 on the detox in a nutshell.  I'm really happy with how it's going.  I'm definitely hungry and I'm looking forward to being able to eat raw fruits and veggies and brown rice tomorrow.  But, I'm glad I'm doing this.  I think it's going to be worth it.