I am over a week into breaking my sugar addiction. I waited until mid-month, because Boyfriend didn’t end up leaving until mid-month. I’ve been satisfying all my sweets cravings with fruit, and minimizing starchy foods.
I still have sprouted whole-grain toast with peanut butter for lunch when I am at the office (I’ve been working from home quite a lot, so that hasn’t been often), and I had a tiny bit of brown rice mixed in with my mushroom-onion-tofu stir fry the other night, and I have some brown rice cakes in the cupboard that I can eat if for some reason I need a big calorie boost and don’t have time to cook, but other than that, I’ve been good. Well. I did “cheat” once with a small piece of licorice from the health food store. But one piece of candy in 8 days is not going to kill me.
I’ve switched my supplements a little because I ran out of the doctor-prescribed prenatal vitamin I had been taking and it was expensive to get refilled now that I don’t have university insurance anymore. I am now taking Deva Prenatal and a vitamin D-3 supplement instead of Prenatal Plus and a B-complex supplement. The Deva one is vegan, so it has plenty of B-vitamins, but its form of vitamin D is D-2 (apparently D-3 comes from sheep’s wool). D-2 isn’t supposed to work as well as D-3, so I’m taking my sheep’s wool separately.
I used my calipers to measure my body fat today, and I’m down to 27% according to them. However, I’m still not sure I’m doing it right, because I looked at the pictures on this article, and I look closer the the image representing 20% than I do the 25% or 30%. I would say if I were going by those pictures, I’m somewhere around 22%—fully a 5-point difference than the calipers are telling me. Either way, I guess the important thing is that they’re telling me a number that is getting smaller over time, more than what the number actually is. I think the first time I checked, it was 31%, and then I would have said I looked closer to the 25% picture. Maybe not even that big then. Skinny-fat indeed.
I’ve still been working out, to try to combat the skinny-fatness. I had taken a break over the holidays, but I’m back in full swing now. The other thing I’ve been working on doing is lowering my cortisol levels. I recently read that high cortisol levels cause people to gain their weight around their middle, which is definitely where I am prone to gain it (hello, love handles and pot belly!). I want to see if I can change where I store my fat, through lowering cortisol levels and, when it is time to gain my weight back, raising my estrogen level, which is supposed to influence how much weight is gained on the bottom. Not only is that the healthier place to carry weight, but Boyfriend, you see, is an ass man, with a particular love of squishy upper thighs, and I’d love to eventually stay around 20-22% body fat with most of my weight on the bottom.
Supposedly, the following things lower cortisol levels:
- Not skipping meals (including breakfast, which I am often guilty of)
- Sleeping plenty and well
- Getting 30-60 minutes of exercise (but no more—too much increases cortisol)
- Yoga and breathing exercises
- Music
- Laughing
- Avoiding sugars, refined carbs, and caffeine
- Not getting stressed out—remaining “zen” about things
All of that stuff fits well into my current plan, and shouldn’t be too hard to implement. I’ve already started making sure I eat something within an hour or so of waking up. To increase estrogen levels once I’ve gotten to my “turnaround” point where my body fat is satisfactorily low and it’s time to start gaining back again, I’ll be consuming a lot of soy and taking a black cohosh supplement (it’s the only herb for which there is any clinical evidence of its effectiveness). And we’ll see: maybe I’ll get a bumpin’ bottom!
Oh! I almost forgot to mention that this detox may go on quite a bit longer than a year; we’re looking at doing a cross-country move in the spring, and we think we want to give ourselves an additional year to get settled in to a new city and new jobs before we do the whole parent thing. So this may turn out to be the Clear YearS—or at least year and a half. All the same, I hope to meet my fat-loss goal by June, gain again, and then just maintain after that. I’m not even sure what maintenance will look like on a cortisol-reducing gain-and-maintain plan, since re-introducing sweets was one of the main things I was looking forward to, but I guess I’ll figure it out.
As always seems to happen, I’ve gotten so wrapped up in life that updating my progress on this blog has taken a backseat to actually making the progress and just living. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But I do still want to document my evolving process, and I’m fine with making it happen in occasional snapshots rather than a daily/weekly update sort of thing, if that’s what turns out to work for me. So here is the snapshot of the current state of my detox.
I’ve ditched the smoothies altogether, since the liquid calories did not seem to be keeping me as satisfied as solid calories. This was a serious “WTF” realization for me, since solid foods went into the smoothie, so it contained the same amount of fiber, etc., so I guess it must be psychological somehow. Anyway, since the whole purpose of the smoothies was to get chlorella into me, I’ve just started taking tablets of the same stuff (NOW organic). I take 12 500-mg pills each morning. This allows me to eat my smoothie’s-worth of calories in solid food, and has made me much happier.
I’ve still been doing the yoga DVDs, the Shred, and running, although I recently went on a camping trip so haven’t done them in about a week. I plan to start up again once the holidays are over and I’m back to a normal routine. I may do some before then, but maybe not. My boyfriend might have to leave town for an extended period of time starting on the 3rd or the 4th, so I’m sort of enjoying just spending time chilling with him this holiday, everything else be damned. I have added crunches into my daily routine, though, and that has stuck. I do three sets of 50-60 crunches, doing a bridge between sets to balance my core. My abs have gotten a lot stronger from this.
The holiday hasn’t managed to mess with my detox too much; I brought mostly organic food camping (with the exception of my veggie dogs and vegan marshmallows for the campfire, which I looked for in organic but couldn’t find), took only one taste of fancy wine at my rich boss’s holiday dinner (not even a full sip, just a tongue-wetting for the taste), and my “naughty treat” was to drink decaf coffee while on my camping trip. Oooh, such a bad girl! LOL. My deal with myself was that I could have decaf while out of town, but as soon as my car rolled back into my ‘hood, back to no coffee at all.
I have, however, not been too strict about caloric intake these past few weeks. I never step on a scale these days (not that I’m against it, I just don’t own one), but I do measure, with both a tape measure and calipers. My tape measure tells me that in the past couple of months I’ve lost the odd inch here and there, nothing really noticeable, but the calipers tell me that my body fat is dropping. It used to be around 31% the first time I checked, and now it’s like 28-29%. Not a big change, but better than nothing.
I seem to have allowed myself to become addicted to sugar in the past few weeks, though. Whereas before I was severely limiting myself, since Thanksgiving I’ve been doing a fair bit of organic holiday baking. Now I crave sugar all the time, and have been eating it almost every day. Not exactly a New Year’s Resolution, more of a restart and new goal, I plan to revert to sugar-free once my boyfriend has to leave, or if it turns out he doesn’t have to, whenever we find that out.
The plan to break the sugar addiction is pretty simple. I’m just going to cut out sugar, in all its varied forms, until I don’t crave it anymore. I’m probably also going to minimize super-carby things that seem to contribute to craving even simpler carbs: pretzels, cereal, farina, crackers, etc. I don’t think I’ll get rid of my daily lunch peanut butter toast, because it really is the best and most filling solution for me at that time of day (organic sprouted 7-grain bread, spread with organic creamy peanut butter), but without Boyfriend around, it’ll be easier to avoid snacking and really carby dinners (the man adores pasta, and although I buy whole-grain, it’ll be nice to go without it for awhile).
Luckily for me, I adore sautéed and seared veggies, especially in cold weather when salads don’t satisfy as much. My dinners will probably consist of a huge plate of veggies either pan seared with canola- or olive-oil spray, or sautéed in olive oil or butter, and some days a small serving of beans or fish.
Once the New Year strikes, I’ll have almost exactly 6 months left to try to meet my weight/body-fat goal, so it’ll be time to get serious about it. Right now, I know I’m stronger and healthier than when I began this journey, and I think I look good (the other day, Boyfriend told me he couldn’t see a single difference between my body and that of a 20-year-old, and I’m 31), but for this detox, I need to get beyond looking good. I need to whittle my body fat percentage down as low as possible, so that I burn out all the dioxins/PCBs/phthalates/etc. out of my body and replace that fat with “clean” fat fed with organic food from non-leaching containers.
I’ve finally found a satisfactory natural shampoo: Giovanni 50/50, hooray! Previously I had tried Alba Botanica, Dr. Bronner’s, and going no-poo, none of which worked for me. As it turns out, the ridiculously hard water here in San Diego mixes with the soap in most natural shampoos (and with the natural no-poo “soap” made when hair oil mixes with baking soda) and causes soap scum to form in my hair. That is so gross. But the Giovanni stuff is a miracle. My hair is actually shiny for the first time in months!
I also bought some Pyrex food container bowls with PCB-free plastic lids. I am using those and parchment paper for cooking and leftovers instead of foil and plastic wrap where it can be helped.
I recently got a haircut, and the stylist said that a good product to use in it would be dry wax. I already have some (actually really expensive) dry wax left over from a previous salon visit, but the ingredients are not exactly detox-friendly (parabens and the whatnot). So I’m thinking about making a DIY hair wax using a recipe I found online that calls for beeswax, coconut oil, and essential oil. Organic beeswax is available on Amazon prime for super cheap (less than $15/pound!), and I always have organic coconut oil lying around. I’ve been meaning to pick up some ylang-ylang oil for ages now (it’s my all-time favorite scent, and always the first to run out of my oil collection).
While I’m on the making-homemade-hair-products kick, I also found a recipe for DIY hairspray that I may try as well, since spray is sometimes better on the bangs. And though I’ve already made my own dry shampoo before, I used products with artificial fragrance, so I may as well re-make that, too. This site has a recipe for dark hair that includes cocoa powder—that could be fun!
I’m still guilty of using non-natural makeup, though. In fact, I just bought some drugstore makeup yesterday, because I was out of coral and medium grey eyeshadow, and needed a brown-black mascara. Right now, I can’t really afford the pricier natural stuff, but hopefully soon, I will be able to.
So, anyway, that’s where my current progress is. Hopefully, I will have another update before too long…
It’s been awhile since I updated, because I’ve been really busy over the past couple of weeks setting up my freelance editing business and also looking for a second job waiting tables to bring in more income than my piddly entry-level wages at my day job. I’m trying to pay off student loan debt and save for a cross-country move that will hopefully be happening in the spring.
I’ve made a few changes to my routine in the past couple of weeks, but nothing major.
For one, I wasn’t losing weight as easily as I’d hoped—I’m back into my “skinny” jeans, but barely, and an empire-waist dress still skims the top of a little gut, making it look pregnant rather than flattering. And yet, I was eating the amount that’s considered safe for my size with a goal of losing 1-2 pounds per week. It didn’t seem to be doing much except for making me stupider and meaner!
After ruling out PMS when the brain fog and irritability continued longer than PMS should have, and ruling out tiredness when I made sure to get to bed on time, the only thing I could think of that coincided with my problems was this detox. I went to visit my best friend last weekend, giving myself a “free weekend” from my diet (and still had my smoothie each day), and I felt normal again: I could think again! Before that, it was getting so bad that I scared myself. I literally thought I was going mad, maybe developing premature Alzheimer’s at 31.
As it turned out, I just needed to eat more for my brain to function. So I figured that if I am going to be losing weight less quickly than I like whether I am strict with myself or not, I might as well take it a little more slowly. After all, I have seven more months to get to my goal, and even if I lose at a snail’s pace, I doubt I won’t be there—or at least close—by then. I definitely did not realize that dieting, even eating all healthy, organic food, could make me feel dumber and meaner daily. I’m not sure how people who hardcore diet all the time do it (I really , but I just can’t and keep up the quality of my work and my mood—my brain needs FOOD! If it means I lose less than a pound a week, so be it. I’ve got 28 weeks left, and fewer than 28 pounds to lose. So that’s Change 1: more food.
The second change I made is to move my daily smoothie from the morning to the night. It was in part because I wanted the extra time in the morning, and in part because that smoothie was making me really hungry when it wore off. For some reason, it seems like as a smoothie, the food has less staying power than in its solid form. If I ate 1/3 cup spinach, 7 strawberries, half a banana, and a handful of nuts, that would be a substantial breakfast. And that’s without the protein powder, chlorella, and almond milk. Maybe the blended version, being already liquified, just digests too easily. Anyway, it’s been working out better as a dessert or a pre-dinner appetizer than as a breakfast.
The third change is that I decided to lay off reviewing the yoga DVDs. I just don’t have the time. I’m still doing the videos, and—for the first time in my life—I can touch my toes from a standing position. I’m just not going to write about it anymore.
So I broke down and bought a B-complex supplement today, after realizing that I still had more than two months left of my current bottle of prenatal vitamins that lack B5 (pantothenic acid). I just couldn’t handle the idea of getting creative with mushrooms every day for the next two months. I bought Trader Joe’s B “50”—so-called because it’s got 50 mg of most of the B-vitamins. A lot of the B-complexes I looked at had way more than that, but 50 mg was even more than I needed (the RDA for adult women is 5-7 mg). I wonder why they sell the mega-doses…even the lower dose one I got is enough to turn my pee flaming fluorescent yellow from excess riboflavin.
I did get something exciting at Trader Joe’s: organic rooibos chai! Chai was my first coffeeshop love, discovered at the funky Fell’s Point café near where we punk rockers used to hang out when I was a teenager. Obviously, I can’t drink “real” chai during this detox, since it’s made with black tea, but I figured that all I was really missing was the spice flavor, and it didn’t matter if it was bundled with the naturally caffeine free rooibos instead of the traditional black tea. I just brewed some up, added some heated half-and-half and Truvia, and it is really good! Maybe not as good as a real chai latté, with 16 oz of creamy steamed milk and the super-sweet chai mix they put into it, but good enough.
As another treat for myself, I bought some Fig Newmans. I accidentally bought the fat-free ones (I’m all about the full-fat everything!), but even so, they’re 50 calories a pop. I won’t ever have more than one at a time, and I’m sure when my boyfriend is finished with the regular ones I bought him, he’ll be all over the organic ones, so I won’t have to worry about them going stale. We love fig cookies in this household.
I ran again today, improving my time by 2 seconds per mile. Woo-hoo! LOL, I’m such a weakling.
After running, I tried a routine from Yoga For Inflexible People, the one called “Strength & Flexibility I.” It was 45 minutes long, and slow-paced, but really helpful! I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I am literally one of the least flexible people on the planet. In high school, when they make you do that fitness test, I scored in the 1st percentile on flexibility, meaning that 99% of all people (maybe only women?) tested were more flexible than I was. And that was when I was 14. One of the reasons that I’m doing yoga is that it actually appears to be working to improve my flexibility, something that nothing else had ever been able to do.
This was one of the most basic DVDs I’ve done yet—very slow, the poses described in great detail—but because it was tailored to inflexible people, it was actually one of the better practices I’ve done. I was able to follow along and get the postures right, and feel stretches and burns that I’d never gotten to feel before since I wasn’t in exactly the right position trying to emulate more flexible people. It hurt! (But kind of in a good way.)
It wasn’t visually beautiful at all; it took place in a very bland room on a plain backdrop. But the music was not irritating (although the narrator’s voice was a little grating), the person demonstrating was actually young (no offense to older people, but it was nice to see someone a little closer to my own age), and best of all, IT WORKED! This is a definite repeat.
I figured now would be a good time to update on my overall progress on each of the “prongs” of my detox, as laid out in my first post.
Part 1: Quit Bad Habits
Smoking – It’s been 65 days since I had a cigarette—I haven’t even cheated with a single puff during this time, although there was one moment a couple of weeks ago when a plume of secondhand smoke went directly from my boyfriend’s lungs to my nostril. I don’t miss it very much (I was never much of a “serious” smoker), and what I do occasionally miss is mostly the auxiliary/social functions of it: having something to do with my hands when I’m on the phone, the camaraderie of going outside to have a cigarette with someone. I just noticed last night that my boyfriend has cut down a lot, too; he seems to be down to 1/2-3/4 pack a day, from nearly two packs!
Recreational drugs – It’s been 61 days since I’ve done any recreational drugs (and yes, pot counts). In the past, I’ve gone far longer than that without touching the things, so this really isn’t a very big deal or difficult at all.
Caffeine – It’s been 48 days since I quit drinking caffeinated beverages. I did slip once, near the beginning, and order green tea at a sushi restaurant, because my companion was having alcohol and I was mentally scrambling to think of something non-alcoholic. Still, green tea isn’t that bad in the grand scheme, and I remembered after the waiter went away and so didn’t finish the cup. I do still eat chocolate, allowing myself just under an ounce per day (maybe a little more if I’m feeling desperate), and I limit myself to milk chocolate for its lower caffeine content (5-6g per ounce, opposed to dark chocolate’s 21-22g per ounce). When I started this detox, I really missed coffee—and the smell still drives me into a craving every once in awhile—but with time, it’s gotten less bad.
Alcohol – It’s been 36 days since I’ve had an alcoholic beverage. I will admit, my ears still perk up when somebody mentions mimosas, but I’ve pretty much only been hanging out with my boyfriend, who quit drinking along with me, so it’s been easy-ish so far. I still cook with sherry very occasionally, and use baking extracts in my smoothies, but I don’t think any of that counts.
Part 2: Lose Weight
So…I haven’t actually stepped on a scale since October 7th, since I had to move and quit my gym membership, and I don’t have a scale at home. Instead, I’ve been tracking my measurements. I do have one friend with a scale, so maybe I can log actual weight loss after I visit him. The calorie- and nutrition-tracking site I use tells me that, given my intake, I should be losing about 1–1.5 pounds per week, a healthy rate of weight loss.
Anyway, you might recall in my first post that I tried to estimate my body fat percentage based on a formula I found on Wikipedia, and it was telling me 33%, which seemed high. I had a hard time believing that someone (me) with a BMI almost exactly in the middle of the “normal” range—not “average,” mind you, because overweight is now “average,” but “normal”—could have a body fat percentage that every table I’ve seen counts as “obese.”
I’ve since found this calculator based on the formula the Navy uses, and this other one, which seems a little more accurate. The first calculator put my early-October measurements at 25.73% body fat. Still not in the “fit” range (to say nothing of the “athletic” range I am aiming for). My current measurements, using an estimated weight range of 4 lbs., put me at 25.38-25.42%.
The second calculator put my early-October measurements at 25.40%, and my current measurements, using an estimated weight range, at 22.62% for the entire range.
They both agree that I am losing fat, but whether it’s terribly much or terribly little depends on which site I ask—somewhere around the rate of .11%-.93% per week. According to the disparity between them, with about 34 weeks to go until the latest gain-back time begins, if I continue to lose at the same rate, I’ll either be down to 21.77% by June and never meet my goal, or meet my goal of 16% in two months, 6 months early. It’s ridiculous how much variation that is. I actually think that it’s somewhere between the two. Pretty sure my only way of actually knowing is just to buy a damn set of calipers. So I guess I will. Adventures in calipers, coming soon!
Part 3: Detox the Bad
With the exception of three or four days while we were in the process of moving and unpacking, I’ve had one of my detox smoothies every single day since September 19th. The recipe has been tweaked and adapted what seems like a zillion times, including once today, when I realized that it’s way easier (and literally does not change the taste at all) to add 1/4 cup frozen organic spinach to my smoothie for my daily vitamin K than it is to make a salad with dinner. Bonus: it only costs 11 calories—way less than said salad, which is sure to contain dressing.
I’ve been phasing out all my conventional (i.e., non-eco-hippie-crunchy) products as I use the old ones up. For cleaning supplies, I still need to run out of laundry soap and stain remover. For beauty products, I’ve been scoping No More Dirty Looks for alternatives, and will be replacing some stuff (expensive SPF moisturizer) when I use it up, while others, like hair products, I will probably just ditch half-used when I can afford to replace them. I’m already using natural shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and lip balm (although the ladies at NMDL seem to think that I could get yet-cleaner brands, which I will work on soon).
I don’t use conventional deodorant, I use rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle, followed by one of six scents I own of Pacifica’s roll-on perfumes (made from pure grain alcohol and essential oils). I don’t use lotion, I use organic hemp oil or organic coconut oil. I don’t use soap in the shower (water washes just fine), and I wash my hands with water and then moisturize them with coconut oil, which is a natural anti-bacterial.
I have an absurd number of hair products I’ve bought and don’t use; instead, I’ve been pre-treating with coconut oil before shampooing, and I just bought this new oil to use for styling, Alterna’s Kendi Oil…but I think I may have been tricked here by the word “organic” on the bottle. I arranged with Amazon to send it back, because there were way too many chemicals on the label and shizz was not cheap.
I also have a mess of conventional makeup…so much makeup! I think what I am going to do with that stuff is toss a lot of it out, but also keep a good variety of the stuff I don’t use that often (eyeshadow colors, etc.) for special occasions, and then replace my everyday stuff with clean, natural stuff as soon as I can afford it. I don’t wear makeup every-every day, but most days I at least conceal my dark circles and smudge some blush on so I don’t look dead.
I’ve been experimenting with using coconut oil as a substitute for the steroid ointment prescribed to me for my eczema. So far, it seems to be working pretty well; I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if I flare up again.
One area of the detox in which I struggle is making sure that I drink enough water every day; some days, I suck it down effortlessly; others, it’s like pulling teeth to get myself to force down another gulp. It’s silly, because I know hydration is one of the most important parts, and it’s theoretically so easy (not to mention so good to keep signs of aging away); I don’t know why I have such a time with it some days.
So…the detox thing is both well-underway, and also a work in progress. I’m certainly way cleaner than I was a month ago!
Part 4: Build Up the Good
I’ve been pretty good about the whole organic food thing since I’ve started my detox. Almost every new thing that I bring into the house for myself is organic, with a few exceptions:
– Cheddar cheese, because I can’t find a good organic one—the cheddar cheese I did buy is at least the Trader Joe’s hormone-free kind, and I’ve only eaten it sparingly, half-slices at a time. I found a good organic Muenster, though, and will be switching to that, I think from here on out.
– Blue Sky Free sodas, because I currently need my calorie-free sweet fix, and my drugs of choice are their root beer and cherry vanilla flavors. I may eventually get to the point where I jump on the Soda Stream bandwagon and start making my own organic version of their root beer, with my own organic “Truvia” (made with the organic erythritol and organic stevia I just ordered), organic sweet birch oil, and organic vanilla extract, but it sounds kind of expensive and kind of like a PITA.
– Vitamin Water Zero lemonade, same deal as with the sodas.
– Nuts, because I’ve justified to myself that they come from inside shells, so there can’t be that much pesticide on them. Unfortunately for me, that all may have been wishful thinking, and since I consume walnuts and Brazil nuts literally every day in my smoothies, I’m considering heading organic on this one.
– Herbs & spices…this is another one I’ve been thinking about changing my mind on, in large part because they last so freaking long that by the time I’m done using a bottle, am I really going to remember that I spent an extra two bucks on it last year? There’s kind of no reason not to go organic on these, except for that certain ones may be hard to find, and for those there’s always Mountain Rose.
There are certain things in the house that I am still using up that are not organic: herbal teas, condiments like vinegar and sesame oil, baking extracts, herbs and spices. I’m fine with those, but they will get replaced with the good stuff. There are also a few things lurking in my cupboard (black rice and grits, off the top of my head) that are probably cheap enough that it’s worth just tossing them rather than contaminating my detox. And then there is the dollar-store graham cracker pie crust that I bought on a whim—that, I will say “eff it” and eat anyway!
When I’m out and about, I’ve been a lot less strict. We only go out for 1-2 meals per week, so I don’t think it’s hurting me much. I pretty much don’t place any restrictions on myself other than no alcohol, no caffeine, and no mercury- or PCB-laden fish. And I eat small portions so I don’t blow my calorie allowance for the day all at one meal.
Supplement-wise, I’ve been impeccable about taking my regimen: calcium/magnesium/potassium, choline, calamari-derived DHA, probiotics, and my prenatal. I’m thinking about switching from this prescription prenatal to an OTC one, because I’ve seen plenty that have the same amount of good stuff in them, and for some reason the one I’m taking now doesn’t have any B5 (pantothenic acid). I am perpetually short on B5, always having to come up with creative ways to work mushrooms into my dinner, and I’m getting kind of annoyed with it. I don’t want to add another single-ingredient supplement if I don’t have to, so switching to a prenatal that already includes it seems to be the best plan.
I was hoping that I might feel a “brain boost” from the DHA and choline, since they are both supposed to help with that sort of thing (in addition to ensuring healthy brain development in my future fetus). I really didn’t notice any such boost, and if anything, I had a way stupider (and longer) PMS time-period than usual. I guess it’s possible that some of that was detox effects, too. Whatever the case, I’m back to feeling like my sharp and able-to-focus self this week.
Part 5: Establish Healthy Habits
My self-imposed floss-Nazi-ism has been going very well. There has only been one day that I didn’t floss, and that’s because I woke up not feeling very well and only could slug around lazily.
The Kegel thing, on the other hand, is kind of my weakness. I had been trying to do them while I floss, but I need to come up with a better system. It’s a good thing I have so much time to find the system and perfect it. I’m kind of letting it slide right now while I focus on other things, but it’s still on my list.
I’ve been getting really good about exercise—unexpectedly, even better since I quit the gym. I am starting to be able to feel a difference in terms of endurance.
Yesterday, I decided to try to run again, even though it hurt my knee the first time. What a surprise: it barely started to hurt at all, and only near the end, even though I went faster and farther than last time! By faster and farther, I don’t mean anything impressive; I clocked an even 12-minute mile, and went just over two miles. But that’s still better than I did the time before!
Today, I did the Shred again. I still suck at it, still largely because those eight-pound weights are too much for my weakling upper body to handle yet. But I’ll get there. The cardio part is a breeze, the abs part is getting easier, and the lower-body part isn’t tough strength-wise, but I’m still too inflexible to get into some of the positions right. For that, there’s yoga.
I guess this is as good a place as any to post my yoga DVD reviews.
The day before yesterday, after Shredding, I tried Yoga for Feeling Stronger Every Day. I chose the 25-minute “Beginner I” workout, and thought it was pretty OK. It was neither too hard, nor too easy for me. The production value was not great, as far as image quality. The music seemed pretty good; it was very quiet, which I didn’t mind, and not at all distracting. It wasn’t one of my favorites—just a chick in a room, surrounded by curtains, and giving the camera kind of a weird bedroom eye. But it wasn’t bad, either.
Yesterday, after my run, I felt energized enough to do a longer practice, and I selected the 60-minute Gaiam’s Yoga Conditioning for Women. This was one of my favorites so far. It was challenging, but I knew enough of the modifications that I always had something to do. It was as good as a yoga class, in my opinion. The instructor was the same woman, Suzanne Deason, who was in the lower body video I reviewed before. She was in a pretty outdoor setting again, and the music was peaceful and unobtrusive.
Today, post-Shred, my arms were all noodly and weak from the hand weights, so I purposely selected a lower-body routine. The DVD was Ultimate Body: Yoga Fitness, which has a selection of routines, including a 25-minute lower-body one. The instructor was a guy, and the tone was very gym-workout and not at all woo-woo yoga. It was a good workout—I was definitely sweating and shaking—but I did have two gripes: the instructor kept making weird, annoying noises, like “whoo!” as though he were really feeling the burn; also, for a practice that was supposed to be focusing on the lower-body, he had me do waaay too many chaturangas-to-up-dogs. My already-limp arms had me flopping on the floor like a pathetic fish, and that time could have been better spent. Well, now I know, and will stick with the Deason lower-body one when I need an upper-body break.
Beauty
This isn’t one of my prongs, but I realized that I owed you guys an update on how the henna thing went! Verdict: fabulous!
I was skeptical when I peeled the plastic wrap off of the mixture in the bowl and saw that, after over 24 hours of soaking to “release” the color, the henna still looked more of a cool brown than a warm one. But I said “what the hey” and gobbed it into my hair anyway.
It felt like mud, and looked like crap (literally). The rosewater and orange blossom water that I’d added to it for fragrance didn’t do much to mask the weird scent once it was on my head—I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it reminded me of, but I knew it wasn’t good, so I pushed it to the back of my mind trying not to remember. I left it on for about six hours, the recommended time, then smeared my entire head with coconut oil (dropping and spilling a bunch of it in the process—that stuff is slippery when it gets on the outside of the jar!), and jumped in the shower.
Washing it out took awhile, and I decided to leave the coconut oil on overnight, rather than shampooing. I got all the henna out, went to sleep, and washed the oil out in the morning. Getting all the oil out of my hair took shampooing it like 3 times, with the Trader Joe’s tea tree shampoo usually reserved for my boyfriend. My normal Alba Botanica stuff just wasn’t cutting through it. I finally got all the grease out, blow-dried my bangs, and let the rest air dry.
I hadn’t put the henna all the way to the bottom, because I wanted to keep my pink ends, but where I did put it had turned a beautiful, rich shade of auburn red. The parts where I had previously chemically dyed it (a deep purply burgundy that had faded to a reddish brown) were really lustrous orange-red, blending to a more subtle auburn brown at my roots. This was a color I would have expected from a chemical dye, not from a packet of herbal powder!
I was/am impressed! Supposedly, the color builds over time, and so will be even more vibrant once I do it again, and next time I will have some experience knowing how to handle the gunk, so I will be able to apply it further down my hair.
One weird thing, though, is even after rinsing it the night I dyed it, having coconut oil on it, and then washing it three times with tea tree shampoo and conditioning it with delicious-smelling cocoa butter conditioner, the smell of the henna lingers. And it finally dawned on me what it smells like: “magic” mushrooms. Yes, those.
It smells exactly the way those vile things taste, and the smell has been coming out of my hair every time I sweat. Ick!
Another day, another mixed bag…
Today started off pretty great. My guy and I had made plans to go to the local Farmers’ Market, which moves all around town depending on the day of the week, but the best one is on Sunday and only a few miles from us. In the early part of our relationship, this was something we did fairly frequently, but we hadn’t been in kind of a while. I was especially excited because of my new eating-organic thing, and made sure to take cash out and bring a big bag for all the things I would surely buy. But…we ended up barely getting anything.
I was expecting a bigger selection of organic stuff than what I’d find in my local stores, but there was less of a selection. And what there was wasn’t even really cheaper than what was in the stores (something I used to love about the Farmers’ Market back when I lived in Raleigh—the super-low prices). There was a better selection of organic cheese and artisanal meats and olives and stuff, but all that stuff is currently far out of my price range. After ordering one 12-ounce Greenfix raw smoothie (which had nothing on my homemade ones, although it seemed much lower-cal) for $4, I only had $6 left, and the organic cheese I had my eye on started at $8.
The big draw for us used to always be the food stands, but being broker than we have been in a long time, the stands suddenly seemed expensive to us ($4 for a pastry! $8 for a crepe or Indian bowl!) where we used not to bat an eye. I ended up only getting that smoothie, and he ended up just eating a plain avocado. Even so, it was nice to walk around the market hand-in-hand with my guy, like we used to back in ye olde days.
After that, we headed to the “real” stores and I picked up a few staples we were low on. Upon arriving home, I discovered that—not only this shopping trip, but the last one too—I had accidentally purchased the sweetened almond milk rather than the unsweetened that I thought I’d been buying. The difference is fewer than 30 calories a day, but still, I was bummed at having not paid close enough attention. Lesson learned, though.
Exercise
Soreness descending upon me from yesterday’s Shred, I was still determined to get a good workout by sticking to my plan of alternating Shred warm-up days and running warm-up days before my yoga. I was pretty stoked about starting to run again; I hadn’t tried in almost five years, after experiencing knee pain while running in a gym class as an undergrad. I figured I’d given the problem plenty of time to heal. I changed into my workout gear, downloaded an app (MapMyRun, which seems awesome) to GPS-track my route, time, and speed, cued up my audiobook, and headed out.
I’d only been running for about ten minutes, when the same old knee pain crept back in. I decided to try to push through it, and it got worse, plus my hip on the same side started to hurt. My deal with myself had been to run for 20 minutes: head out for ten and back for ten. I headed back soon after the pain started, and ended up doing a pathetic combination of running for about 1/4-1/2 block, then walking, repeat, until I got home. My gym teacher when I was an undergrad told me that the knee pain was probably because I had tight hamstrings, but they’re a lot less tight now from all the yoga I’ve done since April (even if I haven’t been incredibly consistent about it)…admittedly, they’re still tighter than most people’s, but they’re better than they were.
Internet research turned up the notion that a lack of flexibility is only part of the problem. Another part could be insufficient strength in my quads. But the kicker is that this problem is supposed to be more common in people whose second toe is longer than their big toe (check) and who have bow legs (also check—mine aren’t bad, but they’re definitely a little bowed—thanks for the faulty genes, Dad). Aside from strength and flexibility training, both of which I am doing, doctor-prescribed orthotics are probably the only other thing to help me. Definitely not in my current budget. So, I guess I’ll be cutting out the running in favor of a brisk walk.
Upon getting home, bummed but warmed-up, I decided to try two of my new yoga DVDs. Because my upper body was wicked sore from the work I did with the hand weights yesterday, I selected workouts to avoid too much effort in that area: Gaiam’s Lower Body Yoga for Beginners with Suzanne Deason (30 mins) and Abs Yoga for Beginners with Rodney Yee (25 mins). To my utter surprise, my boyfriend expressed interest in trying the videos out along with me—he has never done a minute of yoga before in his life, so color me stunned! I think it was because I showed him that one of the video instructors was male; pretty sure he thinks of yoga as a frou-frou female activity, but he saw an incredibly fit-looking man on the cover of the DVD and maybe reconsidered that.
We did the lower body one first. It was a good workout! Unlike yesterday’s video, I actually broke a sweat, and kept sweating for most of the routine. Suzanne Deason is not nearly as stilted as the lady from the last video. The routine had great flow, the background (set in Maui) was attractive, and nearly all the poses were described well. There were a couple of times where she skipped saying what to do next and just did it, but that was pretty rare, and it was easy to catch on by just looking up at the screen. The music was peaceful, nondescript and unobtrusive, as it should be. I only had one really minor gripe about the video, and that was that she spent too much time at the beginning going on and on talking. I can fast-forward through that, though, so it’s not a huge concern.
The abs video was also really good! Set on some crazy sand dunes, it was very peaceful, and yet challenging at the same time. I really think that doing that routine will help firm up my core, and plan to repeat it frequently (at least until it is easy). There were points where my abs were just crying, and I had to flop my body down for a second. Rodney Yee is a very relaxing-sounding instructor, even while he’s kicking butt. The music, as in the lower-body video, was relaxing and didn’t make much of an impression. The only small complaint I have about this video is that he spends quite a bit of time in the beginning connecting with breath, and that got a little boring. But it was helpful throughout the rest of the video that he gives frequent reminders of when to breathe.
After all of that exercise between yesterday and today, I am pretty well sore all over. I haven’t fully decided what my weekly exercise schedule will look like, but I think I am going to try for an hour a day during the week (maybe longer if I don’t have any chores/errands) and an hour and 20 minutes or so during the weekend.
Beauty
I’ve been tearing through the archives of that cool blog I discovered last night, and it’s giving me tons on good ideas. It’ll be some time before I can put most of them into practice, though, so I guess you’ll hear about them when I get around to them.
As I type this, I am sitting here with the henna mixture I prepared yesterday mashed into all of my hair except the ends—those I want to leave pink. Hopefully, it’ll give my roots a deeper, redder color than my awful natural one that was growing in. I’ll have to update on that another time. It’s almost time to wash it out!
I’m probably going to write a “real” post for today later, after I have done a yoga video so I can review it, but I thought this one deserved its own post. I’ve mentioned before that I am pescetarian, and that I limit my seafood intake based on the current lists of which fish are most/least likely to be contaminated with mercury and PCBs. I also take sustainability into account, although it is not my top priority right now (i.e. if I am out to dinner somewhere, and the entrée choice is between a contaminated fish or a slightly less sustainable fish, I will take the less sustainable one every time).
Here is a list of the seafood that is considered “good” for my purposes:
Anchovies
Catfish
Clam
Cod (Atlantic or Pacific)
Crab (Domestic)
Crawfish/Crayfish
Croaker (Atlantic)
Hake
Herring
Lobster
Mackerel (N. Atlantic, Chub)
Mullet
Mussel
Oyster
Perch (Ocean)
Plaice
Pollock
Porgy, Red
Salmon (Wild Caught)
Sardine
Sea Bass, Black
Shad (American)
Sole (Pacific)
Squid (Calamari)
Tilapia
Trout (Freshwater)
Whitefish
Whiting
These are the fish that fit my health criteria, but are less sustainable:
Flounder
Haddock (Atlantic)
Scallop
Shrimp
In case you’re curious, the seafood I eat most often are wild-caught salmon, tilapia, calamari, and shrimp. This is mostly because of ease of acquisition and price. I can usually get a two-person meal’s worth of tilapia or shrimp for under $5, sometimes wild-caught salmon goes on sale, and I love to get fried calamari when I go out (which isn’t very often lately, and ordering fried is even less often these days, but I do really love it).
So far, this has been a day with one success and one failure. The failure was that I finally tried to make my homemade sunscreen (with hemp oil, and powdered zinc oxide and titanium dioxide). The idea was going to be that I use it as my face moisturizer, since the hemp oil is supposed to be a really good moisturizer, and I know I need SPF to avoid the aging properties of the sun. Most facial moisturizer, even the more natural ones, contain chemical sunscreens that I don’t want to put on my skin forever. I’m too broke to just toss out the stuff I already have, so I was planning on experimenting with making my own while I used the rest of it up—I’m at peace with the idea that this getting-clean thing is a process, and I don’t have to (maybe even couldn’t) make all the changes overnight.
Anyway, I measured out two ounces of organic hemp oil that I have been keeping refrigerated (it spoils easily), then a half-tablespoon each of cosmetic-grade titanium dioxide powder and zinc oxide powder. (These mineral sunscreens work by physically blocking the sun’s rays from reaching the skin, as opposed to chemical sunscreens that absorb the UV.) I mixed the three ingredients together until they appeared blended, then poured them in a bottle and shook it vigorously. When I dispensed a small amount into my hand, it appeared OK—a little runny for a moisturizer, but not a bad color (the oil started out green, the powders were white, and together they made a pale yellowish color, not that different from many face lotions out there). When I put it on my face, however, it was a disaster.
I rubbed and rubbed, and in most places the whiteness of the powder rubbed in, but on all the places where my skin was kind of dry, it stuck white on each little flake and pore. It made my face look dirty, like all the pores were clogged with whiteheads! Rubbing harder, I felt the dry skin starting to come off in the oil, creating an even bigger mess. Ugh! I wiped off what remained with a dry washcloth. I decided to give up on the idea of making my own face sunscreen.
Luckily, doing some Googling after the debacle, I discovered No More Dirty Looks, a blog about natural beauty products and practices. It’s right up the alley of my current goals, so I’m definitely going to try to read the thing from start to finish. The gals over there recommended several all-natural face moisturizers with high enough SPF that they might be good candidates for replacement of my current product (which is First Aid Beauty’s 5-in-1 Face Cream, if you were curious, and which I was never in love with anyway).
So that was my daily fail. At least I discovered a great new blog because of it.
As for my daily success: I finally started exercising again! I know I had said in one of my earlier posts that I was going to start going to yoga again this past Sunday…but that was before I had decided to cancel my gym membership to save money, and instead rely on workout videos. I ordered a metric eff-ton of yoga videos (seriously, like 14 different orders, two of which were 3-disc sets), which have been slowly trickling in over the past week. I’m still waiting on four more, but I have plenty to get me started.
Exercise
For warm-up before the yoga, I am going to alternate between the previously mentioned 30 Day Shred and actually taking my butt outside to run for 20 minutes (yikes!). Today I did the Shred, using 8-pound hand weights. The weights were definitely heavier than I needed to start with, but I know from experience that I build up to using that weight pretty quickly, and I couldn’t afford to buy more than one set. So I just went with the 8-pound, and resigned myself to super-soreness. I made my way through most of the workout fine, but certain overhead lifts or lateral raises with the weights were too much for me at this point, so I only did them halfway. I also don’t have flexible enough hamstrings (yet, that’s where the yoga comes in) to do some of the required things with my legs. I’ll get better though, and hopefully soon!
I have promised that I will review the yoga DVDs as I work my way through them. Today, I did a routine from Bodywisdom’s Yoga Complete for Weight Loss. Released in 2004, this video felt somewhat dated, like from before even 2004, and the production quality wasn’t very high. (A lot of the videos I got are older, because those ones are cheap now.) Not knowing how tough the workouts might or might not be, today I selected the 45-minute beginner “Greet the Day” sequence. It featured one woman instructor demonstrating the poses in a large room with a wood floor and an oriental rug in the background. It wasn’t a bad setting, but something about the curtains screamed “lobby of an old folks’ home” to me.
The instructor looked to be somewhere in her 40s, and had an extraordinary command of yoga. The instruction was in voiceover; her voice wasn’t particularly annoying, but there was a choppiness about her phrasing, and she occasionally said things that jolted me right out of yoga-mind, like “release the skin on your face” (at which I laughed heartily) or “don’t think of the things you desire” (well…I wasn’t until you mentioned them!).
The routine itself was decent, if a little slow. It was slow enough that I didn’t feel like I was getting a great workout in, although I wouldn’t call it easy, just slow. Even on the beginner level, some things were difficult for me to do; I blame at least part of that on its following the Shred. It ought not be so hard on the days I run instead. The next time I do this video, I will probably try the intermediate level, to see if it moves a little faster. From taking actual classes, I know modifications for most of the poses, so if she gives more difficult poses, it shouldn’t pose (haha) too much of a problem.
The worst thing about the whole video was the background music. It was like circa-1990s Weather Channel music. I hated-hated-hated it. Tinkling, happy-sounding pianos—I could almost see the Doppler radar. I didn’t think to look for it mid-routine, but I wonder if there’s an option to turn off the music and leave the verbal instruction…I think I’ll be trying a different video tomorrow rather than moving straight on to the next level of this one. (And I think I’m going to post these reviews on Amazon, so don’t be surprised if you see this word-for-word there.)
Diet and Nutrition
I’ve made a couple of changes to my standby smoothie recipe. Yup, still tweaking it after almost six weeks of making them (I started the smoothies a little earlier than my “official” detox start date: September 18). After tracking my nutrition for some time now, I’ve realized that this limited-fish pescetarian is not getting enough protein on her low-calorie diet. I decided that one easy way to supplement the amount I was getting is by adding protein powder to my smoothies. I had several criteria for what kind of protein powder would do:
1) It couldn’t be soy protein (I am not anti-soy, but I do try to limit my intake because it can supposedly affect hormones, so I didn’t want it for breakfast every day.)
2) It had to be organic.
3) It couldn’t contain sweeteners, unless it was Truvia.
4) It had to be unflavored or vanilla. (I didn’t want it clashing with the smoothie flavors I was used to.)
5) It had to dissolve smoothly. (It is, after all, for smoothies, and I can’t stand grit in my smoothies.)
After some research, I landed on Jarrow Organic Unflavored Whey Protein, because in addition to its fulfilling all my criteria according to its Amazon reviews and website, I also read that it tasted pretty good. And it does! In my smoothies, with the dash of citrus extract (orange or lemon) that I usually add, it makes them taste kind of like sherbet! Mmmm. They are better than ever, and better for me!
The other change I made to my smoothies was that I cut out half the banana I’d been using, to make it lower-calorie. This helped to make up for the added calories of the protein powder. I was finding that I was still hungry by the end of the day, and if I saved more calories to have a bigger dinner, I felt better. (And I have also been able to add in my bit of organic chocolate every night, which has really helped to boost morale!) So my current smoothie recipe stands here:
3/4 cup organic unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 Brazil nut
7 walnut halves
2 packets Truvia
2 scoops (23 g) organic unflavored whey protein powder
2 heaping teaspoons organic chlorella powder
1/2 organic banana
1-1.5 cups organic unsweetened frozen raspberries or strawberries
1 tablespoon liquid bentonite
1/2 tsp citrus extract
I generally blend this in 3 steps. First, the nuts, Truvia, and protein in the almond milk, to make sure the nuts get ample blending and the Truvia and protein both dissolve smoothly, then the fruit and chlorella, then the ice after the rest is liquified.
I’m always on a quest to find new, interesting things to drink, now that I don’t drink coffee, traditional tea, alcohol, or sugary things any longer. This week, I saw a new lemonade made by the folks at Honest Tea, called Honest Zero Classic Lemonade. Organic and sweetened only with stevia (probably leaving out the erythritol because they are careful to be GMO-free, which I don’t care about), I thought this lemonade would surely be a winner. And it was on sale, so I bought two. I drank the first one today, and it’s not a winner. It tastes watered down and kind of…funky. I don’t know. It is not good. I’m not looking forward to drinking the second one (although I will, ’cause I don’t like waste), and I am not buying it again. Shame, because I have liked Honest Tea’s other beverages, both their teas and their fruit drinks. But I can’t have tea right now, and I can’t waste the calories on the sugary fruit drink. Oh, well.
Beauty
I couldn’t deny it any longer: my roots were growing out. The boring, medium-ash-brown mouse shade of my natural hair color was peeking out from under the permanent-dyed (Nutrisse Black Cherry) color I’d been keeping most of my hair since April (the tips are Atomic Pink). In keeping with trying to do very little to my body right now that I won’t be able to do later during pregnancy, I had decided that I wasn’t going to use “normal” hair dyes any more. I considered various options.
The brightly colored “punk” dyes don’t contain any ammonia or peroxide, and many of the pigments are vegetable-derived. However, I am planning on looking for a second job soon, and it’s going to be trouble enough to hide my pink tips in a bun; I can’t very well add more to my roots. Plus, they work best after bleaching, which most definitely is not on the table during the detox. And a final consideration: they come off on everything. It took so long for my pink to stop staining my shirt collars, bathrobe, the bottom of the tub, etc. I just don’t have the energy to deal with that right now.
I thought about just using a Sun-In, or a homemade version of it. It’s basically just peroxide and lemon juice. Supposedly, a little peroxide is not bad at all. But I knew it wouldn’t do anything to the parts of my hair that had been permanently dyed, so I would instead just have another “row” of weird color on my head. Plus, I was kind of liking having darker hair than my natural color, not lighter.
A little bell in the back of my head rang, and I remembered hearing about henna hair dyes a long time ago. I did a little research, and it sounded like exactly what I was looking for. It dyes hair darker, adds red tones (to counteract my hideous natural ash), is all-natural, and is permanent. It’s supposed to ameliorate the texture of hair, rather than damage it. I went on Amazon, and found some for only $4.00, called Godrej Nupur Mehendi. So I ordered it. It slipped my mind at the time to look for an organic one, but I found one at Mountain Rose and one at Starwest; I’ll probably get one of those next time. They’re a little more expensive, but I think it’s worth it. Still not as expensive as a box of “regular” chemical hair dye.
I mixed up the henna mixture this afternoon, and am going to put it in tomorrow, as the mixture is supposed to site for 24 hours. I added orange blossom water and rosewater to the mixture for fragrance (the natural fragrance isn’t great), and a little balsamic vinegar because acid is supposed to bring the color out of the powder.
Now if only I had remembered to buy gloves…I guess I’ll be doing that tomorrow.
I’m really busy today, but wanted to squeeze in a quick update.
The vanilla honeybush tea is wonderful. It smells like the nectar of the gods, and has a very mild flavor complemented well by a little cream. To satisfy a sweet craving, adding a bit of Truvia might do the trick. I think the tea might be a diuretic, though, as I have been just peeing and peeing, all morning long!
Speaking of sweet cravings, I got a really bad one last night, and the Blue Sky sodas just weren’t cutting it. I decided to make a milkshake, using frozen organic strawberries, ice, a couple packets of Truvia, and a mixture of almond milk, milk, and half-and-half. I didn’t put much half-and-half in—I started thinking a couple of tablespoons of that and the strawberries and ice would do it, but when I realized how much liquid I needed, I switched to almond milk and milk, to keep the creaminess without pumping up the calories too much. It was really good. My boyfriend even had one with me.
The past two mornings, I’ve been waking up with a weird metallic taste in my mouth, and a fuzzy head that feels almost like a mild hangover. There are a handful of things I can think of that may be causing it: maybe I’m fighting getting sick; maybe I didn’t drink enough water (I have been slacking a little bit compared to sodas and teas); maybe it’s hormonal (my period should have come by now, and I feel it coming on, but it’s taking its sweet time this month); maybe it’s related to releasing toxins as I burn fat; maybe it’s something I’ve added in the past couple of days: the increased Truvia intake, the new mineral pills, re-starting my probiotic, or finally getting some psyllium down.
I’m going to be sure to drink plenty of water today (especially with the maybe-diuretic effect of the honeybush tea), and if the metallic taste and fuzziness don’t stop happening by the time I get my period, then I’ll start eliminating things and adding them back in to see what it could be. If it’s not due to diet/supplements, I’ll have to just chalk it up to detoxifying.
I also canceled my gym membership today. I was mostly only using it for yoga classes and for 15-40 minutes of cardio to warm up before the yoga. I’m pretty broke right now, and I think I’m going to replace my monthly membership fees with one up-front payment on a fistful of workout DVDs. I already have 30 Day Shred, which has 20-minute workouts that should be perfect for warmup. I’m looking into Amazon and eBay for used yoga DVDs. Some of them are pretty cheap! I figure I can get 5-10 DVDs to rotate, all for the price of one month’s gym dues. And then if I get sick of those, I won’t feel guilty buying myself another 1-2 per month to add into the rotation.
Another benefit, aside from cost, that workout DVDs have over the gym is convenience. I’m going to start looking for a second job in a week, and I won’t have a lot of spare time to make it to scheduled gym classes, not to mention driving there and parking in the parking garage, etc. With the DVDs, I can just set aside time on whatever days I want, at whatever time I want, and get my workout in. The DVDs also have varying lengths available. It was always such a commitment to stay in an hour-long yoga class if I had stuff I was rushing to get done outside of the gym. And who wants to be the jackass tiptoeing out the studio door while everyone else is in corpse pose? I will be more motivated to do yoga every day if I can work in some 20-30 minute practices on my busiest days.
Once I know which yoga DVDs I am ordering, I will post them here. Once I’ve tried them, I’ll review them.
On the topic of being broke, it has come up that maybe we will have to postpone conception for a little longer than we had originally planned. We plan to move back to the East Coast some point next year, probably in the spring, so that will mean spending money on the move (hence my second job), finding new jobs (and living off our savings), and developing enough “cred” at my new job that I won’t feel bad going on maternity leave (or maybe can even work from home). Postponing conception doesn’t mean that I will abandon my detox, however. The cleaner my body can be by the time we decide to go for it, the better, so any additional time will ultimately be a good thing, even if it is a little sad.
I’ve decided that, instead of trying to come up with a clever/relevant name for each post, I will just post what day on my detox journey it currently is. Today, as you can see, is Day 24.
So, in case you were wondering, the applesauce works wonders for the psyllium powder. The powder makes the sauce a lot thicker, but the grainy psyllium texture very closely resembles the grainy applesauce texture, so it’s not that noticeable. I may try adding cinnamon next time, just for the hell of it. I used unsweetened organic applesauce, and it comes in little 50-calorie cups that are just the right amount to handle a tablespoon of the powder (mixed in a separate container, as the cups come completely full).
My minerals arrived today, and I also bought the Lo Salt that will be providing my potassium boost. I’m not going to get to 100% on all my nutrients today, because my boyfriend and I needed to go to the dollar store, and it’s in the same shopping center as his favorite place to eat out: Cici’s Pizza. He has a large appetite, and loves the fact that Cici’s is all-you-can-eat.
So, I deviated from my diet, and had two small slices and one small square of vegetarian pizza, about the equivalent to a slice and a half of normal-size pizza. The soda fountain tricked me; I thought I was getting apple juice, and it turned out to be apple soda! I had only poured myself a modest ~8 ounces though, so it wasn’t too bad. Next time, I’m going to tell him I don’t want a drink before he orders for us. Anyway, the extra carby calories provided by that pizza pretty much ensures that I’m going to end up short on B5, Vitamin K, and protein for the day.
In the natural foods store, Sprouts, I found two new (to me) flavors of my beloved Blue Sky Free sodas: mandarin lime and lemonade. The mandarin lime is pretty good. It seems a little less sweet than the cherry vanilla or root beer, but les sweet than the ginger ale. I haven’t tried the lemonade yet. I also bought some Truvia, which is the no-calorie sweetener that the Blue Sky sodas use. It’s made with erythritol and stevia, both plant-derived, and while there is quite a bit of bitching about it on the internet, it’s mostly from the anti-GMO, suspicious-of-the-food-industry folk who are against anything, safe or not, if they can’t trace its exact path. That’s noble in theory, but I think it’s a little, er, impractical in practice.
As for me, I have read into the science behind erythritol, and believe it to be safe. Same with stevia. The only thing I wish is that the Truvia were organic, but I don’t figure I’m ingesting enough of it to make too much of a difference. I know organic erythritol and organic stevia exist; maybe if I get a little ambitious, I’ll try to make my own organic “Truvia” at some point. I added two packets of the real Truvia to my smoothie today, in place of the agave nectar I sometimes add, and I have to say that it was delicious. I think that’s going to be a permanent replacement. I also think I’ll be adding it to my tea lattés when I’m in the mood for something a little sweet.
Speaking of tea lattés, I discovered something awful when trying to make one with True Blueberry tea today: it curdled the half-and-half that I had just heated and added to it! Doing some research, I discovered that both hibiscus and rosehips, the first two ingredients in that tea, will curdle dairy. Oh well, I guess this whole thing is trial and error. I dumped that cup out, heated some more half-and-half, and did it again with my old standby, mint. I bought some organic vanilla honeybush Stash tea to try tomorrow. I was looking for the cinnamon vanilla I mentioned on here earlier, but the store didn’t have it, and the apple cinnamon they did have had curdlers in it…I’ll probably just try steeping a cinnamon stick in the one I bought.
Hopefully, tomorrow, I’m back to yoga!
The Clear Year 