Day 5

Ahh... it's been a long day! I woke up this morning congested, which I'm assuming might have something to do with detox and my body moving stuff around. Really tired today as well and I'm pretty pooped right now. But... I am feeling really good overall. I am really trying to tune in to my body and eat just when I'm hungry. I'm pretty much "grazing" all day, but I think this works well because it keeps my blood sugar consistent.

I was excited to see that I'm now at 207.9, which means I'm down 4 pounds! Woo hoo! I don't plan on weighing myself on a daily basis throughout this journey, but this week, psychologically, I think it helps to see my weight going down! I am guessing that it will not keep up at this rate, nor would I expect it to, as rapid weight loss isn't healthy. Hopefully, my body is making an initial purge (hey, how much do toxins weigh anyway?) and then my weight loss will stabilize at a healthy rate.

I took my older son to his autism social skills group this evening and they had a party, as it was the last meeting for this year. There was all kinds of junk there, and I just watched and spun on my drop spindle as the plates of cookies, brownies and other assorted SAD garbage was passed around. The only bright spot was one mom had just returned from Kuwait on a trip and brought fresh honey dates! So... I had something I could snack on, and they were yummy!

I'll write more tomorrow, but wanted to log in my food intake for today:

Breakfast: green tea, 1 banana

Mid-morning: 1 1/2 quarts of green smoothie (oranges, bananas, kale, bee pollen, coconut butter)

(I was not hungry for lunch... the green smoothie held me until mid-afternoon!)

Mid-afternoon: 2 apples, 1 banana, 1 lemon Lara bar

Dinner: huge salad of 1 head of romaine, cucumber, and 1/2 avo

Snack: a few honey dates - yum!

I notice that I'm eating a lot of the same foods. I am actually not bored by that! I really love my daily green smoothies; they tend to be pretty much the same fruits, but I change the greens every day. Previously when I was raw, I think I focused too much on exotic recipes and a lot of dehydrator foods. This time around, I am feeling that simpler, local foods are what I want to make the bulk of my food intake. This is not to say that I don't want to try some fun dehydrator foods, but I'm not going hunting for expensive, imported tropical fruits, nor do I have the time to create a lot of dehydrator dishes. Fortunately, we're entering the summer season and to me, nothing is better than all the fresh fruits and veggies to look forward to!

That said, though, a little variety in the foods I eat is probably a good idea, so tomorrow, I will go through some of my raw un-cookbooks and see if I can try some new recipes!

This weekend, I will (hopefully, weather permitting!), doing some work in the garden. My husband kindly built me raised beds last year, but unfortunately, my garden didn't do well for some reason. So, I'm hoping for a better gardening experience this year! Even though I started with organic soil blend and compost in my raised beds, the plants all died. This year, I am adding more organic compost and manure to make the soil nice and rich.

I will be planting a lot of tomatoes (nothing better than a fresh vine-ripened tomato!), cucumbers, strawberries, melons, peppers, asparagus, artichokes, basil, zucchini, string beans, and probably some eggplant as well. I didn't get started early enough to get some greens planted, but I saved my broccoli rabe seeds from the plants that came up as volunteers this winter, and will sow those in the fall, along with other greens. I will also probably put in some raspberries (we already have wild blackberries).

I obviously won't get to everything this weekend... I'll be happy if I'm able to add the compost and manure to the beds to mellow for a couple of weeks, then will pick up some plants and seeds and get things going!