I’m a slave, for you…

A slave to my kitchen that is! Its day 7 of the Ultimate Reset. I’m almost done with phase one which was the reclaim phase. Its only noon so there are a lot of hours left but I am confident I will make it through. At the moment I’m having lunch… micro green salad and zucchini cashew soup (which is making me gag actually)…

So first things first, I feel like I’m living in the kitchen these days. It’s kind of cool that all of our meals have to be freshly prepared; we’re definitely learning new things and bonding over the food prep process! The downside is that it takes A LOT of time! And a LOT of cleanup! We’re definitely getting our money’s worth out of the dishwasher. Sunday I spent a full 2 hours standing in the kitchen making dinner, prepping Monday’s breakfast and making Monday’s lunch. I know it was 2 hours cause we watched a movie from start to finish at the same time.

Yesterday, day 6 I felt like crap! It was warned that day 3-5 or so would be difficult. So I was fully prepared to have the weekend to get over that slump but since I felt great on those days I was hoping I skipped that part all together and was in the clear. Not the case! I woke up yesterday, Monday of all days, feeling incredibly exhausted and crabby. Mostly exhausted. I was drained and miserable the whole day at work. And I was very, VERY angry at my micro green salad. See the salad, which is very good, is on the menu for lunch just about every day, and I’m already SICK of it. Yesterday all I wanted was to toss it and run to Chipotle for a steak burrito bowl, extra steak! I was a bit over emotional. My job passed out chocolates to all the employees and I just about cried because I wanted to eat them! All I wanted to do was get home and sleep. After work I went to whole foods and treated myself to a snack, a handful of almonds with coconut and sweetened with organic pure maple syrup. All allowable ingredients this week so I thought why not? It was just a handful and it felt like a small cheat, had those with some fresh strawberries and it made me smile.

Today, day 7, I woke up very drained again but I’m in a better mood overall. I just need to get past the slump; I know I will feel great again very soon. And back to today’s lunch, the DREADED micro green salad which I am making myself eat, and soup, which we had for dinner and it was good but today I’m just not feeling it.

I’m holding steady at 4.2 lbs lost. I actually was at a little over 5 lbs but I gained 1 back and it’s been the same for 2 days. We’ll see what happens when I start the next phase, phase 2 is the colon cleanse… eek… As long as we are on that topic, I haven’t had any stomach cramps since day 1 which makes me VERY happy and shows me that my IBS is really diet related! For someone who’s dealt with IBS and almost DAILY painful cramping for 9 years, this is very eye-opening.

Still craving steak… Till next time!

Ultimate Reset Day 4

Ok so lots of people said that day 3-5 are the hardest and to be prepared to feel like crap, tired, sore, crabby, etc.  I will say that aside from the headaches on day 1 and 2 I feel amazing!  I'm following the meal plan just as it's laid out and I'm down 5.4 lbs in 3 days.  I've lost more than Syed at this point which is a little weird cause I way a lot less than he does.  We're thinking it might be the fact that I've accidentally been drinking almost 2x as much water as it calls for.  Oops, but it seems to be working!

I feel very much alert, not hungry, if anything I can't even eat all the food that the plan calls for.  It's so much food!!!  I woke up today at 7 am (exactly the 8 hour mark) wide awake and wanting to get out of bed.  But I thought, who am I?  I love to sleep and I don't have to be anywhere so why not take advantage of this.  I made myself go back to sleep until 10:30 when Novali came and got me.

Syed and I did some stretching with Insanity Asylum's Relief dvd, that felt great.  Afterwards and for the rest of the day my legs were very achy so that was a little uncomfortable.  We spent all day relaxing, watching movies, cooking, and just feeling very content.

That's the one thing, there's so much cooking involved!  All meals need to be prepared fresh, so our kitchen and dishwasher have been getting A LOT of use.  The hard part will be continuing with this AFTER the 21 days are up!  I'm feeling so good I've had NO cravings and when I even think about the things I usually eat as take out, it doesn't even sound appealing.  No Cinco de Mayo indulgences for us!

Here's to good health!

Ultimate Reset Day 3

So I must say, for the first time since I can remember, I don't have the Friday afternoon drained "just want to get home and lay on the couch" feeling. And we have a standing joke in the office that come 3 pm I start yawning quite loudly. 3 pm came and went and I said to myself, "guess what self? I'm wide awake!"

I feel great today. Woke up clear headed (although I'm not jumping out bed quite yet in the morning). I feel energized, full, happy, alert. No headache today.

I did have some thoughts about wanting a burrito bowl and chocolate, but they passed. And there was a spread of Cinco De Mayo chips, guacamole, and salsa at work that I bravely ignored. Chips and salsa are my biggest addiction so I was proud of myself. :)

Lunch was a microgreen salad and an interesting lentil salad. I'm not a fan of beans but I sucked it up and ate it anyway (with a little fresh salsa I snuck, hey it's allowed, it's veggies).

Oh and I'm down 3.4 lbs in 2 days which I'm sure is water weight but I'll take it! Also no stomach cramps for 2 days woohoo!

I'm all smiles! Time to go home and attempt to make veggie Maki rolls. We'll see how that turns out.

Headaches and Day 2

They say the first 5 days of the reset can be rough, with the biggest complaints being headaches. Especially for caffeine drinkers. I am a coffee drinker but I usually only have 1 cup in the mornings. I stopped drinking coffee as of this past Sunday. After yesterday’s lunch I almost immediately developed a ginormous headache, and it lasted pretty much until I went to sleep. At times it was pounding! But I know it’s a part of the process and I expected it, so I sucked it up and tried to keep a smile on my face as best as I could. I tried hard to keep my patience and not take it out on any innocent bystanders ;)

Went home and made dinner, well Syed made dinner, I kind of putzed around trying to pretend I was being useful (he had a headache too). Novali made herself the most amazing smelling burger, temptation central.

Dinner was really good, salmon, asparagus, potatoes (side note: why does the smallest bit of asparagus make your pee stink within minutes?) But I couldn’t really enjoy it; all I was thinking about was getting to bed. We managed to get to sleep about an hour earlier than usual.

I slept well, almost 8 hours and when I got up I had a mild headache and was slightly nauseous. Breakfast was oatmeal, blueberries, and yogurt. Except I don’t like oatmeal, and I’m not used to eating so much solid food so early o_O (although had it been a Starbucks morning bun I may not have complained). I managed to get down about a quarter of it all, brought it to work, force fed myself a few more bites… Come to think of it, I don’t think I’m a big fan of blueberries either.

Now I have a huge report due at work and the numbers are sort of floating around.

Miss my coffee…

Must… focus…

Ultimate Reset Day 1

It's day 1 and so far so good! Syed and I got up a little extra early, well I got up a little extra early, I usually sleep in longer than him and have to be dragged kicking and screaming from bed. But I did, because I knew we had to take our supplements, Oxygenize, Mineralize, and Optimize with an ungodly amount of water, which has now replaced our coffee. Then we had to actually cook breakfast. I'm not really a breakfast eater, and since I'm usually running around late like a chicken with my head cut off, I just make a quick Shakeology and drink it on my way to work. Today we cooked and actually sat down, watched each other eat, and GASP, talked!!! This is helping our relationship already. ;)

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, steamed kale (which I've never had before) and a slice of dry whole wheat toast. I don't like whole wheat bread in general but this one was actually good, it was a Whole Foods brand that I picked using the eenie-meenie-miney-moe method. Pat on the back for me. And I ate it without choking on it, oh because we're not allowed to drink water while we eat. Did you know it messes with digestion? I didn't, learned something new today.

Now it's lunchtime and I'm considering moving my computer into the bathroom cause I'm peeing every 10 minutes. 54 oz. of water and my second round of supplements down. I feel good and ready for lunch, a very colorful salad with jicama, something else I've never had before.

So it's only 12:30 and I've learned new things, expanded my palate, drank more water than I usually do in a day, got Novali to school with time to spare, and had a conversation with Syed that didn't involve passing each other in the hall. I'm feeling pretty accomplished! More to come...

Oh so what is this I'm doing anyway? It's called the Beachbody Ultimate Reset and it's a 21 day gentle cleanse, detox where we wean ourselves off animal products, eat vegan for 2 weeks, turn into fish drinking lots of water, and take a special blend of supplements to remove toxins from our body. I'm really excited about the next 3 weeks cause lately I've been slipping into some old habits, eating out too much, feeling sluggish and my IBS is flaring up. So my goals are to refocus, reenergize, sooth my angry tummy, and lower my body fat % to a reasonable level (see last post).

Here's to a healthier lifestyle. Gotta go pee again!