The First Three Days

So far, so good!

On the first day, I had my delicious green smoothie and smoked salmon on crackers (as you saw on here) and it was a great way to start my new food plan. I also went back to the gym for the first time in……well……longer than I’d like to admit! I have a tendency to push myself too hard when I first return to exercising – I set unreasonable expectations for myself, thinking I should be at the same point I was when I was last exercising regularly. So I decided to not push myself too hard, and to ease back into just moving my body again. For the month of January, I’m just going to walk for 45 – 60 minutes a day on the treadmill, 4 – 6 times per week. That may sound like a lot…but keep in mind I spend the rest of my day on my butt in front of a computer! I started listening to my audiobook, and that TOTALLY helped! I put my sweatshirt over the treadmill screen so I wouldn’t stare at the amount of time remaining, and it worked – I got lost in listening to the story and before I knew it the 45 minutes were up! I did the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday. As for today? A walk this afternoon in the lovely snow!

I did have a couple of challenges the first day, I’ll admit. Around 4pm, I started obsessively thinking about food. And I know it’s only because there were so many things I could no longer eat – any other normal day and I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But I also wouldn’t have thought twice about eating something sugary at that point either! I was craving something sweet…badly. And then I had a prior engagement at a local brew pub at 6:30, so I had to find something to eat there for dinner. I looked at their menu online ahead of time, and went into the bar knowing what I was going to order. So I got a turkey burger (no bun or cheese) on a bed of lettuce with red onion and guacamole, and a side of steamed broccoli. Not bad…but definitely not as good as something I could make in my own kitchen. I think I’ll need to hold off on eating out for awhile! But the biggest challenge that evening was being surrounded by people drinking alcohol that I can’t have. Hopefully that will progressively get easier…

When I got home that night, I wanted to reward myself for completing Day One with something sweet…so I started thinking about what I could make that would comply with my food plan. I melted some Earth Balance in a skillet (a dairy and soy free blend of organic oils that tastes like butter) and grilled large chunks of pear so they were soft and hot…and buttery. Then I melted a teeny amount of Earth Balance and mixed it with half a teaspoon of agave, and coated chopped pecans with the sweet, buttery mixture. I tossed the “candied” pecans with the hot pears in a bowl, sprinkled it all with cinnamon and drizzled it with a tiny amount of coconut milk. It was DELICIOUS!! I highly recommend it!

But since then, the past two days have been really good. I’ve enjoyed the food a lot (especially my gingery brown rice and salmon burgers last night!) and I haven’t been hungry at all. And I haven’t really had cravings, which is great. But I do miss cheese…a lot. Dairy in general, actually. And I probably will the whole time I’m doing this meal plan. And I miss not having to think about food so much and being able to just grab whatever I want out of the cupboard, or order anything off of a menu. But I’m sure that’s something that will get easier rather quickly. I will say that I already feel lighter. I know that I haven’t actually lost weight in only three days, but I still feel lighter. Maybe it’s just the difference of not having such heavy food in my stomach all the time. But whatever the reason, I like it!

One last thing… All day yesterday and today, my throat has been scratchy and I’ve been extremely congested and sneezey. So I’m either coming down with a cold or it’s my body detoxing. But either way, I’m fighting through it, staying strong with my food plan, and resisting the urge to eat grilled cheese and tomato soup!