Day 11

Today was a really good day...went to the gym and did intervals on the treadmill for 1 hour. The intervals are 2 mins at high elevation slower speed (3.3 mph - 3.6) followed by 1 min at lower elevation faster speed (3.7 to 4.0 mph). I followed that with lunges and ball squats and stretching. I really pushed myself.. polar watch stats: 1 hr 23 min 650 calories, 35% fat, Max HR 165, Ave HR 137.

Very normal day, the usual for my breakfast and lunch. You'd think I'd be getting bored by now but I'm not.

For dinner, I cooked the salmon...that was a bit of a challenge for me and I ended up getting a splatter burn on my forearm. I survived and the fish was edible, actually it was pretty good. There is still some left over so I'll probably have that again tomorrow.

I hope the rest of the 21 days are smooth sailing like today.

Day 10

Made it through another day. Today is the last day of just fruits and vegetables. Tomorrow I can start eating organic meat. My Day 10 e-mail says "by now, you should be craving meat".....it's more like I'm craving cheese and pasta and bread and Mexican food! Tortilla chips and margaritas! Ok, I gotta calm down, take a deep breath and remind myself that this is temporary, I'll be able to eat all those foods, if I want, when this is over. I also have to remind myself how good my system feels right now. I do feel good, my stomach doesn't get upset, I don't have gas, I've lost weight and the fruits and vegetables agree with me more than all those processed foods I was eating before. I paid good money for this program and I can't blow it. I'm about half way through and I'll get through the rest of the way.

By now I have found a very regular food routine. Shake for breakfast, lunch is Lentils, butternut squash, 1/2 yam, an apple an orange and 1 or 2 containers of cut veggies. The fruit I eat as a snack between Bfast and lunch. One of the containers of veggies I eat in the afternoon. On the day I hike, I double the lentils to a full cup.

Dinner is where I will vary from day to day. Sometimes it's a salad, lately it's been stir fry. If I'm still hungry I look for something else I can eat...then I have a shake after dinner.

So tomorrow I plan to eat Alaskan salmon for dinner tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how my body responds to it.

Oh, tomorrow I have an appt to donate blood....I'm curious to see if I have enough iron.

11 more days! I can do it! I will do it!

Day 9

Much much better today. I turned my alarm off last night and made sure I got to bed by 10:00pm (Ideally, I'd like to get to bed by 9:30 but lately I've been working from home late in the evening after I post my blog). Of course, on the morning I turn off the alarm I'm wide awake at 5:00. That's Ok, I got up and caught up on some of my personal stuff. I did not go to the gym cause I'm hiking tonight.
I took my Gastro Fiber (GF) pills on an empty stomach and prepared my shake around 7:00 and took the Green food pills with my shake.

The GF pills are to be taken on an empty stomach, three times a day. I take the first batch when I get up, around 5:30 a.m. I don't know how long after I've eaten or how long before I plan to eat that I should wait before taking these pills. Should have asked the Doc. Oh well.

Today, rather than waiting until I felt hungry, I ate my fruit at 10:15.

Lunch was satisfying and I saved the extra container of veggies for my afternoon snack at 3:30pm.

Hike was a little shorter today. I felt good, strong. Polar watch stats: 2 Hr 36 mins, 740 calories, 55% fat, max HR 150, Ave HR 107.

I cooked a stir-fry for dinner, olive oil, 1/2 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery, 1 zucchini, seasonings and topped it with a layer of spinach. It was very tasty. I followed that with a shake.

I'm going to try and make it to the gym tomorrow morning, well see.

Day 8

Today was a struggle. I did not make it to the gym this morning. I had my usual shake for breakfast and I was hungry by 11:00. So I ate my fruit. Lunch was the normal, 1/2 c. lentils, veggies which included, cucumber sprinkled with lemon juice and salt, zucchini, carrot and celery. Not quite a full zucchini or carrot cause I cut these up last night and put some of them into my salad. I also had the 1/2 yam and butternut squash. Felt hungry come 3:30 and when I got home I had 1/2 cup lentils, spinach and cucumber salad and 1/2 of avocado plus my shake. That was satisfying.

Tomorrow is my hike day so as I prepared my lunch I did a full cup of lentils, two containers of veggies, 1 orange, 1 apple, butternut squash, 1/2 yam and I'm taking another orange just in case I get hungry before the hike.

I made it through another day. Kinda hard to believe I haven't had any meat, bread, cheese or milk in 8 days. On day 10 I get to add organic meat, I'd almost rather eat more legumes. But I'll give it a go...probably eat fish for my first meat meal, we'll see.

Day 7

What a great day! Of course it started great after my weigh-in. :) Now, I have to clarify... remember the 5 lbs I lost last week...I had gained back 4 of those lbs when I started on Day 1. So, now I'm down those 4 lbs plus 2 more.

So the day started great because I got such a good nights sleep. I felt good and I made it to the gym. Today I did 40 minutes on the Step Mill. The Step Mill is not like a stair master where you have two pedals that you step on. Instead it is a big machine with revolving stairs, of all the cardio equipment, I find this one to be the hardest. Normally, I do 20 minutes on there followed by 20 minutes on the bike or treadmill. One thing I noticed that was different today...usually, after 10 minutes, I have to pause and stretch cause my lower back starts to bother me. Today, I didn't have to pause at all and I was able to complete the full workout without any discomfort. I followed that with lunges and a little bit of stretching. Polar watch Stats: 55 mins, 411 calories, 40% fat, Max 158, ave 133.
In comparison, my stats for the bike workout - which I forgot to list on that post -
53 minutes, 396 calories, 40% fat, 157 max, 134 average...I guess this was just as hard, very similar stats.

Very regular day, food wise. Shake in the morning along with a sm piece of butternut squash.
Lunch was 1/2 cup lentils, 1 apple, 1 orange, 1/2 yam, and a piece of butternut squash. I ran out of the cut veggies so none for lunch today.

After my Chiro appointment, I went shopping at Sprouts and confirmed that not all the produce is Organic. In fact, their organic produce is very limited compared to the rest of their produce. So all last week I thought I was eating organic celery and carrots and zucchini...nope. This time I did buy more organic veggies and re-loaded on my Pure Spring Water.
Dinner was a spinach salad with cucumber, carrot, zucchini, celery, kiwi and the apple cider vinagrette. I followed the salad with a shake with strawberries, blueberries and 1/2 banana.

So far so good.

Ta-Da!

I've lost 6 lbs! And I have to say this has been the easiest 6lbs I've ever lost.

I think it is because in the past, when I diet, I eat foods that cause me to have cravings so it is hard to practice portion control...When I do control my portions and servings, I lose weight but the hard part is doing it....only having 1 Tbsp of peanut butter, only having one serving of whatever. And so I end up losing weight initially (and temporarily) but I'm always fighting these cravings and my thoughts are always on food and "when am I going to eat next" and eventually I lose my resolve and control and I blow it. Then comes the guilt.

This past weekend, I was amazed by my control. I went to a pub, with my family, whom I love to hang out with and everyone is drinking some alcoholic beverage and all I had was water and I didn't even feel deprived. And we had a barbecue, with tri-tip, macaroni salad and garlic bread and chips and dip and again, except for the cowboy caviar, I maintained control without feeling anxious or anything.

I know at some point I'll get to eat regular foods...I just hope I will have a better mental approach and focus on the fruits and vegetables rather than the bread, pasta and desserts.

Reflection

So, after 6 days, how do I feel, what have I noticed?

I feel good/great - but not really any different from before. I would say that I noticed a bigger improvement in how I felt during my pre-prep week when I was "practicing" by eating fruits and vegetables and rice and lentils - even with the caffiene headaches I think this was the week where I noticed a significant improvement in just feeling good.

Day 1 I was excited to start and felt ready mentally for this adventure.
Day 2 was when I did the hike and I did feel a little be more exhausted than normal.
Day 3 was the day I felt out of sorts and achy. I did feel what I think were flare-ups - my ankles and my upper back - from old injuries.
Day 4, 5 & 6 - I felt very normal, I didn't get hungry except for that one day where I had a carrot for dinner. Even though I was hungry, I wasn't out-of-control hungry.

Things I have noticed:
I definitely am surprised and amazed by "newfound control" as the Day 0 e-mail mentions.
I don't know that this has anything to do with this program but I sometimes get the hiccups at weird times...like very late in the evening just before going to bed.

Day 4 e-mail says: "Make sure you are having 1-3 bowel movements each day during the program"!!! Well that is not the case for me... I did have 2 BMs on Day 2 but otherwise, it's just been 1 BM per day which is the norm for me. The e-mail does say that if I'm not, I need to be drinking more water. And that could be true, since I'm sure I did not drink as much water as I normally do this past weekend.
According to Day 5 e-mail my sleep should be improving...I'm not sure I can say that is the case for me - yet.

Oh - the most important part for me...yes, I do feel like I've lost inches, if not weight...Tomorrow I will weigh in so I'll know if I've lost weight.
Drum roll please..........

Day 6

Sunday morning ate fruit and the shake for breakfast. Everyone else had quiche and biscuits and I'm not sure what else...I didn't pay attention since I knew I wasn't going to be eating any.

Lunch was in the car on the way back to the Bay Area and it was an apple, a carrot and celery.

When we got home I had lentils for dinner....proably more than I should have - a little bit more than a cup. And, even though I wasn't hungry, I had my second shake.

Then I did some more cooking and chopping to get ready for lunch tomorrow.

When I finally sat down to read my Day 5 and Day 6 support e-mails....I was a little disappointed....the day that I had some of that cowboy caviar that had black beans and corn in it....the e-mail that I missed said: "Just a friendly reminder: corn is not a vegetable, it is a grain and there are no grains allowed on this program" and "Also, remember that although something may be healthy (such as beans and nuts), it may not be allowed during the purification program due to other factors (such as potential food allergens)."

I know that if I had read this e-mail, I wouldn't have had any cowboy caviar, oh well. Life goes on.

Day 5 - Saturday

Woke up hungry, needless to say. And still achy, I think it's partly the bed we slept in.

Last night I dreamt I was at a class reunion, seeing old friends and I accidentally cheated by drinking beer and eating crackers. One of those situations where you don't even realize what you're doing. When I did realize I had cheated, I felt sooo bad.

No one else was up yet....I was so glad I brought fruits and veggies....and my magic-bullet-like blender. I didn't want to make noise yet so I just ate a small zucchini and an apple followed by a shake when everyone else was eating their regular breakfast.

Lunch was another shake and zucchini and carrot. Dinner was fruit salad and grilled zucchini and about 1/2 cup of "cowboy caviar". This included two items that are not allowed - canned black beans and canned corn. I hope it is not too bad that I cheated this little bit.

We went to the fair, smelled lots of good food. I am soo tired, need to get some sleep.

Day 4 - Friday

Made it to the gym. I was a little late so I only had time for 40 min on the stationary bike plus lunges and some stretching. On the bike I put it on Manual mode and I start with a two minute or so warm up on level 10 then I do what I call cascades where I move the level up to 14 and ride at that level for a quarter-mile then I move it down to level 13 for a quarter-mile and so on down to level 10 for a quarter-mile before I move it back up to level 14. I really feel it at levels 13 and 14, my heart rate gets up into the 150s and my RPMs gets down to the 50s. I have to make an effort to stay above 50 or the machine will think I've stopped pedaling and it stops the program. It took me 25 minutes to do 4 cascades and then I kept it at level 11 the rest of the time. Sweated out lots of toxins on that work out!

Breakfast was the usual shake...I probably should eat something else too but the easiest thing to eat is more fruit and I'm trying to not eat so much fruit. I worked from home so I was able to make a second shake at about 11:15 along with my second batch of pills.

Lunch was 1/2 c. lentils, 1/2 yam, butternut squash, and an apple. I did not prepare my lunch the night before so I did not have my usual amounts. I has less, but I wasn't feeling hungry or weak. I snacked on celery in the afternoon.

Dinner was a carrot. Yep, on the drive to Paso. I meant to eat more but didn't get the opportunity. We got to Paso and there was pizza, I didn't eat any - of course. I should have pulled out another piece of fruit or more celery or something but I thought we'd be heading to the place we're staying - with some friends - so I figured I'd eat then. Well, we ended up going out with my siblings to a local pub. They all had beer and I drank water - boy, they are not kidding when when they say "you'll be surprised at you new-found reserve". I had no problems saying no to stuff I shouldn't be eating. We finally got to bed at about midnight. Good day but I hope I didn't kick my body into starvation mode.

Day 3

I dreamt about zucchini...and about a burrito.....don't remember the details on the zucchini dream, for the burrito, I was going through a burrito bar where you point to all the yummy fixings you want in your burrito and I ended up with a humongous (sp?)burrito. Guess I was hungry.

I woke up sore from the hike, walking down the stairs I was very achy and I thought "I'm back to how I felt before I started seeing my chiropractor". Then I read my Day 3 e-mail and just had to laugh, it said "Don't be surprised if old symptoms you haven't experienced in years begin to return during the program." Now I'm noticing all sorts of aches. I'm going soak in the tub tonight.

I did the pills, the shake and packed my lunch and headed off to work. I take with me a gallon of Spring water and I've been pretty good about drinking 1/2 gallon per day at work. That's about 2 liters and before the program, I drank about 1.5 liters of water and probably .5 liters of coffee/soda, so total liquid intake is not very different from what I was doing before, but now I've replaced the soda and coffee with pure Spring water.....that makes it sound more appealing when I say/write "pure spring water".

I was hungry come lunch time....I might need to start eating some veggies as a snack between Bfast and lunch.

I was feeling really tired today. I even took a break to take a nap in my car.

I was hungry come dinner time...I ate the shake, 1/2 c. lentils, mushrooms and 1/2 carrot with the vinagrette as a dip and I was still hungry so I had some of the butternut squash. Did not get a chance to prepare my lunch for tomorrow but I'm planning to work from home so it shouldn't be a problem. But I also have to get all my stuff together for the weekend since I'll be gone. I think I'll pack a cooler with some pre-made food/fruit packs.

Day 2

Wednesday, I had a great day. Same food plan as yesterday, with a little bit more lentils because of the hike I do after work...I took a nectarine with me to eat before the hike but forgot to eat it.

We hiked the PG&E trail at Rancho San Antonio. Up and back down. I felt good on the hike, did not feel weak or light headed. I did find the hike to be a little bit harder but maybe we were pushing it cause we got a late start. Polar Watch stats: 3 hrs and 3 minutes, 1008 calories burned, 50% fat, max HR 157, ave HR 113

Took my last set of pills right after the hike on an empty stomach and sat down to eat dinner at 8:45. I don't like eating this late but there's not much else I can do. Dinner was spinach salad with mushrooms and zucchini with that dressing and of course a shake.

After dinner I started chopping and putting together my lunch for tomorrow. Same lunch food again...I need to list the veggies versus the fruits to make sure I'm not eating too many fruits:

Fruits Veggies
1 apple 1 orange zucchinni, celery, carrot
1 orange, 1 nectarine 1/2 yam, butternut squash
blueberries, cherries Spinach, mushrooms, zucchinni
1/2 banana cooked veggies in the lentils

The second orange and nectarine, banana and berries are used in my two shakes. The veggies might have a slight edge but not twice as much as the fruit like I'm supposed to be eating. I might have to put more veggies in my dinner salad.

That's it for today...tomorrow will be another good day.

Day 0 and Day 1

Day 0 was Monday.
I went to Sprouts and bought a bunch of vegetables and fruits plus some lentils, brown rice and coconut oil...all this time I thought coconut oil was to be avoided. Hm. I also bought Spring water...it is so clear compared to the tap water I've been drinking.


Then I got busy Monday night - cooking butternut squash, yams, lentils and chopping up fruit and vegetables for my lunch the next day.



I was actually very excited about starting...and I am so glad I practiced last week - finally, no more caffeine withdrawal headaches.

Day 1
I took my pills first thing and then headed to the gym. 1 hour on the treadmill plus some lunges and stretching. My polar watch stats: 499 cal burned, 45% fat, Max HR 152, Ave HR 129

Breakfast was a shake with fruit and 1/2 banana and a tsp coconut oil
I did not eat a snack.

I figured my stomach was empty by 11:00 so I took the second batch of pills

Lunch at about 12:15 was 1/2 cup lentils, 1/2 yam, butternut squash, a "glad container" of vegetables, 1 orange, 1 apple. The vegetables included 1 carrot, 1 sm zucchinni, 2 celery ribs. All of these are raw and cut into spears.
When I first put together all this food, I thought "wow, this is alot of food" I thought maybe I'd bring some home. Nope. Ate it all.


Dinner was spinach and mushroom salad with the apple cider vinagrette recipe in the patient guide booklet. And I made another shake with 1 orange, 1/2 banana and some cherries - pitted, of course.

I'm feeling just fine. I was worried that the pills would upset my stomach. Not at all.

Wednesday - is my hike day, I do a 3 hour hike after work and so I'm increasing my lentils at lunch time and adding a nectarine to eat before my hike.

Pre-Prep

Ok, So I've decided to do the 21-day Standard Process Purification Program. I read the information in the Patient Guide and decided to start practicing some of the guidelines. I gave up coffee - ouch! I cut back on alcohol. I started buying and cooking some of the foods on the program - namely lentils, brown rice, butternut squash and sweet potatoes/yam. I also made up some of the salad dressing in the patient guide. I did not give up bread or oatmeal - I eat these regularly and I will have to give these up when I start the program. I'm not a big meat eater, so I haven't really given that up since I don't normally eat much meat anyway. I did not adhere to the 1/2 cup of Lentils or Rice during this practicing phase.

Believe it or not - I've already lost 5 lbs! No kidding....but I'm coming up to a weekend event and I know I'll be eating and drinking non-healthy foods...will probably be back up those 5lbs I just lost. Oh well....I still feel like I'm better mentally prepared to do this.

Because of the "practicing" I've already done, I have a plan in mind:

Breakfast: SP Complete Shake with 1/2 frozen banana and berries
I'll use water or maybe fresh squeezed orange juice and Flax seed oil

Snack: don't know yet

Lunch: 1/2 sweet potato (or Yam), cooked butternut squash, raw zucchinni (or maybe celery) and bell pepper, 1 apple, 1 orange

Snack: don't know yet

Dinner: 1/2 cup Lentils or rice, Salad with Spinach, bean sprouts, 1/4 avocado, zucchinni, celery mushrooms, salad dressing recipe from patien guide (I might add a kiwi and blend)
SP Complete shake with 1/2 banana and berries.

I'll fine tune all this when I'm in the all the way!