chosen chaos

I’ve been cleansed!!  I finally tried a cleanse.  I’m such a fol­lower sometimes!

My sister-​​in-​​law is a rep for Advo­Care and I’ve always been curi­ous but never really had the inten­tions of try­ing it.  She posted a pic­ture of a woman a cou­ple of months ago that perked my ears up.  It was a woman with what looked like a sim­i­lar body type as me and the pro­gres­sion was awe­some.  I strug­gle with con­stantly being bloated and I work my a$$ off, lit­er­ally, 6 days a week.  Some­times 8 or 9 times a week.  It gets annoy­ing to work that hard and still have your 6 year old ask you if you’re hav­ing another baby.  The dias­ta­sis recti I suf­fer from could be sur­gi­cally fixed but I’m not even close to there yet.  I fig­ured why not try this, what’s the worse that could hap­pen? I gave myself and my SIL approx­i­mately 12 hours to get in gear — I knew if I waited, I’d change my mind.  March 1 was the per­fect start date for this planner!

I’m slightly embar­rassed to admit how much thought I gave to not drink­ing for 10 days.  It’s pathetic really.  But, it’s my thing, my rou­tine, my com­fort zone… I get home from school pick-​​up, I orga­nize every­thing and every­one, pour a glass of wine, start mak­ing din­ner, and take a deep breath for the home stretch.  I kept remind­ing myself that I have given up drink­ing for at least 30 months, min­i­mum.  Also, dummy me, started on a Fri­day which is BW3’s day in my house.  Dummy.

BUT I did it.  I did it!  And I feel great about it!

The first week­end was rocky — sorry Babe.  I wasn’t pre­pared food wise and I was hun­gry and irri­tated and I didn’t want to eat the wrong things and I didn’t have the right things at hand.  I spent Sun­day get­ting ready and when Mon­day came it was all sys­tems go!  The week went by much more quickly.  Yes, I missed my drink but I got over it quickly.  I didn’t cheat until Day 9 when I was mak­ing some cake balls for a fundrais­ing party on Sun­day.  I indulged and didn’t even feel guilty about it — HUGE for Miss Patty!

I’m now in the max phase but wanted to share some of my tips and recipes for the first 10 days before I for­get them!  I’ve seen some slight changes, noth­ing major but I didn’t have high expec­ta­tions with that.  I have felt some big changes with my habits.  I’m so much more aware of what I’m eat­ing.  Now I can make bet­ter choices when we’re out and when I’m at the gro­cery.  The first ten days were good for me over­all, I’m very happy I did it.

Tools…

- Through­out the chal­lenge you have to mix drinks.  Your day starts with one, there is the deli­cious (gulp) fiber drink, and the shakes.  I have a hand immer­sion blender that would have worked ok but it wasn’t the con­ve­nience I was want­ing.  I came across this for­mula mixer from Munchkin at the baby store for less than $5.00 and it was PERFECT!  Con­ve­nient and worked like a charm!

- A new, pretty, mea­sured water bot­tle.  I have a bunch of race ones that do the job but I wanted some­thing to keep the num­bers in my mind.  A gal­lon a day is rec­om­mended.  For me, I knew that was 5 water bot­tles worth.  Just made it seem eas­ier than mark­ing each glass.

Foods.…

- First, I firmly believe that a life with­out cheese is not a life worth liv­ing.  BUT I have found that not hav­ing it on every­thing is actu­ally ok.  Babe doesn’t believe me about the bur­rito bowl, but it’s true!  If you have enough crunchy things on top, the miss­ing cheese isn’t even notice­able.  Promise.

- I am a salt per­son, not a sweet per­son so I knew I needed to find a hand­ful of something’s that would trick me.  Insert raw cashews.  And yes, by raw I mean unsalted.  But I love them.  They are fill­ing and crunchy.  I’ve only found them at the gro­cery stores that have the self-​​serve bins.  So good, I don’t think I’ll go back.

- Egga­cado salad.  Del­ish!  I made mine with three hard-​​boiled eggs, an avo­cado, chopped cel­ery, green onions, and some pep­per.  Some­times it was my snack on a spoon.  Some­times my lunch, served on one piece of 100% whole wheat bread, with a tomato slice.  Again, delish!

- Tuna salad.  I used the tuna that was vac­uum packed in water, three of pack­ets.  One hard-​​boiled egg, chopped cel­ery, chopped car­rots, green onion, olive oil mayo (just 1 table­spoon is plenty), and lemon juice.  This made enough to last three or four days for lunch.  So good.  I’ll never buy reg­u­lar mayo again.

- Smooth­ies!  My house loves smooth­ies and I was so pumped to come up with this even health­ier way to make them for all of us!  I used either coconut milk or almond milk, baby spinach leaves, frozen mixed-​​variety fruit, nat­ural peanut but­ter (had sun­flower seed but any would work), and a banana.  The spinach makes it green but no one minded that at all!  These will be part of the weekly rota­tion for sure, cleanse or not!

- Lemon-​​Lime Chicken.  Another one of my own that I’ve got to tell you about… Middle-​​man asked for three help­ings of this.  That alone was enough to insert this into our nor­mal rota­tion, cleanse or not!

Pre-​​heat oven to 350.  Spray cook­ing spray in skil­let and brown the chicken breasts on each side.  I used pep­per over mine.  Cut one or two onoins, two or three lemons, and two or three limes into large chunks.  Mine were mostly quar­tered.  Chop one or two cloves of gar­lic.  Place chicken in an oven-​​safe dish that’s been sprayed with cook­ing spray.  Cover chicken, first with gar­lic and onion chunks.  Fol­lowed by the lemons and limes.  I squished the juice when lay­ing them over the chick­ens.  How many you use doesn’t mat­ter, just try to cover the chicken and the dish with lemons, limes, or onions!  Bake for about 20–25 min­utes or until cooked through.  Yum yum yum!  I served mine with cau­li­flower pureed — looks like mashed pota­toes but actu­ally a much sweeter taste that the kids really like!

Hope­fully I’ll tell you the end­ing of this chal­lenge with more good­ies!  I had pic­tures of all of these yummy foods and of my Day 1 to share but then my awe­some phone went and died and restarted pretty much blank.  Awe­some.  Really.  BUT, I’m mov­ing on.  I took pho­tos on Day 8 and will again on 16 and 24.  I’m actu­ally look­ing for­ward to see­ing what happens!

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