Eat to Live is a book by Dr. Fuhrman. I decided to follow his “nutritarian” guidelines for six weeks.

WEEK 2 OVERVIEW

The second week was better than the first in regard to physical discomfort. My energy level is still lower than I would like, but it has improved at least. There are obvious (mainly bathroom related) signs that my body is still trying to detox, but the overall symptoms are much more tolerable than week one. I did have a rash on my back that finally started to subside by mid-week. I would love to say that my desire for junk food is gone, but it’s not. At least my body isn’t screaming at me, now it’s just a faint little begging voice.

I’m still eating my morning fruit/green smoothie and 2 large salads a day. These just seem to be easy ways to get in 1 pound of raw greens/veggies (8 oz in greens alone). It doesn’t bother me that they are basically the same thing every day. I’d rather mix it up with how I eat my fruit (did I mention that I love fruit? yeah, I did). I made a sort of sorbet that was delicious. I saw a recipe by Dr. Fuhrman online somewhere and I tried to recreate it from memory – so this probably isn’t accurate lol. I blended frozen mango with some dried pineapple* that I soaked in the juice from one orange (fresh squeezed, baby). I also added a banana to give it a smoother texture. Oh my goodness, I was in heaven! This won’t be a daily thing, but it’s a nice variation on plain fruit. My family was jealous of my “dessert”.

I made another large batch of a veggie/bean/mushroom soup and ate on that all week for my cooked veggies – which didn’t come close to 1 lb a day. There were a couple of days when I had a bowl of frozen mixed veggies (thawed and heated of course). I also made a black bean dish where I just sauteed some things I had on hand in a bit of water (red onion, garlic, shitake mushrooms, red bell pepper, mango, clementine (pureed), grape tomatoes (pureed), herbs/spices, and black beans). It tasted alright. I’ll need to work on the herb/spice ratios a bit. I had 1 oz of raw almonds or cashews most days, but not every day. Oh and I started adding a little flax seed to my morning smoothie. I still miss salt, but I’m coping better than I did last week.

Since my family is on vacation this week, I’ve had to come up with things to help distract me from mindless eating. Eating just goes so well with all kinds of things… like watching TV, or relaxing, or even just the word “vacation”. I’ve been working on a drapery project that I’ve wanted to finish for a while now. I find myself staring at the floral fabric thinking, “Mmm, potato chips would be good right now. Potatoes are vegetables.” And then the Husband brings pizza (vegan) home for the kids and I think, “YUM, the pizza has veggies on it.” I could come up with any number of ways to rationalize eating something – I mean, chocolate is derived from plants, right? The truth is, those things won’t get me where I want to go, so I can’t let my thoughts travel down that path for too long. I must take those thoughts captive and ask God to help me replace them with other things.

No Holiday detours this week. I released a total of 3.4 pounds, with the break down, by day, looking like this:

Day 8: -1.2
Day 9: -0.8
Day 10: -0.4
Day 11: -0.4
Day 12: -0.8
Day 13: -0.4
Day 14: +0.6

I’d like to take a moment and talk about that gain on the last day of the week. I’m not sure I can express into words how angry I was when I saw that. I really wanted to see a -10 for two weeks… and I did… for a moment. I don’t know if it’s the significance of today being the 17th anniversary of my son’s funeral… or maybe I’m still just a little raw about the cancelled marathon… but I kind of lost it when I saw that scale reading this morning. Maybe it was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back”, because in the grand scheme of things, my rational self knows that 6 tenths of a pound does not make or break one’s journey. We’re talking ounces here. And yet, I crumbled. I pleaded with God to change the number, so I stepped on the scale again, and it went higher (SCREECH). On the scale, off the scale, on, off, used the bathroom, on, off again… and the number kept jumping around – with none of them being what I wanted (stomps foot). I spent about an hour and a half in a bit of a heated discussion with God. I think at one point I said something like, “do you have any idea how hard it was to turn down what the rest of my family had for dinner last night?!” I even wrote part of my pitiful rant in my prayer journal… and I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no idea why He allowed that scale to dash my hopes this morning except to chip away at a bit more of my pride. I wanted that badge of “Hey look what I did in two weeks, I lost 10 freakin’ pounds!” At the end of this time of prayer (read “whining”), He simply told me to trust Him (girl collapses in a tearful heap), and that He has plans for me. I have had a sign laying on my scale for years that reads “leave the results to God”, and I clearly lost sight of that message this week. So, while I don’t deserve that gain this morning, the scale results aren’t my responsibility. I’m doing what I can by eating healthfully and I must trust that God is capably in control of that which is most certainly out of mine. I’m going to focus on the weight I have released, and hope for more in the future. If I consider how much I weighed in the past, I should just be thankful I’m not still carrying all of that around.

“May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.” ~ Romans 15:13 (AMP)

SIX WEEK CHALLENGE TOTALS

For the duration of the challenge, I’ve released a total of 9.6 pounds and a total of 5.2 inches (7 different parts measured).

Onward to week 3!

* this dried pineapple has absolutely nothing added to it – gotta love Vitamin Cottage!