Detox Diet Done ~ Rachel

I stopped the detox diet today. I had told Doc on Friday I was not extending it. He recommended easing back into the foods that I had eliminated from my diet, beginning Monday. I had planned on doing that. But the best laid plans…

I had a pizzelle cookie at the Italian Festival when we swung by Savory Spice Shop for cumin and cinnamon. Flour…eggs…butter…it was tasty.

I then had a 16oz root beer at the coffee shop. It was hot outside and I wanted something refreshing. I’m a sucker for root beer so I had one. It was really tasty.

Then we ran some errands and I became very hungry and foggy because my breakfast had been a pear and an apple with almond butter. So we went through the Arby’s drive-thru. Also tasty. Hey, it could have been McDonald’s.

So I’m apparently not going to ease back into anything LOL. Seeing virtually no effects from the detox kind of made me not care about systematically adding food back in…it seemed like more of a hassle than anything!

Tonight we are going out to eat. I’m going to order what sounds good to me and not worry so much about health and points and all that. Tomorrow I’m back to tracking and eating healthy and hitting the gym regularly. See what happens when you deprive yourself of something? You feel the need to go nuts once the deprivation is over. I’m allowing myself the splurges today…without going nuts. Tomorrow I will allow myself to get back to healthy eating. Now that my body got a 21 day break, my mind deserves a day where I don’t need to worry about all this stuff!

One final thought before I go meal plan: My trainer Jana had her baby girl, Ryann, yesterday (should’ve named her Irene!) so I am going to train with Isaiah (Dave’s trainer) until Jana is back from maternity leave. Isaiah is going to kick my ass. Which is good because I need to lose it. I tried my wedding gown on again yesterday, this time with proper underthings. Everything is ok except for the top of my butt. Apparently, my shelf to slope transformation hasn’t been dramatic enough. But I have 2 months to slopify (that’s my new word) my butt. And I have a great tailor that should be able to work with what I saw. Whew.

I’m off to meal plan now…I see black bean & tomato quinoa salad in my future 🙂

Weekly Weigh In, Natural Disaster Edition ~ Rachel

This is turning out to be quite the week. On Tuesday afternoon, I was in my office on the 6th floor of a rather tall office building. I was sitting at my desk when the rolling began. Because earthquakes of much magnitude do not happen in the middle of North Carolina, my mind didn’t connect the dots. I first looked out my window…I dunno….expecting to see wind. I then realized that was ridiculous. I then thought it was related to construction in the area. I then realized that was ridiculous too. Once the rolling/waving stopped, I (and everyone else) came out of their offices asking “Was that an earthquake?” Of course, we now know it was  a 5.8 quake in VA that sent the waves our way. This was my first earthquake and boy was it bizarre. I think had I been at ground level, I might not have noticed. But when you’re 6 floors up and the building is rolling and making noise, it’s a bit disconcerting. But kind of cool at the same. Have I told y’all I”m a total weather geek? At one point in my life, I wanted to be a meteorologist. And Nancy Drew, but that’s probably another blog post.

So that was Tuesday. Detox is coming along but I’ve become very disillusioned with it. The only “improvement” I’ve felt is that my sleep has been a little better. That’s it. My stomach is just as pissed off and weird as it was before I knocked everything out of my diet. It’s even a little weirder because it’s unpredictable. My pain and inflammation is still there…though perhaps to a slightly lesser degree. Not anything to write home about for sure. I happened upon an anti-inflammatory diet that is very similar to Doc’s but does not allow the nightshade family (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplant)…the nightshades are known to be a little inflammatory but they are also known to be packed full of awesome stuff (e.g., lycopene). I’ve been consuming a fair amount of these things, especially tomatoes. The diet also excluded eggs…which I eat every day (and pretty quickly afterwards have digestive issues). The diet also excluded goat cheese, bananas, strawberries, oranges, grapes and grapefruit. Not sure why they are excluded but I’ve been eating goat cheese and bananas. And when they were in season, I ate a ton of strawberries. The diet was also a bit more stringent on the types of fish you could have. So needless to say, I’m confused and disillusioned. I was expecting a transformation of some sort and I’m not seeing it. My detox is over on Sunday. I don’t think I will be extending it. After the wedding I might try it again, with the more stringent rules, and see how it goes. Or maybe I just need to exclude eggs for awhile and see what happens?

It’s weird…if I fry or scramble eggs, I have digestive issues. If I eat them hard boiled, I don’t have as many issues. And I certainly don’t have issues with things that contain eggs. Anyone ever encounter this? I’m eating local/farm-raised/ vegetarian-fed/free-range/roaming eggs and it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s so weird…I’m gonna be so sad if I can’t eat eggs.

 

Wednesday was uneventful.

I weighed in this morning and was down 0.6lbs. I should be thankful I’m going in the right direction, but my weight loss needs to be kicked up a notch. I know getting to the gym should help. Tracking everything will too. I just have to be careful to not go crazy when my detox is over and eat everything in sight that I’ve been deprived of. I’m not sure what my first non-detox food will be but I do know that we are going to Big Ed’s (Country/Southern cooking at its finest) next Saturday for breakfast and I fully intend on getting a pancake (they are the size of your head, crispy around the outside and fluffy in the middle…and I can never eat the entire pancake).

So it’s almost Friday and I’ve experienced my first earthquake and am down on the scale. Now we wait for Irene.

 

Which Would You Rather Eat? ~Rachel

Detox is going pretty well. I just started week 3 and have had very minor issues with added ingredients. I also managed to find a loophole in the system…I ate potato chips last night! Lays has a natural line out with no preservatives or like ingredients. The ingredient list was potato, sunflower seed oil and sea salt….all things I can eat! A lot of the potato chips on the market are cooked in canola oil which Doc doesn’t want me to have. But sunflower oil is ok! They were fabulously salty 🙂

Dave and I had ground turkey tacos last night. Well, Dave had tacos. I had turkey taco meat on top of brown rice with tomatoes and avocado. Here are the ingredient lists for two different taco seasonings…which would you rather have?

Ol El Paso 40% Less Sodium: Maltodextrin, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, MSG, corn starch, garlic powder, spice. Contains less than 2% of partially hydrogenated soybean oil, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavor, ethoxyquin (preservative).

Savory Spice Shop Taco Seasoning: Masa Harina, salt, chiles, tomato powder, garlic, cumin, California paprika, onion, white sugar, Mexican oregano and allspice.

As I was typing all this out, I realized I made two mistakes with the Savory Spice Taco Seasoning. I *now* know that masa harina is finely ground corn flour. Oops. We’re also going to ignore the fact that there is white sugar in it too. Oops again. Oh well. I’m sure it’s a teeny tiny amount that I consumed. I’ll stay away from it for the rest of detox. But you know what? It’s a helluva lot better than the crap that comes in envelopes.

Detox Diet, Days ??? ~Rachel

The detox diet has been going remarkably well. I haven’t really had any cravings except for a little something sweet in the evenings and I’ve been sticking to the dietary plan and to my points for WW. I’m not sure the scale is moving as much as I, and everyone else, would have expected. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection of my less than stellar gym activity or if my body is just wandering what the heck is going on.

I saw Doc on Monday and clarified a few things (sort of). He doesn’t want me to have any caffeine so green tea is out. He mentioned Oolong tea but when I did my research, I discovered oolong has more caffeine in it than green tea does! Doc gave in to the Nana’s cookies…I don’t think he loved the idea that they were sweetened with fruit juice but he agreed that they were ok for me. Doc also said that the alcohol in some of the stevia concentrates would have been fine! Sigh. It’s really hard to anticipate his answers sometimes!

I am giving him feedback on his dietary plan packet of information and will hopefully help him clear it up for his patients. I’m very good at conveying information (I should probably have been a medical journalist) but I think even he will be surprised at the red ink on his packet!

The past few days have been a bit discombobulating. I’m way off of any routine I sort of had. I did hit the gym yesterday and managed 30 minutes of strength training and 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical. You guessed it…my foot was hurting afterwards.

Yesterday was a very weird day for me food wise. I had my normal omelet before I went to the gym. I had some pistachios when I got home. Errands got me completely off schedule and I didn’t eat lunch until 2:30 or so. It was leftover chicken and potatoes from dinner the night before. I didn’t even get any veggies into the meal. I wasn’t hungry around dinner time but managed to eat some baby carrots and my 10 point hummus. When I got home around 8:30 I was a little hungry so I had some more pistachios. Technically, I ate what I was allowed and I ate all my points for the day. However, there were only a few servings of veggies, no fruit and no grain (unless you want to count potatoes as my carb). What was really weird was the lack of hunger I felt!

Never fear though…the hunger is back today LOL! I’m having lunch with a friend at Whole Foods this afternoon. This is my first adventure of eating out on this detox diet. I have a feeling I’ll be eating salad but I’m hoping that the grilled chicken they sometimes have at the salad bar is “allowed” on my diet…you’d be amazed at what even Whole Foods does to their food.

I weigh-in tomorrow so I’ll let y’all know how that goes. And I promise to get my curry posts up by the end of the weekend!

 

Detox Diet, Days 5 & 6 ~ Rachel

Before I tell you all about my fascinating life (*sarcasm*), I want to announce that the winner of the Hungry Girl cookbook was Lisa from Karma Per Diem! I only had 3 people enter the giveaway but that didn’t make Lisa any less excited about winning! She’s actually hosting her first giveaway on her blog so go check it out! Be careful…she posts some incredibly recipes that will leave your salivary glands working on overdrive!

I’ll probably do another giveaway in October that y’all will want to be sure to enter…let’s just say that it involves my favorite store in Raleigh (hint: they sell spices) and a few of my favorite things (hint: spices are involved).

***************************************************************

I started Friday morning with my normal omelet and headed off to the gym. Five minutes warm-up on the Arc Trainer was a bad idea…my foot was screaming. Strength training was fine though! I then attempted 15 minutes on the stationary bike….my foot felt just kind of ok while doing it but when I got off the bike and set foot on land, there were sharp pains.  I’m thinking of taking water aerobics on Monday morning just so I can get some cardio in without screaming pain. We’ll see if I can get my act together in time to do that (I have to wash my old sneakers so I can grip the pool floor). I do not relish the thought of putting on a swimsuit.

The rest of Friday went pretty well even though I was in the kitchen a fair amount. I made low-fat chocolate chip zucchini muffins for Dave and a couple of other beneficiaries. They smelled incredible but I found that I wasn’t ravaged by cravings. I only felt a pang of craving when I was bagging them up for my Aunt but that quickly passed. The muffins were a success, apparently, as was my hummus!

According to Mark Bittman, who I will now consult on a regular basis because I trust him, you shouldn’t soak the chickpeas with baking soda. He also didn’t say anything about soaking them overnight and then again for additional hours. So I soaked them overnight in cold water and then on low in the crockpot for about  hours (Karen told me that trick). They were perfect! I baptized my new food processor and went to town making hummus. Um…it could not have been any easier! The result was fantastic. HOWEVER, the result was high in points. It was 10 points for a heaping 1/4 cup of hummus! I knew it was too good to be true! The problem was that the recipe called for 6oz of olive oil. I now know from others that (a) that seems like way too much and (b) I could probably get away without using the olive oil at all. DOH! No wonder the hummus was fantastic! So I need to mess around and perfect a points-friendly hummus recipe before I post it. At least I now know how to soak and cook chickpeas (and other beans). That crock pot of mine might be my favorite kitchen appliance. Or maybe it’s the food processor. Or maybe it’s my Kitchen Aid mixer. Hmmmm.

Saturday morning began with my normal omelet and a trip to the Farmer’s Market with Dave. This is now a standing “date” where we stop for coffee (or tea for me) on the way, fill up on produce, get Dave his Bavarian pretzels from the German baker and try to avoid all the bees that are flying around the fresh produce (peaches are magnets for them!). Dave also buys me a bouquet of flowers (see picture of this week’s bouquet and some of our produce booty but ignore my terrible photography). We had a lovely morning except for an uncooperative stomach…My colon is trying to figure out how to handle this detox too!

We are each going to take a certain amount of cash out of every paycheck for our Farmers’ Market trips and whatever we don’t spend goes in the Nightmare Before Christmas cookie jar for our honeymoon at Disney World!

The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy on account of me not feeling too hot. And by lazy, I mean cheesy tv. We even watched the second half of Marley & Me…I cuddled Darwin at the end while I sobbed my eyes out. Darwin is 60lbs but he was on my lap and I was holding him like a baby. I tell Kharma and Darwin, all the time, they have to live forever.

I felt hungry all day but managed to actually come in on target with my points for the day! Breakfast was my omelet. Lunch was leftover curried turkey with potatoes and I had snacks of nectarines, an apple with almond butter and some baked lentil chips with fruit salsa. I made myself flounder with okra (my first time eating fresh, not frozen, okra!) and more pineapple salsa. It was yummy!  I’m kind of digging all these fish dinners that come together in one saute pan! Dave, on the other hand, is not. He did not partake in the fish.

Tomorrow will be meal planning, grocery shopping and most likely food prep. I was supposed to do some of that tonight but ended up blogging instead 🙂

Have a good rest of the weekend!

Weekly Weigh In & Detox Diet, Day 4 ~ Rachel

I have been feeling very fat the past few days (time of the month) and was not really looking forward to weigh-in. I peeked at our scale at home to find that I probably would see a loss at Weight Watchers…and I did! I was down 2 pounds!

If I hadn’t overindulged on some of the foods I can eat like nuts or those plantain chips or the baked lentil chips, the loss would have been bigger, more than likely. If the scale was that nice to me with less-than-stellar eating and time of the month, I can’t wait to see what happens when I really track and stop retaining water! Dave is not happy about my rapid weight loss since we made a bet about who would lose more before the wedding. I’m beating him so far but he was going the right direction this week! I think he’s doing a little bit of detoxing as well (because I do all the cooking) which probably helps!

So detox diet day 4 began with a 2 egg omelet with spinach and 1/4c goat cheese. Lunch was the black bean & tomato quinoa salad. Snacks were nectarines, hard boiled egg and an apple with unsalted almond butter from Whole Foods (the kind that is processed right there in the store). Dinner was leftover curried turkey & potatoes with roma tomatoes on top. As I type this, I’m trying to decide what my treat will be this evening…perhaps some nuts or fruit. Or maybe both.

Are you seeing a trend here? I have a feeling that breakfast will essentially be the same thing every day. When you can’t have gluten, dairy, corn or soy, you aren’t left with anything other than eggs. I suppose I could do some steel cut oats (I think they are gluten free) but those take time and I haven’t mastered the seasoning of them.  Lunches will probably also be the black bean and tomato quinoa salad or a salad with some protein on top if I ever plan that far ahead. Dinners will be more interesting but since Dave doesn’t do leftovers so much, I’ll be eating a lot of the same stuff. I’ll probably stop giving y’all the run down of my food but mention new things I’ve eaten or recipes that I like. Otherwise, you’re likely to get quite bored with my good eats 🙂

I tried a new herbal tea today…Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice…it’s an herbal tea so I can have it! It was fantastic but VERY strong in terms of cinnamon and cloves and other spices. I would love to be able to put a dash of half & half in it but that will have to wait until I can have dairy again. There was coconut milk creamer at Whole Foods but since I hate coconut, I didn’t think twice about passing it up.

I also tried a green tea from Whole Foods that my buddy Karen brought me. It was tasty and I didn’t need any sweetener. It seems I like green tea in its plain state…when they start adding flavors it gets a little wonky for my taste buds. So I think I will just stick with the plain for now!

Don’t forget to leave a comment and be entered to win a Hungry Girl Cookbook! The contest ends tomorrow, Friday, at 12pm EST!

Detox Diet, Days 2 & 3 ~ Rachel

Day 2:  I spent my day at the office and boy was it ever nice to not be in the kitchen! Breakfast was a spinach and goat cheese omelet, lunch was Black Bean & Tomato Quinoa Salad and snacks during the day consisted of nectarines and hard boiled eggs. I never got around to the baked lentil chips.

Dinner was absolutely fantastic. I quartered 3 small red potatoes  and sauteed them in 1 Tbsp of EVOO  along with asparagus and 6 oz of salmon. I seasoned the salmon with Pyramid Peak Lemon Pepper  and seasoned the potatoes and asparagus with Supreme Shallot Salt (both from Savory Spice). Doc probably wants me to not use salt, along with everything else, but I am allowing it. My blood pressure is normal and I’m on my period. Give a girl a break! After dinner I decided to hit up Trader Joe’s to see what I could find. They had nice looking wild-caught salmon for like $8/lb so I got some of that. I also picked up more produce (avocados!), nuts, green tea*, spinach, almond butter, EVOO and a new food find: roasted plantain chips. Um, these were AWESOME! It’s just plantains, safflower oil and salt…and they are roasted. So I’m going to assume they fit into the detox diet! There is one problem with them. I ate like 2/3 of the bag when I got home. Like I said…time of the month…salt…I’m not going to beat myself up over them!

*So I tried plain Bigelow brand green tea at work yesterday and thought it was just fine. I then tried a Jasmine Pearl Green Tea and hated it. It felt like I was drinking the soil from a flower garden. Blech. I bought some regular green tea at Trader Joe’s which should be fine (and if it isn’t, I’ll pass it to Karen, my buddy at work who should have a central line put in for green tea). I’m a bit confused about green tea being on the ok food list since it has some caffeine in it (which is a no no). There is decaf green tea but it costs a lot more. I’ll ask Doc on Monday if I have to buy the decaf green tea. I hope he says no. If he says yes, I’m going to yell at him for giving a patient a really poorly written packet of information on detox diets. In fact, since it says nothing about sugar, I’m going to yell at him anyways. I might offer to redo his packet for him because it’s driving me THAT crazy.

Day 3: I am home today because there are movers all over the place at work and it would be too noisy. Luckily I didn’t wake up with a headache again…but noise at work probably would bring it back! Anyways…breakfast was an omelet with, you guessed it, goat cheese. Instead of spinach, I grated a zucchini. It was a little different…I might go back to spinach tomorrow! I snacked on pineapple at some point. I then decided to hit up Whole Foods for some Stevia. Artificial sweeteners are EVIL, I’m discovering. Doc said I could use Stevia…but only the pure extract. If the sweetener is in powder form, something else like dextrose or maltodextrin (or lactose in one weird case) has been added to it and apparently, those are not good things. You should have seen me standing in front of the Stevia at the store! I think I was there for 10 minutes. The 365 (Whole Foods) brand was pure Stevia extract but it was in a mixture of water and alcohol. That blew my mind a little and I was really unsure of whether that was ok or not. I ended up buying the stuff without alcohol…which was like double the cost but concentrated…it better have been the right decision! I don’t use sweetener a lot so it should last a long time. We have a bunch of Stevia and Truvia packets in the house…Dave has to make the decision of whether to get rid of them or use them up. I won’t use them. Then again, I really haven’t used them a lot. I rarely put anything in my tea anymore (unless it’s milk added to the Earl Grey Creme from Teavanna which is HEAVEN in a cup).

I picked up a couple of other items as well, including 2 Nana’s No Gluten cookies…one was lemon and the other is chocolate crunch. These contain no gluten, no eggs, no dairy and no refined sugars. They are sweetened with fruit juice and have all natural ingredients. When I got home from Whole Foods, I ate my Black Bean & Tomato Quinoa salad and then dove into the lemon cookie. The taste was pretty decent…the texture was most definitely odd and very crumbly…but the verdict is that it’s more than edible. And it was 5 points plus…which is about 2 points higher than my normal “treat” but was kind of worth it. I imagine the cravings will go away as I get further into the detox and as my period goes away, but for now, I will enjoy experimenting. I also bought a key lime pie Larabar…it’s 6 points plus but I’ve always been curious about them. I will keep you posted on my verdicts!

Dinner was Curried Turkey with Potatoes…it’s something we’ve had a few times before that we both like. And wouldn’t you know, I could have all of the ingredients! It was tasty….I’ll post the recipe later on and talk a little more about curry! I took a class at Savory Spice Shop on curry that was a lot of fun! 🙂

Detox Diet, Day Two ~ Rachel

Since I posted so early on day one, this post is more about day one than it is about day two!

I spent almost the entire day in the kitchen yesterday. All I did was chop fruit and produce and rearrange the fridge/freezer to accommodate tupperwares of produce! I also had several meals to make. The first was the Black Bean & Tomato Quinoa salad…which I’ve made many times before…but this time, I had to make the black beans from their dried state and figure out substitutes for the butter and sugar in the dressing. I followed the quick soak method for the black beans and they came out great. I used olive oil instead of butter and a packet of Truvia for the sugar. I have it for lunch today so hopefully it came out alright.

I was also intent on making hummus…also making chickpeas from their dried state. I was following different directions for those. They soaked overnight. I rinsed them and then had to soak them for many more hours. I then cooked them. And apparently, I cooked them to hell and back because they were mush. And there was weird gray mush mixed in with the yellow brown mush of the chickpeas. It was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done in the kitchen. So after some cursing, I decided to forget about hummus until Thursday (when I am home again from the office)…and when Thursday arrives, I will attempt a quick soak method since that was a success with the black beans. Good thing I bought 4 pounds of dried chickpeas!

I also made our dinner last night: Balsamic chicken and mushrooms over brown rice. The rice was a bit under cooked and the chicken, because the pieces were a bit fat, was a bit overcooked. My day in the kitchen was not getting any better!

I’m pretty sure I spent too much time in the kitchen yesterday.

My eating for the day was not great but I pretty much stuck to the detox diet….not so much WW points. Breakfast was a great omelet with spinach, mushrooms and goat cheese. With all my food prep, I neglected to have anything but produce available for lunch so I ate a huge spinach/blueberry/strawberry/goat cheese salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette.  My dijon mustard had sugar in the ingredient list but I used it anyways. I’ll get better stuff next time I’m at the store (probably Thurs). I was kind of hungry because lunch was a SALAD so I ended up eating way too many baked lentil chips, which by the way are not bad at all. I had tropical salsa with the lentil chips…which also has a little added sugar. Argh. Those salsas (Dave bought me two containers) were too expensive to let go to waste so I will be eating them. There can’t be that much added sugar in them, right?

So after dinner, I was cranky and tired and had a headache. Oh, I forgot to mention that my time of the month started yesterday morning. Time of the month + detox diet = One very cranky Rachel. So I ate a package of cashews.

I’m certain I was very over my WW points for the day. I stuck to the detox diet except for the added sugar in the mustard and the salsa, but that sugar is probably mostly negligible.

This morning I am tired and have a monster headache. I’m not sure if it’s hormone related or lack of caffeine related or general detox-related…I don’t really care what’s causing it…I just want the headache to go away. I popped 4 ibuprofen and am hoping it disappears soon. 2 computer screens plus flourescent lighting might do me in otherwise.

So….I guess things could be worse. But they certainly could be a lot better. Here’s hoping I stick to both the detox diet and the WW plan today….I should….I have a plan 🙂

Oh…and Dave cut up the watermelon for me. I was actually LOSING IT in the kitchen when he got home and asked what he could do to help. I gave him the job of the watermelon which is now in our freezer. Luckily…or not maybe…the 17 pounds was a lot of rind!

Detox Diet, Day One ~ Rachel

Yesterday I ate/drank: skinny latte, hot dog, Sun chips, pasta with bacon, Asiago bread, frozen yogurt and a cupcake. I figured if was detoxing for at least 3 weeks, I could go out with a bang. It was totally worth it. That all sounds terrible in a list but I promise I didn’t go overboard with portions.

I started off my detox with an appointment with Doc this morning. I brought in my dark chocolate bars to show him. He immediately said I couldn’t have them. WHAT? They have sugar in them. Argh. Sugar isn’t listed anywhere in the packet he gave me but apparently it goes without saying. So there went my sanity. I also can’t have the salad dressing I bought because of sugar. So now I have to deal with only having fruit to satisfy my sweet tooth and making my own salad dressing…as if I don’t spend enough time in the kitchen.

I sound a lot crabbier than I actually am…though it is only 11am 🙂

This morning I had 2 oz of smoked salmon (it was on mega sale at the store) and shared the remaining 2 oz with Kharma and Darwin who thought they died and went to heaven. I then ate a 2 egg omelet with spinach, mushrooms and 1/4c goat cheese. I’m now eating a big bowl of watermelon.

I have no clue what lunch will be but I’m pretty sure it will involve produce.

Dinner will be balsamic chicken with mushrooms over brown rice and a vegetable (probably asparagus for me and broccoli & cheese for Dave).

I think a good bit of the day will be spent in the kitchen…hummus, black beans, fruit, fruit and more fruit…it’s a lot of work being healthy. That doesn’t even count my meals for the day!

Also…I think I need a bigger fridge. The watermelon I have to cut up is 17 pounds.

Grocery Shopping is DIFFICULT now! ~ Rachel

Holy detox diet batman! I hit up Whole Foods this afternoon. Here’s what I experienced:

First, let me explain what started this. My future mother-in-law bought us (me) a food processor as a wedding gift. I haven’t had time to sit down and read the manual yet (it is a little daunting to be honest) but I decided that with this detox diet, I would break the food processor in with homemade hummus. No problem, right? Wrong. I’m not allowed to have canned food while detoxing…which means no canned garbanzo beans. So I decided to hit up Whole Foods, figuring that dried chick peas existed….and knowing that time spent making hummus was going to be extensive.

Well, they did have them and I filled my bulk bag up with them…figuring I would screw up at some point, I’m pretty sure I ended up buying like 6 pounds of dried chickpeas!  (UPDATE: I checked my receipt and it was 3.78 pounds at less than $2/lb!). Anyways, that was the easy part of my trip.

I hit the chip aisle. I bought those baked lentil chips from Fresh Market yesterday and I wanted to see what Whole Foods had. I gave up after a few bags. The rice chips had corn in them. Almost all of the gluten free chips had corn or soy in them. The one bag that I picked up that didn’t was $2.99 for a tiny bag and it sounded so gross I can’t even remember the name.

I then checked out the pasta. I’m Italian so the thought of gluten-free pasta seems quite wrong to me but I’ll give it a shot. They had pasta made with quinoa, one of my favorite foods. Except there was corn something or another in there. I did manage to find some interesting pastas and grabbed 2 on sale (2 for $4) that I’ll try: Rice plus golden flax spirals and multi-grain penne made with rice, quinoa and amaranth. That second one has a “Improved Texture!” sign on the box. That doesn’t make me want to eat it!I then hit the seafood counter. Yes, I know doing that at Whole Foods is a lost cause. Prices were definitely cheaper at Fresh Market, shockingly enough. I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to buy frozen seafood in bulk in order to be able to eat for the next few weeks. Doc wants me eating plenty of non-shellfish fish. Even the tilapia was $9.99/lb and I’m not even sure he wants me eating that (I think tilapia is a “bottom feeder” type fish). I do have some salmon and cod and one expensive piece of flounder in the freezer. Wild salmon is out of the question at something like $18/lb. There was nothing else under $10/lb that I could find. Good thing I only have to feed fresh fish to myself. Dave won’t touch it unless it’s battered and fried! So while eating fresh fish is not a special dietary thing I have to follow, it is expensive. Eating health costs more…and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

I then hit up the chocolate section. On this detox I have to refrain from eating dairy. This means no ice cream or frozen yogurt. This is not something that makes me happy at all! I need to be able to satisfy my sweet tooth with something other than fruit…because believe me, I am eating enough fruit these days. That’s the other thing about eating healthy…produce is NOT cheap. Why can’t there be coupons for fresh foods?

Anyways, I wanted to see if I could find dairy and soy free chocolate. I knew dark chocolate was the way to go, which is fine because I much prefer dark over milk, but finding soy free chocolate is not easy. Everything seems to have soy lecithin in it as an emulsifier. Well, I managed to find a couple of options which I *think* meet the guidelines. I see Doc on Monday and will bring them in for his approval. Anyways, the one bar is actually a local NC chocolate that is my favorite fancy chocolate…so that made me happy. It’s a sea salt chocolate bar that is just fantastic. Ever tried sea salt on chocolate? It’s ingenious!

The other bars came from an organic and fair-trade company called theo. I don’t really care about the organic label but it does make me happy to find something that’s fair for life, which is essentially fair trade certified. If I had the money…and no other restrictions…I would try to buy fair-trade everything (see below for a fair trade soap recommendation). Anyways, these chocolates are basically made with sugar, cocoa, cocoa butter, rice flour and some natural flavoring. Whew…no soy. Apparently, it’s suitable for vegans LOL! Anyways, I grabbed the dark chocolate (70%) and mint and the dark chocolate (70%) and cherry almond.

So after I picked up 3 chocolate bars that would total almost $12, I decided I was going to pick up my local eggs and head home. Ok, I hit up Starbucks first so that I could enjoy one last triple venti skinny french vanilla latte before the detox. Lucky me, I got a new barista who had never made one before. It was drinkable but not the best one I’ve ever had.

Anyways, I digress. Back to the shopping.  I also bought some chocolate almond milk to try. The fact that it doesn’t come refrigerated freaks me out. Milk should be cold…from the very beginning. I’ll have to get over that fact before I try the almond milk!

As you see, eliminating a bunch of stuff from your diet is not easy and it is most definitely not cheap. It’s not even close to cheap. Luckily, I only have to do this for 3 weeks. After that, I can add things in one at a time. I’m sure it’s a lot easier to go gluten free if I can have soy and/or corn. Everything I mentioned above plus 2 peaches and some cod cost me over $50. That’s just wrong.

Moving on to another topic….body wash. I’m an Aveda girl and pretty much use all their products but when finances are especially tight, I have to resort to other stuff. I’m not terribly picky but I do like for my body wash to be more on the natural side of things. Dave, on the other hand, just wants his body wash to cool him off. Up until recently he was only using Irish Spring with menthol in it. Do you know how harsh that stuff is on your skin? With coupons, we’ve tried other body washes with menthol or ones that are meant to “cool.” I mentioned Dave’s body wash issue to my hair stylist, who works at an Aveda salon. She told me about Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castille Peppermint Soap. She said she actually gets cold when she uses it. Oddly enough, you can find it at Target (and Whole Foods, where the big bottle happens to be $6 cheaper than Target through November). It’s also a certified fair for life/fair trade and organic item! And very pepperminty! We both really like it. Dave loves taking showers after the gym and then standing in front of the fan to dry off LOL! The soap is a bit more liquidy than you would expect from a body wash, but you actually need less of it on your body pouf than normal. It’s quite nice! If you are looking for a cooling body wash that will also awaken your senses, this stuff is for you! Also, your skin feels quite nice afterwards…there is absolutely no film or residue!

Hopefully, the eating part of this detox diet goes smoother than the grocery shopping for it! Maybe that’s the whole point though…to not eat anything that has more than one ingredient!

This Sunday, Dave’s Mom is coming over to celebrate her birthday. I’m making a pasta dish (which I post the recipe for). It’s real pasta. I’m going out with a bang! 🙂