The Cleanse, Day One

My husband and I just started the Quantum Wellness Cleanse, based on the book by Kathy Freston.  There are some spiritual aspects of the cleanse, but if you want to break it down to basics, it involves eliminating caffeine, alcohol, sugar, gluten, and animal products from your diet for a course of 21 days.  Today was day one.  It went pretty well, although I did find myself thinking about food pretty much all day long.  The good news is, I was primarily focused on figuring out what I COULD eat and spent very little time thinking about or craving what I couldn't.

We didn't really prepare for the cleanse ahead of time (shocking, I know) and weren't able to make it to the grocery store until mid-afternoon.  So much of the day was spent opening and closing the cupboards and fridge over and over again trying to find something that would quiet the ravenous beasts inside of us.  For breakfast, we ended up having Irish steel cut oats with ground flax seed, cinnamon, apples, walnuts, soy milk (unsweetened), and a light drizzle of agave nectar.  For lunch we had lentil soup.  At one point during the day, when I was feeling particularly snacky, I just stuck a spoon in the jar of peanut butter and had a big, sticky bite.

When I was finally able to get my butt in gear and go to the store, I headed straight for the Natural Foods aisle.  Now, I am no stranger to this aisle.  Many of our household staples can be found there (see breakfast, above).  But this was the first time I spent a good deal of time there, scrupulously reading labels and looking for key words, such as "vegan" and "gluten-free" or the much more elusive "will make you shit rainbows" (I never did find that one).  Anyway, I ended up buying a whole bunch of crap just to try it out and see if we like it.  Hopefully, by the time this cleanse is over, I will have that aisle memorized and will be able to breeze through it as efficiently as I do the other aisles.

.......

Even though weight loss is not my primary purpose for doing this cleanse, I am curious to see how this new diet affects my body.  So today I decided to weigh myself for the first time in months (first thing in the morning, butt nekked, post-elimination, of COURSE).  I weighed in at 124.5 lbs, which pleased me, although I'm not entirely sure why.  Afterall, it is just a number on a scale.  It does not change the fact that I am out of shape and flabby.  If I were physically fit and toned and yet weighed 10 pounds more, would I beat myself up for that?  Of course not.  Or rather, I HOPE not.  What matters most is how one looks naked, how one's clothes fit and, of course, how one FEELS.  That said, I am going to continue to weigh myself over the course of the cleanse simply because I am curious.

Well, that's all for tonight, folks.  I'm off to spend some quality time with the hubby before heading to bed to dream about tofu and pray I don't wake with a raging caffeine-withdrawal-induced headache.  Ta ta!