Um...healthy living?

I totally had things this post was going to be about.  Probably about the emotional eating brought on by seeing my ex at work when he totally wasn't supposed to be there.  Or the emotional exercising that followed the emotional eating.  Or something else totally exercise and or food related.  But, I'm slightly tipsy off of two glasses of red wine and the first first date in awhile that's lasted two rounds of drinks, so let's suffice it to say I feel healthy-ish and had some serious breakthroughs in therapy today.  And now, to bed so I can get up and run before work.  Whee!

On the eating of feelings

So, day one back on food.  The plan was to stay raw.  It failed.  Miserably.

The day started off well enough with some watermelon, and then an apple and raw cashews as a pre-gym snack.  Then I got back, had to get ready to go a friend's party, and got in a serious funk and could not remove myself.  And thus, I had two peanut butter cups. 

Went to the party, was sufficiently de-funked, and ended up having potato chips, gummi bears, and two beers, in addition to veggies from the veggie tray I brought with the intention of keeping myself from eating crap.  Oops.  On the way home, my friend that I carpooled with stopped for dinner at a vegan place.  It was not raw, but it was delicious.

And then.  On the way home, we got rear-ended by an idiot.  It's my second car accident in two months and I'm just so stressed and annoyed and freaked out by driving, so I responded by coming home and eating a lot of pretzels that were a component of the seven layer bars I'm now making.  And then another peanut butter cup. 

The good news:  my stomach has felt fine through all of this.

The bad news:  I have not always been hungry while eating this stuff.  I have been actively conscious of my nonhunger, and I have eaten anyway.

One of the things I wanted out of this cleanse was to become more conscious of my emotional eating.  And I definitely am; the next step is putting a stop to it.  I somehow feel very fortunate that I'm not a lot heavier with the amount of eating I do based on my emotions.  I remember laughing during Mean Girls the first time I heard the phrase "girls who eat their feelings", and I've used it a lot without shame in the past.  And I still don't think there should be shame associated with it, but I know that of late my feelings have not been awesome.  So why would I want to eat them?  I remember at one point talking about how I don't mind emotional eating, because it's at least a coping mechanism, and why should I try and get rid of that?  But I've realized now that while it may be a way of coping, it's not a way of getting to the root of my feelings and dealing with them.  So I'm going to be working more on that.  Right after I finish a piece of freshly baked seven layer bar.

And done

I'm finishing my last cashew milk.  The cleanse will be over as soon as I wake up tomorrow morning.  I'm definitely ready for it to be done; it's not the not chewing, it's the 'drinking identical beverages for five day straight' thing.  Though weirdly, the beet juice finally started tasting good today.
I also cheated.  Multiple times.  After the cashews came a few slices of cucumber (mostly acceptable) and 1/3 of a raw chocolate bar (what can I say, I have my period).

And now, we shall summarize.

Things I liked

• I wasn't really that hungry
• My stomach felt great the whole time (though this isn't usually a problem for me)
• The juices (except for beet) were delicious
• I was still able to exercise
• I didn't feel any need for caffeine
• I didn't really have any cravings

Things I disliked

• The price.  For $65 a day, I could have bought myself a lot of juice on my own.
• The repetitiveness of the juice flavors
• The strict delivery window (having to be home to get the juice did put a cramp in my schedule) 
• I never really got those feelings of clarity and whatnot that people rave about
  

Things I learned

• I probably don't need nearly as much food as I think I do.  It's all in my head.
• I will not actually suffer any dire consequences if I don't give into a craving
• Green juice is actually delicious 

Things this has inspired me to do

• Include more raw food in my life.  I've been really over salad for awhile, and I think it's finally going to make a comeback.
• Be more mindful of my eating.
• Watching portions better on non-nutritious things

Overall, I'm glad I did this.  For the price, I probably wouldn't do it again.  I'm also down about 5lbs, not sure if that would be more if I weren't doing the PMS bloaty thing, and it'll be interesting to see how much/if any of that stays off.  Also interested to see how the re-integration of real food goes.  

In which I cave

So, I cheated.  I just ate three raw cashews.  Oops?  Had I checked my e-mail and read the encouraging "It's your last day" e-mail from BPC before breaking into my stash, I might not have. 

I just went to Bar Method on one green juice, which was not my smartest ever idea, but I actually made it through.  Afterward, though, food just seemed wise.  I actually had six cashews in my hand and only ate three.  Go me?

Anyway, I guess I'm worried about the transition back to real food as I do kind of have a life I'd like to get back to normally living, sooner rather than later.  There are probably beers on Monday night.  I would like to be able to drink just one of them without throwing up.

I'm hungry for the first time, and this juice is...kind of not helping.  I also managed to totally give myself a panic attack last night about 'omg you've been practically malnourished for four days, what are you doing, blah blah blah' that made it difficult to sleep.

That is the one thing I will say about this cleanse.  Everyone raved about amazing nights' sleeps.  So far I have not really been feeling that.

And, now I'm done, because I'm going back for three more cashews.

BPC, Day 4

Still going mostly strong.  Have cheated slightly as I made myself an extra spicy lemonade because I have had a long ass day and my blood sugar felt like it could use a spike.  Mine is not as good as theirs, but I'll work on it.

But seriously.  I have been up since 5:30 and have subsisted only on juice.  Go me.

Tidings of comfort and joy

So I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between comfort and joy.  This has come up because I've been stressed a lot recently, and my usual coping things (food, 30 Rock, Mean Girls, retail therapy) have either been unavailable or not working as well as they used to.  And I realized it's because I've been seeking a lot of comfort lately, and it's become less effective.  I haven't really been trying to be happy, I've just looked for something to make me feel less sad.

I mention this because I talked to my therapist about how I've been doing yoga and I don't feel like it's helped enough, and he told me that yoga was a great way to reduce symptoms, but it wasn't really the place to work on my issues.  I think he's right.

I've created a comfortable life for myself and gotten comfortable in it.  I've realized the reason I've been missing my ex so much is that he, too, was a comfort when things got tough.  And comfort is wonderful.  But I want more than that.  I want joy.

It's not a completely foreign feeling, but it's something I know I need to work at finding more of in my life.   Yoga brings me comfort.  Running, I have realized, brings me joy.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go in a week due to being scared to run while on the cleanse, and my lower back deciding to go crazy yesterday.

Other things I will be trying in my pursuit of joyousness:

• volunteering
• Team in Training
• doing more new things (they don't call it a comfort zone for nothing)

BPC, days 2 and 3

So I was going to write this before rereading my Day 1 post, and I'm glad I didn't.  Apparently at the end of Day 1 I really wanted food.  I do not remember this.  Because during days 2 and 3, I have not wanted food at all.  Not in a bad way; just in a "well, I don't really need that" kind of way.  Okay, it's not entirely true, work got pretty stressful this afternoon and I had to sit through a meeting and watch everyone else eat their lunch, and I had a great desire to break into my secret stash of raw cashews.  But I did not.  I'm kind of glad this ended up being during a really hectic time at work, it's more of a willpower test.  I have done well; I watched friends consume Mexican and margaritas last night and felt weirdly not jealous.

I actually can't believe it's been three days already; they've flown by.  I actually got worried that I'd have to stay late at work, miss my juice delivery, and not be able to finish my last two days.  I'm strangely glad I got the five day cleanse, I don't really feel ready to return to solid foods yet. 

That said, I am kind of psyched about my post cleanse meal plan. 

Sunday:  Fruit and salad, as suggested.
Monday:  More of the same
Tuesday:  Fruit and salad for breakfast/lunch respectively, and then I think I'm going for it with sushi for dinner
Wednesday:  Oatmeal again, finally?  Avocado toast for dinner.
Thursday:  Am going all out and hopefully organizing a lunch to my favorite pastrami place

Day one of BPC, and then shit gets real

So, cleanse, day 1, almost done!  Still going to Bar Method in an hour, we'll see how that goes.

As most reviews promised, I was never super hungry.  Nor was I ever super full.  The morning was probably the most difficult, this afternoon has been decent.

Also, the beet juice, is GROSS.  I can't believe I have to drink four more of those and find myself regretting not getting the next level of cleanse where the terrible beet juice is replaced by delicious green juice.  The color looked so pretty and promising.

In the spirit of cleansing, I decided to be more open in therapy and shit got real.  There is kind of nothing worse than being told by your therapist "You have depression" when you were finally for the first time in months starting to think you weren't depressed.  So there's that.  I guess I really did think therapy would be some super helpful magic bullet and if I went, magically everything would be fixed.  Obviously this is not the case.  Obviously I have work to do and need to start figuring out what that is, and then doing it.  I was initially scared of going to therapy because I did not want someone to just shove me on some pills that were going to numb everything.  I am now having those moments of wishing I'd gone to whatever kind of doctor it is that just gives you pills, because to be honest, numbness sounds a lot more appealing than what I'm going through right now.

But.  I am soldiering on.  It will be fine. 

Cannot believe I signed up for this cleanse.  And yet, so glad I did.  To make my point:  I want food, actual food, so badly right now.  But I can tell you that my stomach is completely fine.  Not hungry.  This is all in my head.  I think that sums up pretty much everything.

Biting the bullet

Still waiting for my juice.  Maybe not going to the gym tonight?  Sigh.

Thrilled that drinking nothing but juice for a week means that I have my kitchen clean now and it will stay that way all week.

So, since I don't need to clean or cook, I'm spending my time surfing the internet.  Have researched a bunch of other juice cleanses and have decided that BPC is actually quite reasonably priced.

Finally also signed up for a Team in Training info sessions.  I keep hearing the ads and getting the mailings, and I need something to convince me to actually take running seriously, so hopefully this is it.  I need more running and more good-doing in my life.

Waiting for my cleanse to begin

Currently at home, waiting for my Blueprint Cleanse juices to arrive.  I am excited, and also scared.  I've already set up an emergency stash of raw cashews in case I get super hungry at work.  I inconveniently scheduled this for a kind of busy work week, so we'll see how that goes.

Excited about:

• Resetting my food expectations/taste buds/whatever
• Eating really well for five days straight

Nervous for

• Will I be hungry?
• Am I going to lose muscle mass? I still want to work out during this, and I'm concerned there isn't enough protein

Overall, excited.  Realizing now that this is maybe overpriced, but at the same time, I think paying so much for this will ensure that I try to stick to it.  Just like my ridiculous Equinox membership means that I hope this juice shows up sooner rather than later so I can get to the gym!  I am a big proponent in paying for quality.  However, I did make one wise choice and made my own raw brownie for my final chocolate thing, rather than going for the $13 brownie sundae at KindKreme.

Hmm

So I'm doing a juice cleanse next week.  I know I've judged them in the past, but s time has gone on, I've gotten curious, and now I'm just going to try one. 

I am a bit scared.  It seems like a lot.  Also they advised you go vegan starting three days beforehand, and I did.  Mostly.  Until one of my friends texted to come over and drink and I brought Brie and then we decided that wasn't enough and ordered Chinese.  Oops. 

Shall see how it goes.

What a day

Breakfast:
Trail mix

Workout:  Bar Method

Snack:
Smoothie
Raw brownie

Workout:  Yoga

Lunch:
Vegan thai noodles
Spring rolls

Run:  6 miles

Dinner:
Trader Joe's Sea Salt Turbinado Sugar chocolate covered almonds
Half a green smoothie
Glass of wine

Now:  Going out

Should I be refueling better?  Probably.  Ah well.

Juice cleanse starting Monday/Tuesday depending on when they arrive.  We shall see.