Day Three - Cleanse and Chicken

Weight Change: -0.5 lbs
Total Loss:  -1.5 lbs

So first thing, I get up, I get on the scale and record my weight. Then I drink 16 oz of water, take my milk thistle and have some dandelion tea.

Happy that the scale ticked down again but just wish it was by more. Guess rice is ok. I skipped the almond test and went with sunflower seeds yesterday and today I will sub 1 oz sun butter and an apple for my snack.

Day 3 – Test Chicken and Roasted Vegetables.

Thank God!!! Chicken finally...but I have to wait until dinner.  Sigh...but at least I get chicken tonight.  Yum.

Menu:


Breakfast

Flax Granola with ½ cup blueberries
250 ml. Soy Coconut Beverage

Lunch

Baby romaine with ¼ avocado, carrots and pumpkin seeds
Cream of Broccoli soup with sunflower seeds

Snack
1oz sunbutter and ½ apple

Dinner 

3 oz. chicken with Italian herbs and olive oil
Oven roasted vegetables with herbs lemon and oil and fresh black pepper

How did it go?

No head ache today so that was good but I was hungry, :-(  I literally looked forward to and savoured every scrap of food that went in my mouth.  Decent day tastewise, and I really don't mind the granola like some do.

And chicken today and again tomorrow.  Happy, happy.  Joy, joy.  And when given the choice, would you eat 2 or 3 oz.?  Seriously.  Of course 3 oz!  Also, for dinner, I ran out of baby romaine so I just skipped it and ate extra vegetables.

Day Two - Cleanse

Weight:  157.2
Weight Change: -1.0 lb.

So first thing, I get up, I get on the scale and record my weight. Then I drink 16 oz of water, take my milk thistle and have some dandelion tea.

Day 2 – Test Almonds and Rice

As I know I might be reactive to almonds from 2015, I decided to skip this test and just test basmati rice (a cup for women, 1 ½ cups for men).

Menu:


Breakfast

Flax Granola with ½ cup blueberries
250 ml. Soy Coconut Beverage

Lunch

Carrot Ginger Soup with pumpkin seeds
Baby Romaine with ½ diced pear, ¼ avocado
Broccoli and Mushrooms with lemon vinaigrette

Snack
1 apple with 1 oz raw sun flower seeds

Dinner

Leftover sautéed Kale and Veggies
1 cup basmati rice with pumpkin seeds

Beet/carrot salad with sunflower seeds

We always use basmati rice which is what the Plan calls for luckily.  To me it has the best texture and taste of all the rices.

So...how did it go?

Well I am very glad that I did so much prep in advance as it made it much easier to pack things up for breakfast and lunch.  This is not the kind of plan you can just throw together without planning. It will get easier I hope but to start the first 3 days require making things ahead for sure.

I had a dull head ache again in the morning but it passed by noon, which was good but all I could think of today was food!  And how badly I am looking forward to chicken tomorrow night.  Even the rice tonight felt like a dream.

And its only been 2 days!

I also prepped and cooked the roasted veg for tomorrow night so it is ready for when I get home from the gym tomorrow. Chicken I cooked on the rotisserie with herbs de provence on Sunday and I have 2 portions left to get me through tomorrow and the next day.

Day One - Cleanse

So first thing, I get up, I get on the scale and reluctantly record my base weight. Then I drink 16 oz of water, take my milk thistle and have some dandelion tea.

158.2 lbs. Sigh.

Test:  No test

During the first 3 days of the cleanse the items you can eat are limited to the below:

flax seeds, blueberries, coconut milk or rice milk, carrots, zucchini, onion, beets, kale, shiitake mushrooms, butternut squash, broccoli, mixed greens, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, broccoli with orange oil and lemon juice, pear, apple, citrus zest (orange oil or lemon oil), 1 teaspoon of brown sugar / honey / agave nectar per serving, and the spices/condiments listed above.

Menu:

Breakfast

1 cup Flax granola with ½ cup blueberries
Silk Coconut Milk

Notes:  I added some shredded coconut, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and dried berries to it. As per the list above, I added about a tablespoon of agave the entire batch of granola coming in well under the 1 tsp per serving and it makes a difference.

Review: Granola was fine and I avoided the soggies like some people said by adding only a bit of milk to it at a time but it did seem like a lot of flax.  I think my additions, especially the shredded coconut, saved it for me.

Lunch 

Carrot Ginger Soup – with pumpkin seeds
Sautéed broccoli with lemon vinaigrette
Boston Lettuce with ½ pear and sunflower seeds and lemon vinaigrette

Review:  Carrot-ginger soup was fine but needed salt, so I added a small amount.

On the salad, my pear was a bit over-ripe but salad was fine.  In the end I ate the soup first, then the salad, then the broccoli. I made up a fair size batch of the lemon vinaigrette and kept it in a bottle.  I popped in a sprig of rosemary and clove of garlic to infuse, as well as a little salt. Quite nice actually and handy to add to things as I go.

Snack 
1 apple

Dinner 
Sautéed Kale & Veggies with Spicy Coco sauce (1/2 recipe)
Grated Carrot and Raw Grated Beet Salad with pumpkin seeds

Review:  Really really tasty and very filling.  I ate about half of the recipe I made. I also topped with cilantro and some Thai chili for kick.


I was so full from the veggies in Coco sauce that I had to wait a bit before eating the carrot beet salad, but I am glad I added some spices and fresh herbs. Would have been blah otherwise.  I sprinkled it with lemon vinaigrette, a moroccan spice blend and parsley and let if marinate for a while before I ate it.

So...how did it go?

First off, I forgot to do the basal thermometer when I woke up so I will have to do that tomorrow.  No terrible tragedy but still.....

Dull head ache started mid morning and intensified by noon, likely due to caffeine withdrawal. I felt a bit better after I ate my soup but it hung around all day.  I tried for a nap but no such luck.

Also made some mint ice tea to give me variety from just drinking water. And I remembered that I have a hard time not drinking something while I eat, and we're not supposed to here.  Must do better on that tomorrow.

I also went back in my archives for my first attempt at this in 2015 and realized I had shown reactive for almonds and manchego cheese.  So good bye almonds for now...I want to lose the max possible in this run, and no sheeps milk cheese.  I will stick with goat. Hard to tell if it is the creamy texture of the goat cheese that works vs the dryer manchego which has a texture more like parmesan.

All in due time.....

Prepping - Part 2

On to the Broccoli Soup and the Coco Sauce Veggies to simmer in the coconut sauce.  Again, I am following the prep schedule found here.

For my salad, I am using baby romaine then adding a 1/2 an organic pear, thinly sliced, and also organic raw pumpkin seeds.  I will toss this with a simple vinaigrette I made:

Lemon Vinaigrette

2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp. chopped fresh herbs (oregano and thyme)
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/8 tsp. salt
quick grind of black pepper

For the side...I admit I went off the road map a little.  In a safe way tho....  After the amount of broccoli I put into the soup and into the Kale and Coconut veggies I just couldn't face only a side of broccoli. It really isn't my favourite. So I subbed in a safe way and included some shitake mushrooms and zucchini and I added in lemon zest and fresh herbs from my garden.  Much more palatable I hope and still within the rules. Just mildly stretched them really :-).

The Coco Sauce Veggies are quite tasty and my only regret was they were nice and bright green when I put them away in the fridge.  Should have left the lid off the container while they cooled but I was in a rush to go out, not thinking and I put it on.. The colour slipped a little so they don't look quite as vibrant and appetizing as they could but the texture is good and the taste is pretty nice.  Will add cilantro at dinner.

The only item I haven't made is the carrot beet salad. But I have shredded the vegetables ready. This is another one people say is bland.  Sigh.  Because I haven't used up my all tablespoons of olive oil for the day I am going to make a Moroccan inspired light dressing for this salad and add in some fresh mint. As you can tell, with me, fresh herbs make everything better.

Moroccan Dressing

1/2 tsp paprika (sweet, not hot, not smoked)
1/4 tsp tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Small pinch of salt
Small pinch of cayenne
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp agave
2 tbsp sliced fresh mint leaves

So I end the day ready and prepped for the next 3 days. 

Prepping - Part 1

So I did a bunch of my shopping during the week and then rounded it out on Saturday morning with frozen vegetables and anything else that I had forgotten.

That included rye crackers (I went with Ryvita), shitake mushrooms, goat cheese and organic 65% dark chocolate, among other things.  I think buying the cheese made me happiest.

Until the protein for later in the week.  Would it be wild white fish, steak, lamb, venison, duck, chickpeas or egg white. Seriously?  Like those last two are even in the running.  I am going to pick steak since I have some nice organic grass fed beef in the freezer already.

Because we have a "long weekend" here in Canada on July 1, which happens to land on a Wednesday this year, I decided to only prep recipes for Days 1 and 2 on Sunday morning. Then I can cook a whole chicken on the rotisserie on Wednesday and do the roasted vegetables at the same time. Maybe all on the BBQ to save on clean up.

I am going follow Lyn Genet's food prep protocol which can be found here.

First off, I preped the Ginger Carrot soup.  All in it took me about 10 minutes to prep and chop the vegetables, then maybe another 2 minutes to assemble, then 25 minutes on the stove top (some of my larger carrot pieces were a little firm at 20 minutes) before I put all of the ingredients into the blender and puréed.

I did read on a number of blogs about The Plan that people found the soup too gingery so I decided to put my ginger into the soup in large coins so I could remove them before I puréed and then just add into my taste. Saves making something that I don't like the taste of later.

While the soup was cooking, I made the Spicy Coconut sauce everyone raves about.  All told start to finish the sauce takes about 20 minutes to prep and then cook.

I had about 5 minutes chopping and prepping time, then another 5 minutes sweating the onion and garlic in olive oil, then I added the coconut milk, sriracha, cinnamon and clove. I also added 1/2 a tsp of ginger just for a little variety and oomph, then I let it simmer for about 5 minutes to let the flavours meld.  The sauce is tasty but needs a little salt in my mind...sadly not this time.

Instead of adding salt, I tossed in a couple of kaffir lime leaves because I happened to have some in my freezer. They are one of my favourite ingredients and what gives Thai cooking its fragrant taste. Love them.  You can get them here from time to time in the regular grocery store I shop at called Loblaws but otherwise, I buy them at an Asian grocery store and put them in the freezer.  You can sometimes also find them dried but I find frozen preserves their flavour way better.

I will likely also add a bit of fresh basil or cilantro to whatever I am using the sauce on before I serve it as I really love the freshness that they add to anything.

So far, her the timing in her list is pretty spot on and I am pretty confident the way she has it structured that anyone with reasonable knife skills could get through all of this in the 70 minutes she says it takes.

Broccoli soup and Day 1 and 2 vegetables up next.

Still more organization

As I said yesterday the list of items and the preparation for this plan can be a bit daunting.  I have found a few short cuts to help me reduce the amount of preparation I will need to do on Sunday.

First for the shredded carrot beet salad, I got these to save me the shredding madness.  I can handle a beet but I really don't need to shred a bunch of carrots when I can get this for $1.99.

The other idea I came up with to minimize cost and work is organic frozen broccoli. Now everyone probably thinks that fresh is always better than frozen, but it is not. Would you take beautiful organic broccoli picked at its peak in its natural season that is flash frozen? Or would you take the picked a week ago in California which spent a week on the road getting here and which was now wrapped in plastic sitting in your grocery store?

The answer:  the frozen broccoli.

Freezing would decrease the overall nutrient content of the broccoli only slightly but would preserve most of its nutrients and freshness. 

There are a number of nice organic brands available including:

So my choice will be a combination of frozen for the soup and vegetables in Coconut Sauce and fresh for the sauteéd broccoli.

Starting to get organized

As I go through this I will photograph what I eat every day and list out my menu for you.  The Plan requires you to take a base weight and then weigh yourself every day to see whether the food works for you based on whether your weight went up or down. Pretty simple.

It also suggests you use a digital basal thermometer to check your resting body temperature to determine thyroid function.  I can do that.  Lying in bed with a stick under my arm? Sure.  Why not.

The concept for the first 3 days is to cleanse on a primarily vegetable based meal plan. Being the kitchen dork planner that I am, I was immediately looking for a shopping list to try to determine what all I needed to have on hand to complete the first 3 days and then prepare for the rest of the week.

It doesn't exist.  So iPad in hand I endeavored to add up all the broccoli, carrots and other items needed and here's what I got based on the Day 1-3 Food Prep document posted on The Plan's website which tells you how to prepare for those 3 days in 70 minutes.

Here's the list I came up with based on the prep list. Be prepared - it is a wee bit daunting. Eight heads of broccoli??  But I have some ideas for how to make it more manageable which I'll share tomorrow.

Vegetables

8 heads broccoli
16 carrots
4 onions
1 beet
7 zucchini
2 heads garlic
1 piece fresh ginger
1 avocado
1 large bunch kale (or 2 small)
1 organic orange
1 organic chicken

Pantry Items

2 cans coconut milk*
1 carton low sodium organic chicken stock (I couldn't find organic AND low sodium)
1 cup flax seed
Cinnamon
Fresh black peppercorn
Cumin
Cloves
Sriracha Sauce
Chipotles in Adobo
Extra-virgin Olive Oil

This is not an official list and I might have missed some stuff...so be sure to double check. Also it doesn't include the fruit and other items you need.  Just the basics.

*A Note on Coconut Milk

Always look for coconut milk with as few ingredients as possible and always without carrageenan.  Carrageenan is a thickener and stabilizer used in food production and it is what keeps coconut milk from separating. Sometimes you actually want that thick stuff that collects, like when making coconut whipped cream but it won't work if it contains carrageenan.