Day 5- Still Going (Not So) Strong

Each Day Lance and I evaluate how long we could actually be on this type of eating plan and almost each day the number of weeks/days goes down. We heard of one person who did this for 11 months and we just looked at each other in amazement.

I thought, going into this, the lack of sugar was going to be a big problem for me, but I am finding myself missing things like potatoes, rice, or any resemblance of a bread product. For Lance, eating 6-7 times a day is great, until the things you are eating get extremely repetitive; cheese, nuts, veggies, hummus, repeat...

Yesterday, I thought having guacamole would be such a wonderful treat as we both love it. However there are no chips or anything that resembles a chip on this eating plan. The suggested form of dipping is red cabbage. I had this a ready to go so that when Lance came home from work we could quickly sit down and have a meal. He looked at the plate with very quizzical brow, picked up the cabbage, dipped, and consumed. His face looked as if he had just eaten cows brains or something. He looked up at me and said very emphatically, "That is not a chip."

We are not subjecting our son to this rigid eating plan. He had a luxurious stack of REAL pancakes this morning. While we had...
Almond meal pancakes!

Lance told me this morning that this has been a bit enlightening in that we need to start viewing food as a utility and not a pleasure. I thought about this for a moment, agreed and said we are probably a country who is the worst offender of that. We have so much food to choose from that we can be picky and it becomes more of a pleasure than a need. So then, to break this thought provoking comment, my husband replied, "So basically we are choosing to eat like poop." Ahhh, and there is Lance for you.

Detox-Day 2

If you are looking at the title of this post and wondering, "Lance, on a detox diet (especially one with limits on red meat consumption)...impossible." I am here to assure you it is very possible.

Yesterday started our one week of a really strict detox diet. (The Healing Diet for any interested) In the weeks following this initial week it will be less strict, but very different from our former way of eating.

So what is this diet anyway, well it is a rigid no sugar or anything that turns to sugar eating plan. So that means no sugar, no starches, limited fruit and veggie choices, lots of protein, and changing all bad fat consumption to good fat consumption. Easy enough right? No, not so easy.

I had a pretty grumpy husband yesterday morning, unable to have his normal bowl of cereal and glass of OJ. (Neither of these are allowed this week, sorry honey!) Instead we had cheese omelets, not a horrible trade off.
The biggest difficulty, I think, is meal planning. Planning lunches and dinners without starch is both difficult and expensive. No potatoes, no rice, no bread, no pasta and the list goes on and on... Our dinner last night consisted of coconut crusted chicken tenders (really good), mushrooms, and a salad. Note: It takes a lot of meat to make my husband full when there are no starches.
Today was another depressing morning for Lance...plain yogurt. No fun strawberry, blueberry, or even vanilla, just plain, no sugar yogurt. Perhaps his spirits will be lifted with a little red meat tonight.

Our purpose here is two fold; to change our eating habits into wise and healthful ones and to try to get cholesterol levels in a safer area. Wish us luck and stay tuned for more fun Lance stories. I would venture to guess that this may be far more entertaining with my husbands commentary.
Just this afternoon he told me, "At least I have my coffee (which he also refers to as Sweet Nectar) without my coffee I would have both headaches and grumpiness."

Before and After

BEFORE

Our lovely little red house.

AFTER

Our seemingly bigger beige house

Family Fun!

This month has been such a blessing to us. We were able to travel down to Indy to see my parents, sister, and niece, then my parents came up here for a weekend visit, then my brother's family came up to spend about 5 days with us. We had so much fun playing outside, doing a couple of Easter egg hunts, eating meals together, and playing games together. Aside from the few minor injuries that were inevitable when 3 cousins ages 3 and under get together, the kids were wonderful. It is so fun to see cousins growing to be good friends.

The Kitchen is DONE!!!

While my husband could have posted pictures about a month ago saying that the kitchen is done. For a woman, or just me, it is not done until it is decorated! So...from my prospective, now it is done. We have been functioning in our new kitchen for about 2 months now, but that is also how long it took us to figure out what colors to use and what to put on the walls. After getting the window treatments, we realized just how "neutral" everything was and were much in need of some color.

Overall this was a big project with a big price tag, but it was so worth it.

Would I do it again? Yes!

Would my husband say the same thing? Not sure about that one, (as he did 90% of the work) but he loves the end result.