Cleanse results and weigh in and emotions OH MY!

First of all, I like many others want to send my condolences, thoughts and prayers to those directly effected by the Boston Marathon bombings. In one way or another we were all effected. Those in the running community, and just as American's as a whole. 

Spring Flowers from my boy
 to cheer me up

This has been a hard week for me, and I feel guilty even saying it because I do not know anyone directly effected by the bombing, but I have been very emotionally down this week. My anxiety level has been on an all time high since the movie theater shooting. Then we had a local shooting in which a man pretty much lost it and just decided to run all over town shooting a shot gun at people. This one was difficult as one of my fellow nurses lost a friend to that. Now this. It is terrifying. 

The only thing I keep thinking is this is OUR reality. This is the world that we as adults are living in. I have a seven and a three year old. What is their reality going to be like? What is man going to be doing to each other in fifteen or twenty years. What mess are they going to be left with, what disasters are they going to have to navigate?

Aside from my emotional rant, I'm done with my cleanse. Well I've been done but really haven't been on Blogger long enough to post. That is what the second half of the semester will do to you. I ended it a day early. I had such a good Friday with the girls. We painted birdhouses, everyone got along fabulously and they decided they both wanted homemade pizzas for dinner. I had planned to do tacos because I could turn that into clean, cleanse-friendly food pretty easily. But I'm a sucker for giving in when they're both getting along so well. Those "please" faces kill me. Though I'm not sure if Bell cared what we had for dinner, but with Jay hamming it up so hard, she felt like she had to join in.

Luckily I had weighed myself that morning so I wasn't ruining it by not being aware of my true results. I lost 5lbs! This brings my total down to 173lbs. (If you're paying attention I weighed myself pre-cleanse and I was at 178, not what my previous weigh in was. Oops.)

My last tid-bit is that I've been doing a lot of working out with the boy. So far he's lost 8lbs! It's great because we compete with each other in exercise so it definitely pushes me to do more. Also I walked Bell to school today then ran home (it's about a mile each way). I did not make the whole run but hey, it's better than not doing anything. And now my cardio is done for the day! I hope it stays nice so we can keep doing that. 

Have a great week everyone!

xoxo

Starting Weight: 200.8

Current Weight: 173

Total Lost: 27.8

Cleanse Day 3, 4, and 5

I'm handling the coffee withdraws much better. Mainly because I'm not anymore. I started allowing myself a cup and a half of coffee (my coffee mugs are big ass 2 cuppers) and a half a cup of almond milk. After that it's just tea. It's helped me feel a lot better. 

Finding foods to eat is even kind of fun. I don't want to get burnt out so I find that sometimes I'm making meals of the most random things. I do however have a huge craving for carbohydrates. As in like a big piece of Italian bread, or a muffin, or crackers (and CHEESE, oh cheese how I miss you!) but I have yet to give in. Having an oatmeal in the morning helps me feel better. Surprisingly I have almost no craving for sweets now. Which is fantastic as most of the good Easter candy in the house is depleted. 

Any time I do have a craving I've been able to talk myself out of it. I know that it won't be the last time I'm offered a piece of pizza, I will have more opportunities for cookies in the break room. 

My only hope it that once the cleanse is over I don't go buck wild and have a food feeding frenzy! I do know that I am going to be having a deli sandwich (with cheese and Italian bread!) But I think I can make that work. 

I'm really loving My Fitness Pal. I always go over on my allotted sugar so that is really surprising to me. Especially because basically my only sugar sources are the fresh fruits I have. I can only imagine how badly I did here when I wasn't eating MOSTLY clean. 

Snack time! Dried apple rings, cucumber, and hard boiled egg. 

Balsamic sweet potatoes, natural PB and celery and applesauce

BEST SALAD EVER
spinach, cucumber, tomato, hard boiled egg, grilled chicken and turkey bacon.
I actually don't even miss the cheese!

On to day six!  <3

Cleanse Day 1 and 2

Boy, day 1 my Advocare Herbal Cleanse was kind of rough. I remember last time making my fiber drink with less water so I could chug it faster then downing water after (it specifically says not to do this on the package, btw for choking reasons). The drink is quite gross. Well I tried to do it this time but it was so concentrated and thick I gagged it down. Literally heaving over the sink. But the day carried on. 

Then I didn't drink any coffee all morning. I had my Spark drink but no coffee. By 7 or 8 I was hurting. My head felt like it was going to explode from caffeine withdraw. I was getting dizzy. Finally around 10pm I ended up having a caffeinated tea.

Aside from my caffeine cravings my meals were good. I never felt hungry. I finally felt as though I was getting the proper amount of water I should be consuming every day. And I really haven't been tempted into eating anything, though there has yet to be any donuts show up in the break room. Damn nurse's and their sugar. 

Breakfast was fruit and nuts, taco salad for lunch, and chicken with green beans and sweet potatoes for dinner. 

Day 2 I decided to up the water in the fiber drink, and while it made it so it took longer to go down the texture was much more manageable. I started my day off with two Sparks, but because I had class I kind of forgot to pack a breakfast. I grabbed an apple, nuts and dried fruit (just fruit, no sugar added) to go to class with me but only ended up eating the apple. I had a big lunch of egg and avacado salad, fresh vegetables and  a sweet potato. Dinner was chicken and more sweet potatoes. I don't actually think you are supposed to have starcy vegetables after lunch, but if I didn't have something more substantial I would have been pretty low on the caloric intake. 

And the best part is... no caffeine withdraw headache until 10pm but by then I'm getting ready for bed anyway. 

My daughter is certianly paying off from seeing me eat this way. She wanted to have fruit salad with momma. 

Oh and...

I got accepted into nursing school!

(assuming I pass my the anatomy and physiology I'm currently taking)

Don't forget to follow my on myfittnesspal to see my complete food log. 

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/kmcat31

Advocare Cleanse Prep Day

As I mentioned before I am going to kick off my transition from Weight Watchers to calorie counting with a good ole cleanse. I spent the majority of the day prepping food. I cut up and baked sweet potatoes, made ground turkey "taco" meat, cut up celery, hard boiled eggs, baked some chicken, and a few other small things. My goal in this is to not have it be cumbersome. I want to be able to take five minutes, throw my meals together and be out the door. To do this you need to prep. Here is what I've come up with for the next ten days.

Meal	Choice #1	Choice #2
Breakfast	Oatmeal w/ applesauce, cinnamon & raisins	Fruit salad and nuts
Lunch	Chicken & sweet potato w/ veggies	Hardboiled egg w/ cucumbers & tomatoes
Dinner	Chicken w/ veggies	Taco salad
Sweet snacks	Apple w/ natural PB	Banana w/ berries
Salty Snacks	Celery w/ natural PB	Cucumbers & tomatoes

There is not too terribly much variation but all my food is prepped, and it really is only ten days. I will do my best to take pictures of all of these as I eat them throughout the week and a half.

I plan on weighing and measuring myself tomorrow and also taking pictures to see if there is any visible difference in ten days as well. Other than that I am going to do my best to stay off the scale until the end of the cleanse so I won't be updating that again until Sunday the 14th. 

I am well aware that this isn't the weight loss portion of the Advocare, I am also not doing the whole 24 Day Challenge. I am receptive to the fact that this isn't a miracle cure to my fat. I'm pretty much just doing this to get my mind into gear and help me start eating properly and my body functioning properly again. 

(With that said I know a lot of people do lose weight. So I'm kind of hoping for a 3-5lb loss.)

Since I'm not going to do my normal update and share my weight for over a week I'll try and update every day throughout the cleanse to post pictures and share how it is making me feel. 

Any advice from previous cleansers please feel free to share!