The Big Diet

As I said in my last post, what you eat can really influence how you feel. So hubby and I have started our big 3 week eat clean diet. At first, it seemed insane and really daunting - but the longer we're on it, the better I'm feeling. I noticed that after day 4 a lot of issues I'd been having (nasty raw itchy skin, insomnia, sluggishness and crankiness) have virtually disappeared. I still suspect that I'm allergic to chocolate (or maybe sugar?) since I have hideous withdrawal every time I stop eating it and I think that's where a lot of my symptoms are coming from. I guess we'll see. We will be doing this diet for 3 weeks with a 'splurge' at the end, but we're hoping to make it more of a lifestyle, only treating ourselves one meal a week instead of all the time. So, here are the basics of the diet:

For three weeks, we will eat only the following:

Fruits and veggies: unlimited
Eggs: 2/day
Peanut butter: 2 tbsp/day (or 1-2 oz nuts)
Hummus and salad dressing: 1 tbsp each/day
olive or coconut oil, soy sauce: few tsp for sauteeing
whole grains: small amounts
beans: small amounts
spices: unlimited
water and tea: unlimited

What we can't eat:
chocolate, sugar, dairy, refined grains (bread, pasta, cereal, cookies, etc), meat

At the end of the three weeks, we have 3 hours to eat as much of our 'splurge' (right now I'm thinking mac'n'cheese and chocolate cake - originally we were thinking candy) as we can. And then we'll stop and freeze whatever is left.

As an incentive to be good, every time we 'cheat' on the diet we lose 5-30 minutes (depending on the size of the cheat - a cookie is 5 min, a BBQ lunch is 30) from our final splurge. To earn time back, we have to work out (1 mile walked/run = 5 minutes back, 1 situp/pushup/etc = 1 second back).

Ideally in the end we'll continue the diet eating well Monday-Saturday afternoon. Saturday nights will be our 'splurge' nights (within reason of course) and Sundays we eat at Grandma's so we'll do the best we can, but treats are ok there too. We're trying to walk/run 3 miles every night and do strength stuff every other night as a habit (once we get our basement back it should be a breeze to work out to Star Trek again).

And like I said - I can't believe how amazing I feel! I've already lost a few pounds (my scale stinks so much it's debatable how much) and I feel not only thinner, but more energetic and like my whole body is functioning more smoothly. Even my skin is clearing up. Woohoo! I don't crave things like I did anymore (yes I was drooling over the cookies on Sunday, but I was able to stop at just a couple instead of eating the whole plateful and still felt satisfied - and I did 'run off' my time). So I'm very excited about the prospect of a healthier lifestyle.

That said, I'm terrible at cooking on a primarily produce diet (it'll be easier after the 3 weeks when I get all my condiments back). So if anyone has any super yummy vegan/non-dairy vegetarian recipes they want to share, I'm all ears :) (We have found that frozen-fruit-though-the-juicer ice cream is not only a very satisfying dessert, but is about the only thing we can actually get our kids to eat on this diet - so we've been eating a TON of that and I'm really surprised how well it satisfies even my ravenous sweet tooth :D )