I broke my cleanse about 9 hours early. Faced with a bottle of delicious red wine, good friends, and great conversation while sitting on the beach watching our kids play — it was time.
Afterwards, we enjoyed some BBQ chicken and a whole wheat pasta salad with tomatoes, black olives, cucumbers, parmesan and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Before you say “that’s not too bad,” I also ate a slice of cake from Porto’s, a Cuban bakery based in Southern CA. I know, I know. But you need to understand that my parents were down there and drove an extra 150 miles to go to this place. I’m first generation Cuban-American, so NOT eating a slice (or one of the guava pasteries) would be blasphemy. Oh, and we had it with coffee. Probably the most delicious cup I’ve ever tasted! However, my body responded in the familar ways to the food — bloating, gas, discomfort. And the caffeine affected me in ways it never had before — we were up until 2 am, and it took about 30 minutes to fall asleep.
Let’s get to the results of the cleanse. I weighed myself on Friday morning, and lost 4.6 pounds! After my indulgences, I went up .8 pounds the next morning. Net = 3.8 pound loss. Yes, I’m thrilled about that but it’s what I learned that has made the biggest impact.
I didn’t think I had the willpower. And now that I know that I can do without coffee, alcohol, dairy or meat for an extended period of time, I have shifted the way I look at food.
Yesterday was my first day back on a regular diet, and I had one cup of coffee. We brewed some later in the afternoon, but we only ended up drinking half a cup! Because I’m committed to keeping that hard-earned weight loss off, and shed another 10 pounds, I started up the Weight Watchers routine that I used to think was hard to do. It was no problem! I used to believe that I’d never lose those last ten, now I have the confidence that I will by July 9 when we take a trip to Lake Tahoe for my best friend’s 40th.
What I love about Weight Watchers is that it teaches you how to make healthy choices within the world of convenience food. Although we switched to brown rice, whole wheat pastas and breads years ago because of WW, I realize that we don’t need to consume so much meat or dairy. So we’re going to eat veggie meals most of the time. For example, we’ll substitute tofu in our stir-fry dinner instead of shrimp. Or make our split pea soup without the ham.
Let’s expound a bit on the confidence I’ve gained. On Wednesday, two days into the cleanse, I went for a swim. You can read about that experience in my previous post, but lap-wise, I was only able to complete about eight of them freestyle in between kickboard and pull buoy drills. That’s my usual, as I only learned to swim competitively last year to complete my first triathlon for Team in Training. And since I turned 40 last year, I decided 3 more — to total 4 — would be a good way to say neener, neener, neener to the big birthday. No, I did not complete an Ironman. They were simply Sprint distances, but I can say “I am a triathlete!” You must admit, that’s pretty cool.
Why do I bring this up? Yesterday, I swam 1,000 yards freestyle without stopping. Folks, that’s 40 laps, 3 days later.
It’s obvious that the cleanse did more than restore my body’s natural balance. It eliminated mental obstacles too.
I’m walking around with more confidence, less stress, and a positive attitude. Things that used to freak me out, simply don’t. As a marketing consultant on the side, the check from my client hasn’t arrived. This would typically take me over the edge, but I realized that there is nothing I can do about the US Mail system. I just have to send prepaid overnight postage along with my bill next time. And if it doesn’t arrive on Monday, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I have a life to enjoy and it’s sunny outside today. The weather has been cloudy and dark for the last few weeks. I’m going for a bike ride and perhaps hit the beach afterwards with my family.
Super Cleanse is a great book because it gives you 9 choices. The Laughing Buddha is great, but it does take a lot of time to prep, prepare and clean up. However, you can prepare a bunch of servings of your favorites and eat them every day. Or, you can choose another cleanse that is predominately juice-based so there’s less to do.
What’s exciting is that the cleanse made good on it’s promise. I quoted the author in my first post about the cleanse: “A good cleanse reboots our whole being. It provides a magnified awareness, a fresh perspective, spiritual renewal and physical rejuvenation. When we get rebalanced, we get clearer about who we are and who we’re committed to being. That’s the miraculous and healing power of a cleanse.”
Bottom line: I feel I can do anything. And I’m not sweating the small stuff. If you want to shift your life, try a cleanse.
Tags: cleanse, food, weight watchers
