Day 18

Weight: 172.6. No change. Very lucky considering how much i indulged yesterday. Am up early at usual work time, only it's an hour earlier re: time change. Have headache and no desire to do anything. Should really go back to bed. Am feeling really conflicted. Today should be the day I juice fast and get back on track, but I also really want to eat fried eggs and watch football with a nice red beer. How do i balance that?

I feel a little out of control as I keep giving into my instant gratification desires, but it's so nice to just have a fun weekend. I am only a pound up from my lowest weight right now. But really this whole last week has not gone well for me. I wish I could figure out where I went wrong - i think it's when our house stuff piled up and i felt like i hadn't had any fun in a long time. And possibly me thinking that it's juicing that ruined the plumbing. I wonder if i just finish my weekend of fun and then try to figure out a way to juice fast on monday? Maybe I can fall back asleep.

Early breakfast - Acai Berry Juice

Tried to sleep more. No dice. Have decided to enjoy today, but plan ahead for the week. Am really thinking problems have stemmed from plumbing and allowing alcohol. Going to be much more careful about that. Plumbing is fear of washing the juicer, plus have dishwasher back and haven't gotten in the swing of emptying and refilling it to have clean juicer.

Morning snack - granola bar
New kashi brand, have been really wanting one for over a week now. It was great. Not too sweet.

Thinking ahead for the week:
• Monday - 100% juice fast day, bring different juices to work, have juice for dinner. Run with linsey and walk to ballot drop box. Do not have any wine.
  
  
• Tuesday - Tricycle race day. Juice for breakfast. Limit to one slice vegan pizza at the lunch.
  All vegetable dinner. Make juice tonight. Do not have any wine.
  
  
• Wednesday - Game night. Juice for breakfast. Vegetable lunch. Run with Maggie. Go to TJs and bring all vegetable thing to potluck. Try to stick to it as best can with potluck dinner. Do not have any wine.
  
  
• Thursday - wine mixer night. Juice for breakfast. Vegetable lunch. Run with Maggie. Bring veggie snack to mixer. Only have the wine offered at mixer, don't open bottle.
  
  
• Friday - juice fast day. Run on the treadmill or shred.
  

We watched football and I did have a few indulgences of the food i've been craving. Mostly I laid around and felt a tad bored and very lethargic with some guilty feelings.

Brunch - Greens with white beans, onion, and garlic. Fried egg, Good Seed Bread, Morningstar veggie sausage. So satisfying to eat this. Red beer.

My husband rallied us to do our basic chore list and that was awesome. I'm feeling like i have to quit football. It's so disappointing to watch our crappy team and fantasy has been a bit disappointing as of late as well. i don't like how it makes me second guess all my decisions.

Late lunch - Husband had two grilled cheese on good seed bread, one swiss, one cheddar. I had slivers of each of these (SO decadent) and the remainder of the beans and greens

Dinner - Red cabbage, with snow peas, garlic, onion, and ginger. Arugula, spinach, tomato, avocado salad. Steam roasted artichoke. Red wine.

Summarizing the cheats: alcohol, small amounts of cheese and butter, fried egg. The semi ok but processed foods: veggie sausage, granola bar. The transitional foods: 1.5 slices whole grain bread, white beans.

Not the worst cheat day in the world, but was very lethargic and didn't really exercise beyond chores. I just hope that can sustain me as i try to follow my plan for the week.

Not the worst

Day 17

Weight: 172.6. Up again. I knew it would be as i just feel heavier. Fun night with too much wine equals headache in AM.

We woke up at our work day time and have no plans until 11. Did we shred? No.
I read and he watched an english comedy show.

Breakfast - Acai Berry Juice

Around 10, we rallied and got chores done around the house. Husband winterized - got extra suet out, put the heater in the bird bath, cleaned off the deck and put the "foam nipples" on the faucets. LOL. I wonder if he switched out the nest box with the winter roost as well. I did the dishes. Somehow his list seems way more impressive than mine. I decided I better eat something before our friends picked us up.

Brunch - Greens mix steamed sauteed with onion, garlic, and apprx 1/2 cup of white beans. Delicious. Trying to follow South Beach diet rules with my transition foods, but that is shortly out the window as we decide to have a red beer with brunch. I feel better after. Sigh.

We had the very exciting experience of being picked up by a boat! Our friends have just gotten one and are still keeping it in town as they learn how to maneuver it. We drove down to the boat launch and learned a bit about what it takes to operate a boat ourselves. After a few attempts, we get launched and are underway. It's a gorgeous fall day, bright with autumn colors. Simply glorious. We had fun touring around the lake, seeing amazing houses, the football facility, the airplane facility, and many sea planes. Plus the wintering birds are here! we saw Western Grebes and Ringbill Gulls. Yay!

We had so much fun touring around and then headed over to the adjacent lake to a local restaurant with a boat dock. I have always wanted to boat to happy hour there and i finally did it! Yay for bucket list days!

Lunch - edamame, organic greens mix, tapenade, hummus, one pita. They had champagne available on happy hour, delicious and so fun for a great boating day!.

We got back to the launch and managed to get the boat back up on the trailer. It was so fun and I look forward to learning more about boating. We may get to go on some overnight trips!

Once we got home, I felt a little restless. I didn't want to just cook and clean per usual. We flipped a coin and it landed on go out. So we headed over to the dinner movie theater near our house and saw Tower Heist. It was pretty fun, but not an excellent movie. I ordered the vegetarian pizza and asked for no cheese and had some more wine. Unfortunately, my pizza came with cheese and i couldn't really do anything about it in the dark movie theater, so I just ate it. Oh my god it was good. I really should have only eaten half of this pizza, but i just straight up devoured it. Wow.

Dinner - thin crust pizza with sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, spinach, garlic, and goat cheese.

So how did i do? Well i did not do the shred, but i was at least active. I did not stay vegan, but that wasn't totally my fault. I did not follow the south beach rules and had way too many portions of refined grain (pita and pizza dough - and a beer). I had too much to drink as well. Sigh. This is my biggest problem in dieting - balancing fun times and healthy choices. On the plus side I had two good servings of beans and two good servings of greens.

Day 16

Weight: 172.2. Up again. Getting super frustrated. Also had a bad sleep again. I did have a second bowl of my "pasta" last night, because i just found the first bowl to be unsatisfying. Things that could have contributed to my lack of success this week - sluggish metabolism, no elimination (aka #2), wine, considerably less exercise, and no juice days this week. Sigh. That is a lot of factors.

The reboot website only offers 15 day plans. Obviously the movie shows 60 day plans, but they have doctor supervision and i do not. I am seriously thinking about beginning my transition back and need to figure out what i want that to look like. As it is, i am feeling cranky, tired, and frustrated.

Tomorrow we have a social day planned that will involve dining with other people, sunday i could juice fast. Tuesday i arranged for a vegan lunch at work, but it will be vegan pizza which is not reboot friendly... Wednesday we are invited to a game night... That was supposed to be my actual last day. I could transition now by switching to a vegan diet for the rest of November. It makes Thanksgiving a hassle, or i could stop that day. I don't know what to do. Maybe if i mix it in with some juice days, i will still lose weight? I am afraid to stop, but also burning out on this diet. And I had hoped to lose a little more than 8 pounds. Sigh. I wish i knew what to do. I do think my husband and i will try to do the 30 day shred starting tomorrow and that shows promise.

Breakfast - 2 glasses juice
carrot - romaine - celery - cucumber - ginger - lemon - apple - cranberry
i reduced the amount of ginger and lemon, hoping this would get it's pizzazz from the cranberry, but i only noticed a slightly more tart flavor. have big bag of cranberries though, so will experiment more with this.

Late morning snack - banana

Lunch - "pasta" with roasted veg

Snack - 1/2 cup blueberries (gotta get those purple antioxidants in)

I've been lethargic today. I meant to run at lunch and couldn't muster the courage to go out in the rain. Feeling cold. Have extra cardigan on and am wearing pashmina as a lap blanket.

The more I think about it, the more I think some more protein is in order. My plan is to follow a vegan diet until Thanksgiving - with an emphasis on staying on the reboot as much as possible. I will definitely still juice and eat a lot of vegetables, but will add beans straight away. I will try to keep my grains, nuts, seeds, and tofu/tempeh/faux meat servings to a minimum.

Tomorrow my husband and I will also start Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and hope we can keep that going throughout the holidays. And I will try to get running more. I have 3 runs lined up next week and that should really help.

After work, we let off some steam at happy hour and played scopa. I had roasted beets, mixed greens with cucumber and tomato, a grilled portabello and more than one glass of wine. We laughed a lot. The sum total of my transitions for the day were apprx 5 walnuts on my beets and too much wine. But it felt so great to go out on friday night.

When we returned home, i was still a bit hungry and had a generous amount of roasted broccoli and more wine while we caught up on shows. I fell asleep in my husbands arms on the couch. It was a good night.

Day 15

Weight: 171.6. Down 2.2. Made sure to not overeat last night, but did forget to blog about a second dinner salad i had with pea shoots, arugula, and pear. I still ended up going to bed hungry after watching my shows and that kept me a bit restless and unable to sleep. Sigh. Will get this right one of these days. Skin is awesome post-facial. Very excited to use product samples.

Breakfast - 1 cup acai berry juice

Late morning snack - banana

Exercise - 3 mile walk

TMI, but my metabolism is definitely sluggish though as I haven't had the need to go number two for a few days... and it's 1:30 and I'm not that hungry after not having much sustenance today (see above), so definitely sluggish. I am going to eat any way though.

Lunch - 3/4s sweet potato, 1/2 cup roasted broccoli, 1 steam roasted artichoke with lemon.

Dinner - "pasta" with roasted veg again. Salad with avocado, tomato, arugula, and pea shoots. Really on the fence about pea shoots. I know sprouts are great for you, but these are kind of bland.

Was really tired tonight, but we did manage to have a normal night where we tidied up, had dinner, i made juice and we watched tv and hit the sack.

Day 14

Weight: 173.8. Up 2.2 pounds. It catches up to me. Sigh. I've been eating late and weird for like 5 days - to the point where I feel overly full after having been totally famished, plus i have now had a total of 5 glasses of wine in the last 3 days. I've been telling myself, I'm just being social. It's tricky, because I am tired of staying home and dieting by myself. Hopefully this uptick is just a blip.

I slept hard last night. It turns out I did so because our furnace never came on and it was only 30 degrees outside. Bloody hell. OK seriously - so far since the summer we have had to: replace our water main, replace our upstairs windows, get our electricity thoroughly examined and surge protected, get some rewiring done, replace our year-old dishwasher (electricity problem), have our kitchen drain snaked, replumb the garbage disposal connections, and have an air gap put in. Oh yeah, and a retaining wall built to help erosion from touching the outside of the house which was causing water to get in. oh yeah, and all the trees near the electric wire had to be seriously cut back. Is our house completely falling apart? It sure feels like it. Especially as I cuddle here with my hoody on.

Breakfast - Acai Berry Juice
didn't have time to make juice last night, so drank some juice from costco. I know pasteurized juice is discouraged, but i have read that acai berries are high in antioxidants and as i've mentioned, i am worried about getting the purple ones. It turns out this has agave syrup in it, so i kept my portion to 8 ounces.

Fortunately furnace was quick and covered by service contract and we were into work before 11.

Late morning snack - banana

Lunch - half sweet potato, 1 cup broccoli, and 1/2 cup blueberries (working hard on purple food).

Late afternoon snack - raw carrot

I had an evening facial - yay!! operation look younger is at least making me feel good. We went to happy hour right before as we were both starved and then my husband could hang out there an read.

Happy Hour - naked side salad, glass red

We got home early enough for me to have dinner at a semi-reasonable time. I focused on making extra stuff for tomorrow, but didn't have time to make juice.

Dinner - 1/4 sweet potato, 1/2 roasted broccoli, 1 artichoke - briefly steamed whole then cut in half and roasted for a bit. This was excellent, plus I read that artichokes are good antioxidants sources.

Day 13

Weight: 171.6. Same as yesterday. Lucky break with all of my indulgences yesterday (two dinners and wine).

I slept like sh*t. Wow. And I feel worse today than I did on any other day during the reboot. Retoxing feels far worse than detoxing. I can't believe how badly my head hurt all through the night and it kept me waking up regularly. I ended up taking 4 aspirin, 2 in the night, 2 in the morning and I still have a mild headache. My liver just couldn't handle it. Three glasses over four hours was not earth shattering to me before this, but I suppose it is for the best that I learn my lesson and stay away from the devil juice. So not worth it. Wow. And seriously, I need to have learned my lesson. It's a slippery slope. A tiny cheat on Sunday and a big cheat on Monday... I need to reiterate to myself that I have not given myself carte blanch to cheat now.

Breakfast - the usual with kale instead of cucumber
Carrots - celery - romaine - apple - lemon - ginger - kale
I had this mixed with a little left over licorice green juice. Pretty good. Realize now that in my spaciness this morning, i only had half and the other half is in my to go cup in the fridge. GRR. mad at self. Will have packet of Greens to Go instead.

Late morning snack - banana. I love bananas.

Exercise - Jog 3 miles
Pretty slow, but still not feeling fabulous. Could just be the sleep problems now?

Lunch - "pasta" with roasted veg from last night.

Read in the Washington Post that studies show one glass of red wine helps dieters succeed. Right next to the article that states one glass of red wine a day increases your risk of breast cancer. Huh. Well these are things to keep in mind. If i ever have a strong urge to cheat again - it's gotta be red, and it's gotta be only one. The problem with the after affects is that it stays on your mind.

It was an errand day. After work we planned to hit the bank, costco, and the library. We stopped at our usual happy hour spot so that we didn't have to do all these errands hungry. Husband got a veggie burger, fries, and two beers. I got a side salad with nothing on it and a glass of red. Bad again, but honestly it took the edge off and I'm all right with it.

Snack - naked side salad, glass of red

The rest of our errands took forever and by the time we'd unloaded the car. It was 9 and I was terrifically hungry and on the verge of diving into the granola bars. I couldn't think of anything fast to make, so heated up sweet potato and broccoli in the oven. I got to eat it around 10 and in the meantime drank the juice i was meant to have this morning. i wanted to save it for tomorrow, but i don't think it really keeps that long and it didn't taste nearly as fresh tonight. By the time i actually ate, it was late. I ate all the broccoli and half the sweet potato and just that made me feel fuller than i've felt this entire diet. Like stomach hurt full.

Dinner - Juice from this AM, half Sweet Potato, 2-3 cups broccoli

Day 12

Weight: 171.6. Yay! So close to surpassing previous successes now. 8.8 lbs down total and 0.6 from yesterday.

Breakfast - usual juice. Am already running out of veg. As much as i enjoy the juice, i am worried about its affect on our plumbing as well as alarmed at the number of veggies we have to buy. But wow it works. I am really down in weight and my skin is looking really good. Since i am off today, i hope to juice fast the whole day again, but this might depend on the plumber...

Ok update on plumbing - juicing is a contributing factor in our plumbing problem. We had some drain routing issues (fixed last week), plus i have been juicing regularly since January because i like it (which is what made this diet attractive to me), and together those clogged up our drain and we had to have it snaked today. Not nearly as bad as i feared, but i do need to use a ton of water when washing my juicer off. It doesn't get ground up in the disposal as it is ground and can clump.

Now i am hungry for lunch and unsure what to eat. Maybe I won't juice fast today. Leftovers from last night it is.

This day ended up being a bit of a disaster overall. I fell asleep shortly after eating lunch. Woke up. Made two juices for a snack and the next day breakfast. We had to cancel our after work Halloween plans because i had to stay home, so we decided to go to the movie theater near our house that has Monday Night Football on the big screen and serves food and drink. I needed to eat before hand.

Dinner - Licorice Green Juice, Baked Kale Chips, Salad, 3 glasses white wine - yikes!!
Fennel - celery - cucumber - apple - lemon
This was really good, but didn't make a lot of juice.

While I was making the juices I baked some kale chips. I overcooked these and then had to eat them with a spoon as they were too shredded. This was really unsatisfying overall and I decided to make a salad too so i wasn't too tempted at the theater. Salad was Avocado Tomato Arugula. We are out of green onion, but i added pea shoots for some extra pizzazz. Also, have been trying to eat some sprouts with the microgreens and peas shoots as they are highly nutritional.

Left for MNF feeling a little too full, which was probably good. Was not tempted by food there. But gave into the craving for a drink and ended up having three glasses of fermented grape juice and i cannot even use that purple antioxidant excuse this time as I went house white. If I had stopped at two, i would forgive myself, but i went for 3 when we knew the game would go into overtime. Why did i do this? well I was bummed about missing halloween fun, losing a vacation day to the plumber, and just generally feel like i have been nonparticipatory in life since i started this diet. I wanted a bit of normalcy. I had fun and did enjoy the buzz, but wow, by bed time i had a whopping headache. I didn't take aspirin as we are supposed to avoid stuff on the reboot, but that was a mistake.

I did take the time to prepare lunch stuff when we got home last night so i wouldn't have to eat bananas all day the next day and that was really good - except in my impaired judgement state of mind, i ate half of it last night.

Late night snack - "pasta" with roasted veg.
Spaghetti Squash - Eggplant - Red Pepper - Zucchini - Garlic - Onion - Mushroom