I caught up - finally

I never go to the bank.

It has been on my list of things to do for a few WEEKS now.  I knew I needed to get cash out for the money jar but I just don't have the time to get to a bank so that I can get the correct amounts out.

So I was a month behind, but now I am two weeks (and two dollars) ahead.

I have put in the money for all but the final week in April and the grand total is now $642.  It should be $640, but I didn't have 48 dollars today, I only had a $50.

This should get easier since every week after this one is less than $40.

I don't have a set plan for this money, I will finish this challenge in January of 2014 so I'm thinking I'll either use it to pay off a credit card or to pay for a beach house for the summer of 2014.  :)

I failed, I quit, I lost

So Sunday I finished day one of the 3 day detox.

The lunch smoothie

 I made the lunch smoothie with the celery, cucumber, pineapple, apple, almond milk, etc.  It made two big glasses and I managed to drink one of them.

I was craving solid food but I stayed strong.

The dinner smoothie

 And then dinner came.  This smoothie actually sounded good (other than the kale.)  But I'd had a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie that unknowingly had kale and it was great so I had high hopes for this one.  I took two sips and was done.  I took one sip and wanted to throw up but took a second sip just to make sure.  It was the cayenne pepper, I'm sure.  This nasty taste at the back of my tongue and down my throat.  I just couldn't do it.

I made bags ready for day 2 and 3 for the breakfasts

So I cleaned up and told myself I'd go to bed early so that I wouldn't cave and eat anything off the plan.

Before I went to bed I looked up information about why the things have to be blended or blended together.  I think I could choke down a shot glass of kale but to mix it with mango and blueberries (which would taste good blended without kale) didn't make sense to me.

Monday, day two, I tweaked things.  I didn't put the almond butter in the breakfast shake, I took it in a container.  The smoothie was okay but I realized it was the lemon that was ruining it for me, it was just too sour.

I ate the cucumber plain and dipped the celery in the almond butter.  It wasn't blended like it should have been, but I was at least getting the ingredients.

Lunch didn't go over too well as I'd had the pineapple and the apple frozen, thinking that would make a colder ice-smoothie, but instead it just meant my Magic Bullet couldn't mix properly.  That drink tasted okay.

By dinner, I just wanted to eat solid food and I was convincing myself that I'd detoxed enough (I had to pee at least once an hour, which is rough for someone who fears public bathrooms and tends to pee 4-5 times a day total.)  I also compromised and said that I would eat a smoothie each day, similar to the ones from this plan.

And so at about 6PM, I quit.

I threw some of the spinach, the cucumber, a little tomato, and a hard boiled egg (from Easter) into a bowl, drizzled on some extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper and had a salad.  Chewing food is so underrated.

I ate half a pickle and then some more salad before I went to bed.  I was craving some bread but I didn't cave.  I also walked past the Easter candy several times but didn't give in to that either.

Sour patch bunnies, yum

This is waiting for me - calling my name

Today should be day three of the detox.

I ate two fresh eggs and a cup of green tea for breakfast, I'll have a smoothie for lunch, and I am making beef vegetable soup for dinner.  I think this is a fair trade (for someone that doesn't like soup and double all the veggies in the soup recipe).

I really should start taking "before" pictures

Any time I take pictures of the kids around the dinning room table, I'm always having them move around to the side with a wall behind them.  If they're on the other side of the table the picture will have a lovely background of my destroyed office.  The office is also known as "the dumping ground" because it is used for just that.

I spent 30 minutes looking through pictures trying to find evidence of just how bad the office is, but I guess I've been too good at aiming the camera away from the mess because I couldn't find a single picture.

I spent 2 hours on Friday morning cleaning it up.  If I am being honest, I think it's been almost 2 years since I've dusted my desk or even had it cleaned off.

It isn't done, because I am looking in to buying another piece of furniture to help organize the storage tubs of scrapbook supplies that are under the desk, but it sure looks much better than it ever has.

Sadly, I haven't even looked at what my goal is suppose to be with the organizing the home challenge.  I am suppose to be catching up, but I haven't done much.

I need to get rid of that broken chair but I keep telling myself I will upcycle it into something...

Calorie count in Dr Oz Detox

I got curious about how many calories I would be eating over the next three days so I decided to look up the fresh ingredients and add them to the numbers on the packages that I have.


Morning Drink
Green Tea: 0

Breakfast smoothie
1 cup water = 0
1 tbs flaxseed = 30
1 cup raspberries = 64
1 banana = 105
1/4 cup spinach = 2
1 tbs almond butter = 95
2 tsp lemon juice = 1
Total calories for breakfast = 297

Lunch smoothie:
1/2 cup almond milk = 30
4 celery stalks = 22
1 cucumber = 32
1 cup kale = 34
1/2 green apple = 60
1/2 squeezed lime = 6
1 tbs melted coconut oil = 120
1 cup pineapple = 83
Total calories for lunch = 387

Dinner smoothie:
1.5 cups coconut water = 81
1 cup blueberries = 84
1/2 cup mango = 50
1 cup kale = 34
1 tbs lemon juice = 4
1/4 avocado = 80
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper = 1
1 tbs flaxseed = 30
Total calories for dinner = 364

Total calories for the day: 1048 plus a 4th smoothie if needed

Since 3,500 calories is a pound, that means if I have a deficit of 500 calories a day for a week, I would lose one pound.  I'm only part way through day one of this plan, and I was craving some "real" food between breakfast and lunch, but I've only had the breakfast smoothie and half of the lunch smoothie.  

This may just be the jump start I need to getting me back in shape for my mud run.

Dr Oz Detox first drink

I didn't pay attention to the "green" part of the tea that I had to drink this morning.  Luckily I found one single pack of green tea in my cupboard that a student had given me (with a mix of other packs) for Christmas.  I'll have to go buy more today.

I watched the clock to make sure that I made and drank the first smoothie within an hour of waking up.  I wasn't hungry yet but wanted to stick to the rules.

two teaspoons of lemon juice thanks to a Pampered Chef garlic press

I've never had almond butter before

It sure looked pretty.

It filled the glass completely and there was still some left in the blender so I poured half in another cup and put it in the freezer.

The drink wasn't bad.  Those little chunks of flax seed on the glass were indeed little chunks that I tasted as I drank it.  It  needed some sugar but otherwise was fine.

The second half tasted better once it was a bit colder.  I think I will freeze some of the ingredients for the next ones so that it's more like a smoothie.

The new fruits keep coming

I picked up two new fruits from the store today.

Dragon Fruit and cherimoya.

Dragon Fruit

Cherimoya

The dragon fruit is from South America and I read that it is bland flavored like a melon or a kiwi.  The cherimoya is said to be a blend of a few different fruits and it sounds pretty good.  I also found out that Mark Twain said it was "the most delivious fruit known to men".

I plan to try them out tonight before I start my 3 day detox.

A New Challenge

I have wondered for awhile about doing a detox or something along those lines.  Yesterday I stumbled across Dr. Oz's Three Day Detox on Pinterest.

I did a search to see if this really was a plan that Dr. Oz came up with and not something that was just made up and had his name put on it.  I did find the same plan on Dr. Oz's website.

Click HERE to link back to Dr. Oz's site

I've been having a really hard time getting back on track with my normal diet and I've been getting more and more upset about the artificial and unhealthy food products that are out there to eat AND I have my next mud run in just a few weeks.

So I decided to do this.  

I went to the store and picked up enough ingredients to follow this plan Sunday through Tuesday.  It wasn't until after I was heading to the store that I remembered that tomorrow is Easter.  No treats for me.