The Cleanse: Day 10 and 11

Yesterday was good. I was very good and I felt freaking incredible. Have I told you enough times how great I'm feeling? Because I am. Or at least, I was.

Today is Day 11. Remember Day 11? Fish? Chicken? Oh yeah baby.

But today was also unusual. I took the girls to pick strawberries this morning with my friend Pam. We had lunch out. There was fish on the menu but the portion sizes were HUGE. I only ate a little bit and the salad was covered in a creamy dressing. I picked through it. I think I did pretty well at lunch.

But then there was supper and things fell apart a bit cleanse-wise. Since today I was able to eat fish I made John's promised birthday supper of sushi. I made a lot of sushi. A lot. With a lot of white rice. It was delicious but I got full fast since my portion sizes are really small lately and I ate too much and a lot of it was white rice.

I felt too full afterwards. The feeling got worse and I felt gross. Bloated and nasty. Although full of very yummy sushi. My sushi rocked. My gut did not.

So here is what I realized through all of this: portion sizes are way too big in restaurants and portion sizes are way too big in most of our homes. One of the big things I've learned through this whole thing is that I eat too much and I really need only a small amount of food to function and function well. Right now I'm eating very little compared to how much I normally eat and yet I feel way better than I normally do. I'm eating way more vegetables, and many of them raw, than I normally do and like I said, I feel way better than I normally do.

This all means that I've realized something else; I have to change what I eat and how much on a permanent basis. The way I felt after the sushi (did I say how great it was?) made that even more clear to me. Vegetables in huge amounts, small amounts of whole grains and only a little meat is the magic potion to feeling great. Fruit when I feel like it.

Having said all that, today was a great day, apart from the cleanse-related stuff. It was a beautiful morning for picking strawberries. Pam thankfully played hooky from work to come with us. I wasn't sure how it would go with me and the two kids but Pam's help made it go very well. Turns out Emily loves to pick strawberries. And show us every single one she picked. "Look Pam! Look at this one! Mummy, did you see this one? Look how big it is." Every single one. Hysterical.

Also, time consuming.


Hope "helped" Pam for a while and then parked herself between two rows and ate crackers until it was time to go. So, it went well.


Tonight I made the first of at least two batches of strawberry jam. It looks ruby red and it glistens in the jars and I can't wait to taste it on a piece of homemade bread right after the Cleanse yes I know this goes against everything I said above shut up.

A girl can only have so much resolve and self-control when faced with homemade strawberry jam.