living My Element With Sylwia - Day 42

I know it's a bit too early to write about my whole day's eating intake and how my cleansing is going, however, I have a feeling the remainder of the day will be like it has been.

I have overloaded my body with fiber.  For the past 4 or 5 days, I have eaten above the required intake of fiber.  It's been great to eliminate a bunch of toxins or stagnant crap that sometimes gets stuck inside of us, but I'm not sure that a fiber overload has been the best thing for my body.  I feel a little lethargic.  All I want to do is sleep.

Today was supposed to be day 5 (Read the first blog about the cabbage soup diet and it describes what day 5 should be like.)  I took my own route and fed myself what my body was asking for.  In the morning, I had a big glass of water, about 1 hour later, I had 1/2 of a multi-grain bagel.  For lunch, I had lettuce, tomatoes, some avocado and a can of tuna.  I also had a carrot/orange juice/smoothie.  No soup as of yet.  And, I'm not very sure if there will be any soup intake today.

So, I did not finish the cleansing as it was written, but I accomplished what I set out to accomplish.  I spent almost a week eating nothing but natural ingredients.  No soda, no refined sugar, no red meat.  Lots of water, greens, #1 and #2 (lol).   I feel cleansed.  Now it's a matter of keeping up the equilibrium and not dive into the sugary fest or soda fountain whenever a little craving comes along.

Still working on fitting exercise into my schedule.. ;p

Living My Element With Sylwia - Day 41

Banana day... with skim milk.. and soup.. Can you feel the excitement?  Today was like day 2.  Not great.  I'm not a huge fan of bananas.  I rarely drink regular milk.  And, I'm sooooo tired of that cabbage soup!

Nevertheless, I got through the day.  Only drank 8oz of milk though.  I forced myself to eat the bananas and the tasty soup.  I'm done for the day.

I must say that I did stray from the day's recommended food choices and had a super smoothie with:

• oranges
• strawberries
• blueberries
• pears
• kale

That was definitely yummy!!!

My stomach is screaming at me right now!


This is how I like my bananas and my milk:

Living My Element With Sylwia - Day 40

Day 3 of this cleansing has been a breeze.  Except that I've been losing water like there is no tomorrow!!!  Since today I am allowed to eat fruits and veggies along with the soup, it's been a lot easier than yesterday. A lot more variety.  Green smoothies incorporating both fruits and veggies and of course the cabbage soup.

In the morning I made an awesome smoothie with oranges, strawberries, frozen blueberries, kale and water.  Mid morning snack, I had a pear.  Lunch, I had soup.  For dinner, I'll have a little bit of avocado in my salad, and some soup again.

Lots of Smart Water.  Lots of pee-pee.

Tomorrow... Banana & milk day.. Stay tuned.

Living My Element With Sylwia - Day 39

Today was day 2 of the cleansing.  Rough!  Only veggies and the soup all day long.  The soup is delicious, however, I'm the type of person that needs variety and eating the same thing for 7 days straight, ugh.. kinda difficult to swallow (literally)!

Today, I ate the soup for breakfast - yummy, I know.  Then for lunch I had a lot of steamed broccoli, carrots and sauteed zucchini.  A bit more soup.  For dinner, left over carrots and broccoli from lunch, a large baked potato with a little Smart Balance butter (or margarine - not sure what it is), no soup.  I drank about 32 oz of water all day throughout the day.. Not a lot, but a lot for me.

Now, as far as the water is concerned.. I have tried to go the green route and stop buying bottled water.  What that does is makes me drink less and less water.  I like distilled water.  I always drank distilled water prior to being hurt.  I decided, then, to go back to my old habit and started drinking Smart Water.  I, personally, love the distilled taste with some electrolytes thrown in.  It helps me crave it and drink more of it (even if it means more potty and cathing.. blah.)

So, that is today's cleansing update.  It's been rough.  I took a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, because physiologically this is a big shock to the body.  You eat constantly.  You, actually, eat as much soup as you want (if you want), in the same token, everything you eat is a natural diuretic and laxative!  The body gets rid of lots of crap - my little pun!

Tomorrow, is fruits + veggies + soup!  The fruit smoothies will be a break from today's veggie only regime.

'Till tomorrow.

Living My Element with Sylwia - Day 36-38

You know how most people say, "I'll start the diet on Monday," or "I'll begin to exercise on Monday?"  Well, I'm not one of those people.  I, usually, start things whenever I'm bitten by the bug.  There is no order or rhyme to when or why I do anything of the type.  I do them whenever I feel I'm ready to start doing them.  No need for a special month, week-day, time or occasion.  I feel like doing it, I do it.

I started this program with Sylwia to learn more about me and food in general.  It has been a way to acknowledge my body and its needs on a complete different level than I have ever experienced before.  There is no guilt, no judging and no regrets.  It's all part of a learning experience.  I will be speaking to Sylwia very shortly, so I'll keep this post to the point.

I have started a 7-day cleansing process.  I eat all the time, drink gallons of water and my body thanks me for the gifts.   I've done this once before, shortly after my accident when I was in Brazil.  I was still disposing of accumulated corticosteroids in my system and needed a way to cleanse myself naturally and quickly.  In Brazil, they call it the cabbage soup diet.  I prefer to change the word diet to something else, such as "cleansing".  This is what the process entails for 7 straight days:

• Day 1 - you may eat all the fruit you want and drink as much of the soup you want throughout the whole day.  You may drink tea, juices and water.
• Day 2 - eat all the veggies you want.  No fruits allowed.  Also drink as much of the soup as you'd like throughout the day.  At night, eat a boiled potato with butter.  You may drink water.
• Day 3 - Combine days 1 & 2, but no potato.  Soup as desired. 
• Day 4 - Eat up to 6 bananas (you'll be peeing like Seabiscuit, therefore losing lots of potassium).  You may drink as much skim milk as you wish.  Soup all day as desired.  The banana day deters sweet cravings as well.
• Day 5 - 17 oz of meat and up to 6 tomatoes throughout the day, accompanying the soup.  Drink at least 6 to 8 cups of water this day to get rid of the uric acid build up in your body.  (I'm personally changing red meat to fish)
• Day 6 - All the meat and legumes you can eat.  Soup all day. 
• Day 7 - Brown rice, natural fruit juices and vegetables.  Drink the soup all day.  

SOUP RECIPE:

 Ingredients:

6 large onions

2 green peppers

1 or 2 tomatoes

1 carrot

2 cups of celery

1 whole cabbage

chicken flavor bouillon

salt and pepper to taste

Cut all the ingredients up in small edible pieces.  Put it all in a pot, fill up with 14-16 cups of water.  Bring it to a low boil for a whole hour.  Fifteen minutes before it's ready, put in seasoning.
Very yummy!

This is what I did today:

• Fruit smoothie for breakfast (strawberries, frozen blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, oranges, water, pear, one scoop of vanilla Jay Robb whey protein sugar free)
• Soup for lunch
• Fruit smoothie for snack (pineapple, mint, ginger, apple, water, ice)
• Soup for dinner
• Oh, and loads of water!  Yay for my water intake.  

Tomorrow is my all veggie day.. I'll let y'all know how it goes.


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