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.


<3

Living My Element With Sylwia - Day 7

Last night I had my 2nd Skype date with Sylwia.  We went over my goals for the next 1, 3 and 6 months mostly, and cleared up some doubts on my daily ... progress, I could call it.

The best thing about this new way of life is that there is no pressure.  It's a beautiful thing.  All I do is pay attention to what I'm doing, feeling or dealing with when I have the urge or impulse to put something in my mouth.  For the past 7 days, these urges have diminished significantly.  I am not forcing myself not to eat something, or depriving my body of a certain nutrient because the "diet" doesn't allow it.  On the contrary, I am free to eat whatever I choose, as long as I do it mindfully.  Mindful eating.  Mindful eating was such a strange concept for me, and I am pretty proud to have grasped its meaning and benefits so quickly.

I am conscious that I probably repeat myself a lot when describing my daily "progresses." The reason why I do it is because I follow the thought process that the more one repeats something to oneself, the more they integrate it into every cell of their bodies.  I do not want to grasp the concept intellectually only, I want to feel it, live it, be it.  So, the repeating information over and over is really beneficial to me.  There has been a certain shift of consciousness in my brain when it comes to food.  It is pretty fascinating.

Last night, we agreed I would focus on two things for the next 2 weeks:

- drink 32oz of H20 daily (I know, not that much, but considering the cathing situation I explained before, it's a good way to start)
- increase exercise.. ideally cardio 3x a week

There was no water or exercise today.  I always have tomorrow. : )