It’s Sunday and oh my Gosh, here’s my blog post from LAST THURSDAY that didn’t post somehow…..so, here it is officially….
Happy Thursday! I’m doing Acupuncture at the Tampa office today, I go from here to New Port Richey to do Acupuncture at the detox clinic and then I’m off to work in Safety Harbor, where I hope to have 20 patients tonight! Working hard! Tonight, one of my favorite people is flying in from Michigan and staying with me and then a few of us are going to a conference this weekend to learn MORE about my career….I think the weekend is going to be phenomenal….what are YOU doing this weekend? If you have something exciting going on, feel free to share it.
I’m enjoying my morning juice right now. I’m loving it! Mainly because I didn’t go to the store for a week, due to my challenge and of course, I ran out of fresh fruits and veggies and couldn’t do my juicing. I have to say that I really miss my juice! I can tell a big difference in two areas. One is that I have so much more energy when I drink my fresh juice , the other is that it brightens my skin for sure. After 4 days without it, my skin looks drab and grey, sounds crazy I know but I swear that my morning juice makes my skin GLOW!
If you didn’t read about this challenge, you can click on the picture above and it will fill you in! My “week” was up yesterday ( Wednesday last week) and my challenge is complete. Here’s an updated pic of my fridge…
Truthfully, I didn’t even update the picture of the pantry because it didn’t change much. Clearly, we made it a point to use up the fresh stuff that would go bad before we really dug into the pantry. I used maybe 2 cans a beans, a jar of pickles, opened a jar of pickled beets when I ran out of chips but other than that, we didn’t use much in the pantry. Honestly, if I could keep my fridge stocked with milk and fruits and veggies, I think that I could live off of what’s in my pantry for a solid month, maybe 2.
I’ve concluded that it’s better to keep your fridge a little less stocked because then you know what you have. I discovered 4 containers of sour cream when I began to clear out my fridge! That’s just because there was so much in there that I couldn’t see it and I would just buy more! I’m definitely going to do a better job of keeping the fridge organized in order to keep better track of what’s in there.
As far as our eating experience goes, I AM SO SICK OF RICE. Don’t care if I ever eat rice again. I’m gluten free, so I can’t have pasta and rice was the only other “staple” that we were able to live off for the week. It’s a great filler but nothing more. Canned beans are certainly an inexpensive, easily stocked staple but it was all just so starchy and I was surprised how much we all missed our veggies!
Last night, our break the challenge meal was fresh tilapia, with a lemon sauce and fresh green beans, it was so refreshing and so satisfying. Guess what else? I couldn’t believe how much my kids ate. They really appreciated this meal, after a week of beans and rice. You know what else? They were asking for and craving sugar so much more than normal and I think it’s the fact that they were so carb loaded that they’re bodies were just craving more! It’s a great lesson for families who eat a lot of processed and fast food. This kind of diet perpetuates itself and it makes your children continue to crave more sugar, more bread and makes them hungrier!
Last night, before dinner, Tessa asked for candy ( for the 4th time in an hour), mind you, she had already had sorbet after lunch and at least two pieces of candy, plus apple juice and jelly on her PB and J. So, I refused to give her more and she had a full blown meltdown about it. I wasn’t giving in. I explained to her that I was making a nice dinner and that she needed to wait until that dinner was served and that I wanted her to be hungry. Finally, our break the challenge dinner was ready and guess what? My kids ate over a pound and a half of fish and at least 10-12 green beans per kid. We ran out of fish! They were literally fighting over who could have the last piece, Tessa wasn’t crying anymore, melt down was over and she was back to normal.
The final lessons for me in this challenge were…
•the importance of fresh veggies
•how a diet high in processed carbs just makes you eat more processed carbs
•from now on, I’m keeping the fridge better organized so that I know what I have and don’t over buy.
Glad I did this but also glad to be back to normal and able to go to the store for some variety. Just a great lesson in how blessed we are as Americans to eat whatever we want whenever we want it. We are so spoiled!
I am hoping to continue being more aware of what we have when I go to the store, the concept of storing food is a little crazy to me….I’ve had a super busy week and weekend and I’ve missed my blog, looking forward to doing some writing this week! Have a fabulous week everyone!