My first ever clean program cheat: Treasure Island’s “The Vegan” Gardein Chicken with Pesto Sauce, Broccoli, Morel Mushrooms and Potatoes; My apple carrot ginger juice I miraculously found at McCarren Airport prior to flying back to NYC.
Day 8- January 9th:
Today started off awesome. Woke up way early do to the time difference and instead of going back to bed went to the hotel gym instead. I completed a tough hill treadmill workout and felt amazing. After I enjoyed my smoothie made in my hotel room using my new mini blender (which worked awesome by the way) and my Whole Foods grub. After catching up on emails it was time to go to a press conference, so just before leaving I heat up my soup and put it I. A coffee thermos to sip for lunch after the event. The event and subsequent meetings went great. Later on at the hotel bar around 6 pm I noshed on some hummus and veggies sans drink and was freaking proud of myself for going that long before eating solid food. It all went downhill quick at dinner. It was a prefixed executive dinner and despite the restaurants efforts, handling the fact I was vegan and gluten free was a challenge, never mind the no nightshade or corn thing on this cleanse. I ended up having to eat (if I didn’t in this setting it would have been really rude) gluten free (probably corn) pasta, lots of tomatoes between the pasta sauce and special tomato and avocado salad they made me, and a few bites of raspberry sorbet that more than likely had sugar in it. I feel so defeated. In hindsight it could have been worse (i.e. pizza) so luckily all I cheated with was some nightshade veggies, corn and sugar. I’m going to get back on track tomorrow and extend my cleanse an extra day to hopefully make up for it.
Day 9- January 10th:
After last evening’s disappointment, I tried my best to not repeat the same errors today. I woke up a bit earlier and squeezed in a bonus workout that I hadn’t planned for during my trip and felt great after that. Then it was on to work and walking the show. I had a business lunch, where I ordered a chopped salad with chickpeas and that worked out well. I was also sure to drink a ton of water from my bobble. Where I ran into an issue again was at dinner. Most of our vendors know that I’m a vegan, and in this scenario little did I know that our dinner host for this meal had actually done research prior to our meeting and found a Vegas restaurant with an actual vegan entrée for me (it was at Phil’s Italian Steakhouse in Treasure Island for anyone wondering). For me not to eat this entrée would be been horribly rude considering he made it a point to point it out to me on the menu. So I ordered it. It was mostly clean with the exception of the gardein chicken and the potatoes. I have to say though, it was delicious! Well worth cheating on the cleanse for. All in all I’m really trying not to beat myself up over it. Instead I think I’ll go ahead and try to either extend my cleanse two days, or substitute two days with a liquid only meal plan to make up for the slip ups. I’m trying to consider it an occupational hazard and I’m still pretty happy with how much I stuck to the program, in Vegas of all cities to begin with.
Day 10- January 11th:
I had to get up crazy, crazy early this morning to head back to NYC from Vegas. I didn’t have time to make my own smoothie and clean the blender and pack it before heading to the airport, so I was a bit stressed out about it. After we arrived at the airport, I used my Gate Guru app on my iPhone and learned there was a juice bar in our terminal, so I ran over and got an apple ginger carrot juice, which worked out perfect. By the time I got back to the gate it was time to board and I from there had a pretty uneventful flight back to NYC. I decided to go home and finish up a few work items from there as opposed to headed to the office, so Jim hooked me up and got me a Waffle and Wolf #7 waffle for lunch to have while I worked. Later in the day I fell asleep on the couch, and before I knew it Jim woke me up with a nice bowl of soup for dinner, which was a pleasant surprise. We watched a movie, and then I took some time to put together our lunch for the following day (Deconstructed Sushi Salad from the Appetite for Reduction cookbook, delish!). After popping a melatonin to attempt to get back on an eastern time sleeping schedule, I read Brendan Brazier’s Thrive book and then fell into a deep sleep until work the next day. It was nice to be back on the “clean” schedule.
Day 11- January 12th:
I had an all day sales meeting today with our company Sales Directors, of which I was super prepared for in advance of my trip to Vegas so it was a pretty non-eventful, stress free day. My sushi salad was one of the highlights. It included greens, brown rice and edamame mixed with rice wine vinegar (just like sushi) and topped with carrots, cucumber, shallots, nori, sesame seeds and a green onion dressing. I generally hate salads but I’m really starting to love the greens plus legume plus grain combo in my meals. After work I made a quick stop at home for my dinner soup, and then headed to the salon for a much needed trim. After Jim and I got our meals and clothes ready for the next day, we made giant cups of herbal tea because we were starving. This is probably the first time the entire cleanse I was genuinely hungry in the evening. The tea did the trick, we had the tea, watched a movie, and was in bed by 10:30.
Day 12- January 13th:
Friday the 13th! Today went just like all the others energy wise. I was still crazy focused and productive. I had a great day at work, and after work had plans to hit up the gym, and then go out to dinner with some of my vegan friends at Soy and Sake. I actually got out of work on time for the first time in a very, long time on a Friday and was super excited to go to bootcamp class, but then ran into this on the way to the gym and had to revert home since I couldn’t cross the road to get to the gym. Crazy. I instead skipped the gym and headed out to dinner and had a fantastic meal. Since I knew I was going for dinner in the evening, I had my soup in the afternoon for lunch and switched my solid and liquid meals for the day. By the time I got to the restaurant I was pretty hungry, but proud of myself in that I ordered a giant avocado salad to start (which was AMAZING, definitely getting that again next time I go to Soy and Sake), and I also got a few sushi rolls. Where I failed was I totally forgot to get my rolls with brown rice instead of white rice. I ate them anyway. So that makes cleanse fail #3. It was also tough not to have any cocktails with my friends, but they were all cool and understanding of my detox and totally supportive. In the end it wasn’t a super late evening, I was home by 11 and in bed shortly after 12.
Day 13- January 14th:
I slept in an extra hour or two and then headed to yoga with a friend, and then to get our nails done in the neighborhood. I had my smoothie prior to yoga, and then Jim ordered us some sushi which arrived when I got home after getting my nails done. I had ordered an avocado salad again as well, but it was so sad compared to what I had the night prior, so I didn’t even eat it. My rolls were great though. Jim accidentally forgot to get two of the rolls with brown rice, which was funny being I had done the same thing the night prior. I ate my two rolls that had the brown rice and was stuffed, so I wasn’t affected but Jim had some really strong sugar cravings after having the white rice. It was pretty amazing to see how easily food can “flip a switch” and make you crave something you wouldn’t have wanted if you didn’t prompt the craving with another food. After the sushi we had a relaxing afternoon at home and watched a movie or two, and then got dressed up and went out to a really rad gallery opening in Chelsea. The gallery closed up at nine, so we were still home pretty early and made it a point to rest up and get most of our errands and chores done tomorrow.
Day 14- January 15th:
Jim and I both slept in until around 10:30 am, and as a result we ended up skipping our smoothie in the morning and diving right into our solid meal for lunch. We went to Waffle and Wolf again and got another #7 (which is so, so good!). During the week Waffle and Wolf ran a Groupon special so we bought two of them and redeemed it for our lunch. Afterwards we did some random house chores and then together went grocery shopping for the third and last week of our detox. Since we didn’t do a smoothie in the morning, we had a more substantial “snack” consisting of a larabar and a rice cake with almond butter, but in all honesty we really weren’t that hungry up through our dinner. Just like the first week, I made large batches of two different soups at the same time. I made another broccoli cream soup and a curried cauliflower one. I also took the time to make a nut pate, homemade hummus, kale chips and some other snacks and meal prep while the soups were simmering. I was super multi-tasking like crazy. Worked like a charm, I now have little to no cooking to do all week and it only took me about an hour and a half to prep everything for the week. After enjoying our soup, we had some tea and watched Moneyball, which was a great movie if you haven’t seen it!
Overall:
Holy freaking cheat days. Or should I say fail week? I haven’t slipped up this much on a cleanse in my history of cleansing. The two slip-ups in Vegas were tough to avoid, but I’m also beating myself up over the white rice on Friday as well. I’m going to try to make an effort to maybe extend my detox an extra few days so I can make up for it. Not that it’s 100% necessary per the program, I’d just feel better doing it. Another thing I’ve learned this week is salad can be awesome! I previously used to hate salad, but I had some really great ones this week. I especially love adding grains and legumes to them, yum. On the scale, I’m down another pound from where I was last week, which isn’t as huge a drop as the first week but I’m still happy with it. I did notice that it appears tamari sauce makes me bloated probably due to all the sodium. Since I had sushi two times this week, I’m guessing I’m retaining more water than usual and that I actually did lose more weight than I’m showing on the scale. I’m also really happy with how much I worked out this week despite my crazy travel schedule. I have to travel for work again this coming weekend but it’s for an event I organized so I have control over the food I get, which is good. I’m looking forward to finishing the last week strong, and seeing how I feel by day 21 to see if I continue for another few days to make up for my lost ground this week.
On a non-cleanse related note, I have a bunch of photos I took both at Vegas at the CES show as well as at the art gallery opening this past weekend. I’m working on posts for both, so stay tuned! I’m crazy busy with work the next two weeks so once February 1st rolls around hopefully my life will return to normal the the regular blogging can commence again.
Tags: 2012, Clean Program Detox, Week Two
{image credit: 
Brooklyn Bliss 