Month: June 2012

Here I am almost at the end of Week 1 (of 3) of The Ultimate Reset. I’d tell you I feel great, except the allergic reaction I am experiencing — which I wrote about yesterday — is quite annoying. At any rate, the symptoms are subsiding, so I hope the situation is more workable by tomorrow.

You might ask, how do I know it’s allergies and not a cold? The simple way to tell is that the snot is clear. An infection will have thick yellow or greenish snot. Okay, end of gross discussion.

Yesterday’s food was a challenge for me, because I got so wrapped around other projects that I blew it at suppertime. Plus I went off book for breakfast and lunch.

THE FOOD

You may recall that I forgot to eat the farina for breakfast on Day 5, so I had it on Day 6. I had never tried farina before, and I didn’t want to miss out. You know what? It’s pretty good! Not a lot of flavor, but with blueberries and a little honey, I really enjoyed it.

The baked tempeh I was supposed to have for breakfast, then, I had for lunch, because I wanted to try it. I paired it with some quinoa salad with cucumber, tomato, avocado, and a little toasted sesame oil and red wine vinegar — delicious and going on my permanent menu — but the tempeh itself was merely okay. If I’m going to eat soy products, seems I prefer tofu.

Sadly, supper went a bit awry, timewise.

I didn’t go off-book for supper, which comprised a tasty cashew-zucchini soup, toasted millet, and roasted root veggies.

I was on top of the soup and millet, thrilled at having finally found millet at a local store and eager to try it.

For the soup, I had to soak cashews for an hour to soften them up and also steam zucchini. No problem, I was right on schedule.

When those items were almost done, I realized I’d forgotten to take the supplements I was supposed to take 30 minutes prior to the meal. Damn! So I took them, and went back to tending the toasting millet.

As I stirred the millet — which is a grain, btw, so it’s really a side dish — I said to myself, “What am I going to be eating with this?” At that point I remembered the roasted root vegetables. Double damn!

I turned the oven on to 450, quickly cut up a beet and a sweet potato, put them into a bowl, and microwaved them for about 6 minutes. Then I placed them into a roasting dish, sprayed them with some oil, added salt, and stuck them into the oven to roast.

I ate the soup while the veggies were roasting — delicious! I even ate the plain millet. Meh, but it was plain millet, so how great could it be. It was edible.

The beet and sweet potato were really tasty. I enjoy both those veggies, so no surprise there.

LESSONS LEARNED

As with anything in life, planning is key. I really should have planned the meals, especially supper, better, but I am not really much for complicated meals, so I’m out of my element. Everything worked out okay. I guess that means it was no big deal, but it was really annoying at the time.

Also, I had a bit of a scare the next morning as I looked into the toilet — then I remembered the last thing I ate was a beet. Keep that in mind the morning of Day 7, so you don’t freak out.

THE FOOD

Breakfast on Day 4 introduced the mixed fruit plate, along with a slice of bread and some yogurt. For Day 5, I must have looked at the wrong week, because I accidentally ate a fruit plate when I should have had farina. That’s too bad, because, never having tried it before, I was looking forward to farina. I’ll have to give it a try on one of the upcoming fruit plate days, which is every breakfast for the last two weeks of the Reset.

Lunch on Day 4 was the Nori Rolls and Lentil Salad again, so I made the lentils into a stew again, threw the ingredients from the Nori Rolls into it, and at it all hot. Very tasty.

I was meeting someone for lunch on Day 5, but fortunately part of the lunch was a raw vegetable plate, so I ate the Quinoa Salad (with cucumbers and tomatoes) at home, and in place of the raw vegetable plate I had a salad at the restaurant. All good!

Dinner both nights was stir-fried veggies, but Day 4 paired it with quinoa — which I just love — while Day 5 paired it with brown rice. Very filling both days.

HOW I FEEL AFTER DAY 5

So far I am loving this. I don’t know how to explain it, but today when I was doing yoga, a particular DVD that I’ve done at least 10 times, I really felt in the zone, somehow. I just felt lighter and more in tune with what was going on. Not sure how else to describe it, but it sure felt great.

A bit of the burning in my eyes returned the afternoon of Day 5. Just a bit. I’ll continue to monitor it.

So far so good. The weekend looms ahead, as do my last 2 non-fruit-only breakfasts and some really interesting-looking meals, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Day 3 presented me with some logistical challenges, because I needed to be out of the house (I work at home) during the time I usually take the Alkalinize supplement and also when I usually eat supper.

I didn’t time things well. I took my Alkalinize packet with me, wanting to consume it around the same time I usually do — 2:30 — but that didn’t work out, and then I lost track of time. So, as it turned out, I didn’t get my Alkalinize until 5:30, which meant I had to wait 2 hours before I could take my pre-meal supplements, and then a half-hour after that to eat supper. So … 8:00 was supper time — not outrageous, but generally I eat around 5:30, so it was pretty late for me.

At any rate, I am guessing that people who work outside their homes have many more logistical challenges than this small blip for me. They probably are more used to dealing with them, though.

THE MEALS

How were the meals today? GREAT! I dunno, maybe I’m just hungry — although I don’t feel hungry — but the food so far is really good.

Breakfast was the same as day one: 2 eggs, whole wheat bread, spinach (yeah, I went and picked up some spinach, so I didn’t have to eat kale again), and a cup of fruit, which this time was a nectarine.

Lunch was pretty fantastic, the way I altered it, anyway. It was supposed to be green lentil salad and a chopped green salad, but I was like, “why do I want to eat 2 salads?”, so I made the lentils into soup. It included carrots, shallots, cilantro, toasted sesame oil, and, of course, lentils. I hadn’t used French green lentils before. They are really nice, retaining their firmness much better than their brown cousins. The soup — well, it was more of a stew, actually — was delicious.

My late supper was something I would have altered, had I been home to prep it, but, because I knew I’d be out, I made it ahead of time. The cucumber salad was very nice, with rice wine and red vinegars, plus some toasted sesame seeds and seaweed. The miso soup I made from a package. It was good. It was the nori roll that I probably would have reconfigured as a cooked and served hot meal, rather than as a cold sushi style roll. I think the rice, carrots, cucumbers, and smoked tempeh (a soy-based bacon substitute for vegans, something I had not tried before, but which is very tasty) would have made a good hot rice dish. Even cold from the fridge, though, the nori roll was very good.

THOUGHTS AFTER DAY 3

• I feel really good. Supposedly days 3 and 4 are the bears to get through. For me it was Day 1 — Days 2 and 3 were a breeze.
• I am extremely happy with the food I’m eating so far. I have tried several new foods already, and they have all been tasty, things I’m glad to now have in my arsenal. (Kale may become one of them — I must not be cooking it long enough.)
• The burning sensation in my eyes is almost negligible, relative to what I’m accustomed to. Not sure what to make of that, but I like it.