10 day challenge - bonus post!

This summer I started (but did not finish...don't judge!) a 21 day cleanse.  I was eating a lot of salads and buying crazy things that I had never even HEARD of (what in the world is tahini anyways?).  I also had to look up pictures of some vegetables (fennel bulb) to know what to look for at the store.

Well, this is different.  The start of the journey thoughts were the same though:  Eat better, feel better.  I lost 12+ lbs in doing that cleanse in the first week (I was coming off 2 weeks of almost entirely eating out morning, noon and night - 5 lbs of this weight has been kept off).  This time around it's much more sustainable.  It's macaroni and cheese with 100% whole grain pasta and organic cheese.  It's biscuits with 100% whole grain flour and organic butter.  It's organic whole fat yogurt with blueberries and a touch of honey.  It's chocolate!! Yes, I eat a square every day :)

Lisa from 100daysofrealfood.com recommend 85% dark chocolate.  Baby steps.

This is doable!  AND my body is naturally cleansing itself.  This means, I'm shedding weight.  I know, I know, it's water weight, but the scale is going down every day (last night I ate two pumpkin muffins before bed and it still went down!  side note: I made these muffins with King Arthur's white whole wheat flour because I didn't have spelt laying around...imagine that, no spelt in the house).  I weighed myself this morning and I am down 3 lbs already.

In my first post, one of the things I wanted to achieve was having more energy.  The first day, I could have crashed at 5:30pm.  I was sitting on the couch while the kids were playing outside and my eyes were getting heavy..... Well, yesterday (I didn't have much time to sit down BUT..) I wasn't tired!  I will continue to monitor my nighttime energy through the next week.

Enough about me, what about the kids?
I never realized how much food my kids get from their friends.  Every day they are offered food.  Yesterday was the first day that they turned it down!!  Very proud of my sons!  They asked if they could take the food and save it for the end of the 10 days.  I think that would be a funny conversation among 2nd graders.

Today, my oldest son was offered graham crackers from the school nurse and he turned them down.  He then said "I should have asked her if they were 100% whole wheat."  (I chuckled then reminded him it's 100% whole grain).
Why was my son at the nurses?  Stomachache (my guess is from constipation).  I didn't think about increasing their water consumption with all of these high fiber foods and ingredients.  When we got home, I immediately had him drink a glass of water and then another an hour later.  He's feeling better now.

Cheers to the journey!  Today is Taco Tuesday (but on a Wednesday)!

Things I've learned:
1.  My body retains water when I eat processed crap
2.  I like seeing my scale go down every day
3.  Kids need to drink more water when increasing their fiber consumption