Day 10

Fruit/Veggie day.  Technically today is the last day of the first round, so technically the new round begins tomorrow, even though my appointment for the sphere repositioning was at 9:15am.  I have lost a total of 10lbs and 3 inches from my waist so far!  That puts me right at the 5% mark of weight loss that they claimed can be achieved.  I had hoped for a little more, and there were a few things I did "wrong" during these past 10 days that may account for it.

1.  Missing rotation times.  Hey, it's hard when you're at work and you get into something.  Or you're out and about and don't really have the ability to keep track of time.  Two hours goes by and you don't even realize it.

2.  More raw food.  Should've had more raw and less cooked, with a little more focus on cabbage (blah, boring).

3.  Slow down rotations.  I think with the missing rotation times, I've let myself feel harried about doing the rotations, so I've been doing them too quickly which may have not let the full effect happen.  I definitely noticed a difference between the speed that Andre did on them today vs what I have been doing, so I will make a conscious effort to slow down.

But I am super excited for the accomplishment so far!  I've been sleeping better the past couple of days, and waking up more easily.  I've had more energy during the day, and I'm actually more pleasant to be around at work.  Even without the morning coffee.  People are beginning to notice the weight loss now - clothing fits better, I look slimmer...  Still got a ways to go, but this is a great start!

The next round focuses on the large and small intestines for detox.  The balls are placed a little lower behind the ears (so I don't have to remove my glasses to rotate them now).  As it turns out, when you begin a new 10-day round, you start back at fruit/veggie day again, so tomorrow is another fruit/veggie day rather than switching to milk.  And since tomorrow is technically the first day of the next round, I have 2 fruit/veggie days to go through before the next milk day now.  This also marks the beginning of the vitamin and herb supplements.  So now, twice a day, I will be taking the supplements (morning and evening) - no eating for 2 hours after taking them, so first thing in the morning and then after the 6pm food deadline works well.  Plus, there's a new schedule for the rotations.  Now it will be every 1.5 hours (as if it wasn't hard enough to do 2 hours before...), with the mandatory times at 4 and 7 pm.  Suggestion is to start rotations at 7am, 8:30am, or 10am to force the two times to fall in.

Andre says that this round doesn't typically see a lot of weight loss, but rather the loss is in inches around the midsection.  There's generally weight loss that corresponds with it, but not always.  He has seen some people lose several inches from their waist and actually gain a pound or two during this cycle.  He also says this round is very unforgiving if you cheat, so pay close attention to the food.  Cheating hasn't been a problem for me - it's the rotations, so I'll definitely have to watch that.  I also asked him about the vegetable stock; he approves - he actually had the exact stock I'm using stashed away in his cupboard to show people what's OK to get - so that's good to go.  Says that it doesn't count toward the "item" count for the day, but 8oz of stock would account for about a half pound of the total for the day, so I'll have to watch that.  I'm finding that 1.5lbs of fruits/veggies is actually a lot of food.

Going to have some cantaloupe at noon today, this evening will be three-pepper "fajitas", a recipe from the Sadkhin site.  My change to it is that I will add carrots to the mix.  I think that'll add a nice flavor to it.  Plus they call for a red bell pepper - I can't do that because of the red skin, so I'm swapping it for an orange bell pepper.

Three Pepper Fajitas

1 each green, yellow, and orange bell peppers, cut into strips
6 to 8 baby carrots, cut into strips
1 sweet onion, cut into strips
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice from 1 lime
fresh cilantro
sea salt
lettuce leaves

Heat a non-stick skillet on high.  Add peppers, carrots, onion, cilantro and garlic and squeeze juice on top.  Sprinkle a dash of salt on top.  Saute until tender.  Wrap in lettuce leaves with a little more cilantro for extra kick, and serve.

Makes 4 wraps

Edit: I forgot to add the garlic to mine, but it was still tasty.  And I discovered if you chase it with honeyed green tea, the tea ends up tasting like chocolate.  Yes, it does.

Day 9

Fruit/veggie day.  Made up a giant salad to munch on throughout the day, using the dressing I made a couple days ago. Spinach, broccoli, and carrots. Quite tasty, though it could really have used some cheese.  Good energy levels today.

I treated myself to a glass of wine this evening as a reward for completing the first cycle. I go in first thing in the morning to get the spheres repositioned and the first official weigh-in.  Pretty sure I hit the 5% mark, but I was hoping for more.  A step on the scale today was slightly disappointing, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.  In any event, people are starting to notice the weight loss now, so that's exciting.

I plan to try out one of the recipes on the Sadkhin site tomorrow. Round one ... complete!

Day 8

Milk day.  Got a chance to play around with the milk today to do something interesting to it.  The results: Delicious!  While you're all planning to feast on milk and honey "one of these days"... I'm gonna do it now!

Energy levels are really good today.  I'm feeling a little feisty, actually.  I've also lost another inch on my waist and I'm beginning to worry about needing to go buy new pants.  Or belts.  Or something!  That's a good thing to have to worry about.  So far, I've managed to stay very close to the 2-hour marks for the spherical rotations, but I think I might have a bruise on the right one.  It's a little sore.  Only 1 more full day before I head back in to get the spheres repositioned and have an official weigh-in!!

Frothy Milk and Honey
8 oz whole milk
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat milk in a frothing pitcher.  When warm, froth it.  Combine honey, vanilla, and cinnamon in a microwavable container and heat on high for 20 seconds.  Pour honey mixture into a mug, then pour the frothy milk over it.  Stir carefully so as not to reintegrate the froth.  Top off with froth and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

Coffee Milkshake

8 oz whole milk
8 oz decaffeinated coffee, brewed
1 Tbsp honey
ice

Microwave honey on high for 10 seconds to liquefy, then combine with milk and coffee and ice in a blender.  Blend until smooth.

Day 7

Milk day!  I like milk days.  I don't really get to be creative so much with them because there's really only so much you can do, especially when you're bringing it to work.  Created a giant thing of iced chai latte in the morning and sipped on it all afternoon, and honestly, that's good enough for me.  I love chai lattes!  I'm working from home tomorrow, so I might try to get at least semi creative with the milk.  Maybe I'll heat some up and froth it and add tea and make it a hot drink.  Or maybe I'll mix it with some ice and make a frappe out of it. Or both!

I did, however, play around with creating a salad dressing or veggie dip today for my next fruit/veggie day.  1/4 cup of honey, tsp of lemon juice, tsp of vanilla extract, salt, paprika, cumin, Italian seasoning... I think that was everything that went into it.  Warmed up the honey first, then whisked it all together.  It tastes pretty good, so I'm excited to try putting it on a basic spinach salad on Friday.

So far, so good, with the food, it seems.  Hunger isn't really much of an issue anymore.  The only thing that's really kind of getting to me is the whole "have to rotate the spheres every 2 hours" thing.  I keep missing the 2-hour mark and I'm always late.  It's just so hard to have to keep watching the clock, especially when you're right in the middle of intensely working on something.  Truly annoying.  But, I am doing my best and will continue to do so!

Day 6

Fruit/Veggie day.  Had the carrot soup, which turned out AWESOME.  The avocado that was garnish in the photo ended up getting blended into it, and then I added the rest of the avocado, chunked up, after I heated the soup up.  And that was just amazing.  Cut and print, that recipe is a keeper! 

I brought in papaya for my third item.  I had tried some a long time ago and didn't care for it.  Decided to give it another shot, hoping that maybe my palate had evolved over the years to make it tolerable, since it's marked as being a super item for me.  Alas, I still don't like papaya and couldn't get through more than 3 chunks before deciding I just couldn't eat it.  Any tips on how to make papaya better?

Today was a low energy day.  Struggled getting through the day, though I think it has something to do with the fact that I didn't eat nearly as much yesterday as I had planned to.  I'm feeling pretty well now, though. Back to milk tomorrow, so no recipe tonight.

Day 5

Fruit/Veggie day.  The Spinach and Turnips turned out really great, and is surprisingly filling.  I wasn't able to eat it all today.  I think once I'm done with this and back on full food again, I'll upgrade that dish with mushrooms and bacon, and discard the broth after it's done cooking.  That'll make it really shine and be an awesome side dish.  Or full dish.  More salt needed upon eating though.  Spinach really needs salt.  Oh yes, and I went with the mango again today.  Mmm mango.

So I did an unofficial weigh-in today.  Official weigh-ins will be at the Sadkhin place, on their scale, but halfway through each week I'll do an unofficial weigh-in using the scale at work... which is fairly accurate.  According to that, I'm down 7lbs!  Which seems to correspond with the inch that's come off my waist.  Loose jeans!!

No hunger pangs  today.  Ate til I was full, and have been keeping my tea filled.  Making the carrot soup tonight, as promised.  It's difficult cooking when you can't really sample what you're cooking to make sure it's any good.  But so far, I've been doing ok in that area.  Soup's on!

Carrot Soup
3/4 lb baby carrots
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup vegetable stock
1 Tbsp dried Herbes de Provence
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp lemon juice

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, saute onion and garlic with a Tbsp of stock until onions turn translucent.  Add carrots, the rest of the stock, herbs, pepper, and salt and bring to a simmer (reduce heat when necessary).  Allow to simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes until carrots are tender.  Use a blender or stick blender to puree to desired consistency.  If soup is too thick, add more stock.  Add lemon juice and stir well.  Serve topped with fresh parsley for garnish.  Or avocado slices as pictured.

Day 4

Another milk day.  Either milk days are easier in general, or I'm just really adjusting.  No real hunger pangs today aside from the typical "it's mealtime, gimme ma food!" pangs.  Soothe the savage beast with a little bit of milk and/or tea and it's happy.  Today's meals consisted of a glass of milk at noon, a chai tea latte in the afternoon, and another tea latte thing for dinner.  I think splitting it into three makes for the best use of the milk - 8oz in the morning, and 2 6oz servings throughout the afternoon. Oh yes, and I've lost an inch from my waist!

I had another revelation today for how to deal with the fruit/veggie days.  Vegetable stock.  Yup.  Now, I haven't consulted with Andre to ensure that it's ok to use, but I don't really see any reason why not.  While I could have made my own stock, I decided to see what was on the shelves first.  Meijer (local grocery store) has its own branded "natural" vegetable stock, and looking at the ingredients, it's just carrots, celery, onion, honey (!), salt, and water.  Nothing on the No list in there.  The only thing I want to ask is if this means I have to count it as carrots and celery for two of my three daily items, or if it's kind of a free thing, since it is just stock.  What makes the Meijer brand stock unique from others is that it uses honey instead of sugar, and there's absolutely no oil involved.  Plus a lot of others have tomato, which is on my No list.  So I'm pretty excited about this find.  It's also cheap enough that I probably can't actually make it myself for cheaper.  Sweet!  And now I have a world of opportunities available to me for making food.

When I got home, I decided it was time to make tomorrow's food.  I think that's going to be a  pattern - evenings on the day before a fruit/veggie day will be spent preparing the next day's food so that I can just bring it to work and be done with it.  No idea what to call this recipe, so please feel free to suggest something.  For now, we'll just call it Spinach and Turnips.  It's almost soup-like, but not quite.  I haven't decided what my third item for tomorrow will be - the avocados are ripe now, so I may go with one of those, but since I'm trying to keep at least one "super" item each day, I might just have a mango.  I think tomorrow night I'll make a carrot soup... hmm, stay tuned for that.

Spinach and Turnips
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 red onion, diced
2 turnips (or 1 rutebaga), diced
3 Tbsp mixed dried herbs (basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, parsley)
2 cups vegetable stock
10oz baby spinach
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, combine honey, vanilla, garlic, salt and onion over medium-high heat.  Saute until onions are caramelized, about 5 minutes.  Reduce heat to medium and add turnips, stirring occasionally, for 7-8 minutes, or until edges of turnips are beginning to soften.  Add herbs and stock, reducing heat to a simmer.  Cover and simmer for 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add spinach and cover, allowing to cook for about 5 minutes, or until spinach is wilting, then stir to complete cooking.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 2 servings.