Breakfast
smoothie day 3
Almond, banana, date, cinnamon, almond milk smoothie with the usual
healthy suspects: sunflower seeds, chia seeds, bee pollen, grapefruit
seed extract, liquid minerals, spirulina, flax, psllium
#drinkyourbfast #healthyeats #juicecleanse #feelinggood
Lunch and mid-day juice.
Green one = "gazpacho juice" kale, garden toms, celery, cucumber, parsley
Orange one: carrots, apple, sweet potato, cucumber, celery, ginger
Both super delish!
Breakfast smoothie
Fresh Maine blueberry, spinach, almond milk smoothie #drinkyourbfast #blueberryseason #local #healthyeats
Tons o Maine blueberries - fresh (other 50 lbs going in the freezer)
1 banana
handful of org spinach
Greek yogurt
spirulina
bee pollen
sunflower seeds
chia seeds
flax seeds
cinnamon
liquid minerals
grapefruit seed extract
pysillium husks
ice to make it cold - because room temp smoothies, especially with almond milk are Nasty!
Lunch was an everything-green-in-my-fridge pressed juice, which I failed to take a photo of. I added some fresh squeezed lemon and ice to help ease in on the first green juice of the day.
Helpful hints:
If you don't add fruit to your fresh pressed juices, like me, just greens, then add a half a fresh lemon and/or some ice, it helps cut the "green" flavor
Mid-Afternoon Juice
10 carrots
1 inch ginger
5 springs fresh mint
1 apple
This one had some bite. But very refreshing.
Dinner
I had a hankering for curry. Curry powder, turmeric, cardamom and ginger are great for cleanses. They aid in circulation of your blood, purification of your internal organs, help with inflammation and aid in the inevitable flatulence that comes with the first day of a juice cleanse. So instead of a juice I made a veg soup. Pureed it all, so it is still a liquid. Juice-like right? I find it really interesting that when your body isn't busy digesting continuously throughout the day, what it asks you for. Today my body asked for curry and turmeric and ginger, lots of it, which leads me to believe I need the cleansing that those spices offer. I listened and delivered. My soup is very satisfying and clearly something I needed. Rather than focus on the hunger pangs on the first day of a cleanse, focus on what your body is telling you. You may be surprised.
Roasted Cauliflower Squash Curry Soup (with a dollop of greek yogurt for pizazz)
As with any juice cleanse, drink plenty of water. You should juice up to 5 times in a day, drinking throughout the day and sipping each one. I added a Braggs apple cider vinegar drink to my day, something different and to aid with my intestines.
It has just been one of those months, long work days, busy weekends, fun celebrations, a mini-vacay and some travel thus resulting in every aspect of my health-wellness balance being thrown off. Try as I might, week by week, day by day, my good habits get pushed to the wayside due to time, fatigue or just plain fun.
I think we all ebb and flow in our wellness, sometimes we are just too busy in life to focus on eating right and working out daily, finding time for centering and balance. I know I am guilty of it, but the reality is it takes work. Eating well, being a conscious consumer, practicing with intent and purpose, finding focus and center, all take time and energy that in the summer I would rather devote (although temporarily) to beach days, taking the boat out on the water, hanging out with friends, enjoying a few too many summer cocktails and enjoying these brief few months of beauty we get here in Maine.
It amazes me now how little time and how very minor deviations from my norm effect me tremendously. Sure I haven't been eating as clean as I should, I am not practicing yoga daily, but if I think of in comparison to before I became a gf, lf, meat-free, conscious consumer, it is a wonder I ever felt good. Such minor shifts from my norm now, are so much more noticeable to me than when I was a gluten lactose eating hound.
Now I get a few days of crazy and every part of my existence is thrown off kilter. I don't sleep as well, I don't feel rested and energized throughout the day. I eat weird things, although my "weird" is entirely subjective now. It amazes me that I have found what "good" and "normal" feel like simultaneously for me, I instantly know when one starts to slip.
Sure I have been enjoying my past month, we bought a boat, there has been ample celebrations, hey it is the summer and with that comes cook outs, hang outs and weird foods. And it was my birthday! All of this comes with foods I almost never eat like meat, copious amounts of dairy and sugar and of course alcohol. There is something about the summer and ice-cold cocktails that go hand in hand and cocktails and celebrations go hand in hand too (hey I'm allowed one vice right?! I don't get many options). It is only after repeated weekend celebrations, where I feel sluggish and groggy which almost never happens for me; even when I cut out coffee, I always have boundless energy. Alcohol although yummy, especially this new found passionfuit blended mojito I recently found, has it's limits and if you are aware enough your body tells you when to cut back.
Lately, I have been having restless sleep, groggy mornings that are hard to shake, irregular and inconsistent bowl movements, absolutely no desire to workout (which comes hand in hand with not having enough energy), craving weird foods and making poor food choices. And now, a stress mark I get when I am super stressed, typically at work, has reappeared because my body is stressed. My insides have been telling me for a few weeks now, take it easy, back off, and I have knowingly been ignoring this little hint, pounding my wheatgrass, acidophilus, L-Lysine, B-Complex and Vitamin C, but still the little scaly dry patch appeared. Damn! OK, OK, I surrender, body that insists on making it perfectly clear that I can no longer ignore what it is has been telling me for the last few weeks. ::grumble, grumble::
I keep finding an excuse to not do a juice cleanse, but the wait is over, I can no longer deny what my body is telling me, so I shall start my long awaited juice cleanse this week. I like juice cleanses because they force to you to focus on your health and well-being. They ask so little of your body, yet so much of your mind, but the focus, centering and discipline that comes after a good cleanse re-centers every part of me. I am actually looking forward to this cleanse. I have gotten to a point where I just feel icky and no amounts of working out, drinking a daily green juice or copious amounts of water can fix.
So I stocked up on tons of local organic greens and fruit yesterday, join with me, or follow along, I am thinking 5 days this time, 3 just doesn't feel sufficient to counter the month long extravaganza. For more on juicing see my post on Juice Cleanses in February. Juice pics to follow.
A gf friend asked me the other day what does lactose intolerance feel like. She has been a waning gf consumer for over 10 years, but strictly gf for over the last 5 and is thinking that possibly she now might be lactose intolerant. At the time, I didn't verbalize it or think it, but I think it might be unlikely, because it seems like once you purge your body of a toxin, it is much easier to identify others that cause irritation, soon there after. I am thinking it might have been a situational discomfort more than an intolerance or allergy.
I identified my lactose intolerance about two years into being gluten free. I think it truly takes a year to completely feel the benefits of being gluten free if you are predisposed. After spending x number of years consuming gluten, it takes a reasonably long time to rejuvenate your gut flora and microvilli and completely purge your body. The first 3 months of an elimination diet there is a noticeable difference and you stop feeling like crap all the time, and then the first 6 months you notice significant inflammation decrease, but only at the year mark do you start to feel a semblance of what you should be.
As the years passed and the cleaner I ate, the easier I noticed my reactions to different foods to include: refined sugar, stone fruits, caffeine, dairy, and processed and conventional meats.
I noticed my lactose intolerance because I had made homemade, local strawberry, strawberry gf shortcakes with homemade whipped cream. Within less than an hour of eating dessert, I was doubled over in digestive pain. My guts gurgled, ached and the gas was horrendous. It was painful and burned every one's nostrils. I was shocked and completely uncomfortable. Being the test guinea pig that I am, I tried it again over the next few days. I tested the strawberries on their own - no reaction. The next day I tested the gf shortcake by itself, again no reaction. On the third day I tested the remaining bits of the whipped cream and again within an hour the painful, nostril-burning-gas emerged. I was excited, disappointed and tried to run away from my own stench all at the same time, but at least I had found the culprit.
At first I thought it was just whipping cream, but then I noticed any and all conventional diary gave me problems. So it was out with the dairy too. Bummer! The pain and smell alone would make anyone throw up the white flag. Lactose intolerance is immediate and wretched, which is how I know my friend was not lactose intolerant too.
I switched my cream in my coffee to almond milk (which eventually gave way to giving up coffee entirely too) and started buying naturally lactose free aged cheddar. A helpful hint, the harder and more aged the cheese the lower levels of lactose. Lactose is a sugar found in milk and milk products. The small
intestine produces an enzyme called lactase. Lactase breaks down
lactose into two simpler forms of sugar: glucose and galactose. People with
lactose intolerance often do not have the ability to produce proper
amounts of lactase to breakdown lactose, causing digestive issues.
There are ongoing debates about lactose intolerance and things we can do to facilitate or aide lactase production. Aside from body chemistry and genetics, the largest proposed culprit is the processing of conventional milk products. The theory is that because conventional milk is so pasteurized and stripped of nutrients and bacteria that naturally assist in digestion, an increasing number of people are lactose intolerant. There is another theory that those children that were given farm fresh milk are much more likely to be able to consume commercial milk later in life, as the healthy bacteria from the farm fresh milk helped prime the gut flora to fend of the devoid-of-helpful-bacteria conventional milk that most of us consume. Similarly, if you are able, of which few of us are, because the FDA has very strict regulations on farm fresh milk and pasteurization, to consume farm fresh, unpasteurized milk as an adult, apparently you can revert your lactose sensitive gut into a lactase producing machine that has no problem digesting milk products. I have yet to try this, but it sounds very intriguing.
Over the last year, I have played with what works and what doesn't for me. Everyone is different and is effected differently and the only way you are going to know your intolerances, unfortunately is by testing them. So endure the pain and the smelly gas or diarrhea, however you may be effected, but really it is the only way for you to know what you need to avoid.
Now I only consume one brand of aged extra sharp cheddar cheese, all others I have tried give me discomfort, but even then, I am very conscious of how much I consume in a meal and over the course of a few days. Be wary of vegan and lactose free brand cheeses, they often times contain gluten, preservatives and even plastic derivatives to get that "cheesey" texture and melting abilities. Read your labels! I eat organic Greek yogurt, which naturally has less lactose in it due to the aging and straining process*. And I drink kefir, which is 99% lactose free, again because of the processing procedures.
It is a huge bummer that those of us who already have to cut out gluten, also might not get the pleasure of eating delicious cheeses and ice creams and all the other yummy dairy products out there, almost 75% of gluten intolerant people are also lactose intolerant, but again the more you know, the more you research and the more you test your own allergies, you will find what works for you.
