Hemp oil, cornflakes and the wedding blues....

Conclusion of week one of detox:  Not as difficult as I expected.  It took a lot of planning, and I got alot of strange looks, and this being Israel, I got alot of unsolicited advice...but I did it.

More difficult than limiting the foods I ingest during these 3 weeks is the lack of condiments and spices that give many foods their flavors. I love vegetables and I like the basmati rice, but rice without salt and oil is, well, just rice.  So I sent an emergency sms to the naturopath asking 2 important questions:  can I please use a small amount of salt, and are sushi/seaweed papers allowed?  Thankfully the answer to both was yes.  Cooking creatively has made the restricted diet easier, and the basmati sushi was yummy. The only thing I must swallow which I would happily do without is my daily dose of hemp oil.  It tastes like you are drinking a burlap bag.  And, there is no positive effects from its' cannibis origin.

Surprisingly I was not hungry most of the time. Surprisingly I didn't have a terrible caffeine withdrawal save one nasty headache on the 3rd morning.  Surprisingly, I didn't cheat.
What I did almost do several times is put food into my mouth mindlessly.  It made me realize how many times a day we eat stuff without even realizing that it entered our bodies.  It might be tasting as we cook, licking a spoon, or as I did, put a few cornflakes in my mouth as I was transferring them from the cardboard box to the tupperware.  Fortunately I caught myself and spit them out.  Yay me!!

Tuesday night I had a wedding to go to. Often we think of eating at a wedding is like going out for a nice dinner.  You get a full course meal, and in exchange you give a nice gift to the bride and groom to get them started in life.  The bigger the gift, the more you eat to make it and even exchange.  By that method the couple would have gotten nothing from me, because I only drank the water.  Not to worry, they still received a generous gift.

I didn't feel deprived.  I felt proud.  I put my goals ahead of the temporary  temptations.  And those temptations are always there, be it a cake in the teachers' room, a birthday celebration, or whatever.  I could still celebrate without the food.  It would, however, be easier if 30 Jewish mothers weren't standing around me saying "just a bite, a small taste won't hurt" or other variations of that mantra.

Shabbat, the final frontier (of this week).  To taste the challah or not to taste the challah, that is the question along with a bunch of others.  I opted to forgo the challah during these 3 weeks.  Perhaps not the best halachic choice, but the one I needed to make to be true to myself.  I know me.  If I were to take just a small bite at this point, it would open the door to other small leniencies and I don't want to take that chance.  So, thankfully I made it through shabbat with ease, preparing my shakes and other foods ahead of time.

Goals for the coming week:
Exercise.  Now that my body has adjusted to the initial change, I feel I am ready to exert myself.  I will be returning this week to Curves for tri-weekly (that is 3x/week, not every 3 weeks!) workouts. 
Consistency:  Stay on the path and stick with the plan, even the hemp oil (yuk).

Oh, and by the way, I dropped 3 kilos (6.6 lbs.) in the first week.  Again, yay me!!