Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Veganism with a side of fish and yogurt…

So I’ve been taking about a fruit and veggie cleanse and all the vegan lifestyle information I read on https://yourveganadventure.com/ are very helpful.  I decided to go with THIS ONE as it honestly seemed sane, had enough things on it that I could eat and continue training.  While you may gain spiritual enlightenment fasting for 7 days, it’s probably no bueno two weeks before a race… and ain’t I just about always two weeks before a race?  Here’s my riveting moment to moment account of what I did/ate/thought/weight dropped below.

Sunday: Got food, cost SLIGHTLY more than normal at store but not much, and not outside the realm of reasonable.

Monday: Got on scale, weighed – 174.6 ugh.

Breakfast – 1/3 cup plain oats, 2/3 cup plain greek yogurt, half an apple chopped up, a generous drizzle of honey.  This was FUCKING PHENOMENAL.  I could eat this every day.  Approximately 260 calories, 13g protien, 65g carbs, 2g fat.  Also had lemon tea with a small squish of honey (included in calorie count above).

Lunch – 1 can albacore tuna mixed with some hummus, celery, and onions with 3 rye crackers.  Mixed greens w/onion, tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, celery, pepper.  Topped w/1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, garlic, dill, pepper, and white wine vinegar for dressing.  Rest of apple for desert.  Approximately 500 calories. 50g carbs, 18g fat, 39g protein

On a scale of 1-10, I’d say about a 5.  The dressing was MUCH better than I expected (although if I do this again, will probably go grab some balsamic), and the prepared hummus saved me (which wasn’t on the list, but wasn’t explicitly forbidden) because the idea of mixing my tuna with greek yogurt just grossed me out (I’ll try it sometime when I won’t completely ruin my food and be screwed if it’s yucky).  I didn’t miss the prepared dressing, cheese, or olives as much as I thought, but I DID miss something creamy to hold the tuna together.  And the wasa crackers tasted straight like cardboard, so, while I’ll try rice cakes too, I’ll be happy to at least get my sprouted grain bread back!

Afternoon note: Really struggling – what do you do that doesn’t involve artificial sweeteners or sugar to take care of your onion breath?  I wanted gum badly.  Bottle of peppermint extract at the desk?

Snack 1: Got kinda ravenous around 3:15 – had some wasa crackers and hummus and about 1 cup of baby carrots.  Hummus saved the day here.  Will need to get down with figuring a good no salt hummus recipe.  Had an orange about 2 hours later.  About 170 calories. 49g carbs, 2g fat, 6g protien for both snacks

Workout: Did a 50 min bike ride outside.  Went really hard up the hills.  Both dailymile and spark agree on about 600 calories burnt

Snack 2: After workout rice cake. 60 calories.  Brown rice rice cake yummy.  THIS is what I will be eating tuna on 😛

Dinner: lemon pepper mahi mahi, brown rice, mixed veggies.  Something I normally eat, but usually drench in teriyaki sauce.  I definitely missed the sauce, but a little extra lemon pepper made it alright. About 400 calories. 49g carbs, 7g fat, 33g protein

Late night thought: Really wanted more food since I couldn’t have my normal soda or popsicle or anything for desert but I’m just going to bed.

Monday total: About 1400 calories total. 214g carbs, 28g fat, 92g protein.  Right in line with what sparkpeople says I need to have, besides the fact they want me to have more fat.  And considering all the fat I really am having is fish and olive oil, I think 28g is pretty good!  Tomorrow, I’ll nom some unsalted nuts.

Slept 9.5 hours.  Could have been the fact it was cold, or I had a nice hard bike ride outside, but maybe I slept longer because of the food? Hmmm…

Tuesday: weighed in at 172.0.  Getting better, 2.6 lb drop in one day is pretty good (especially since I am eating plenty of calories, I know it’s not starvation).  Still feeling very good.  Don’t feel like I could eat this way forever, but not feeling deprived.

Breakfast: same as yesterday.  Still in serious love with it.  While I’ll be happy to change it up with something else once in a while, I could eat this a LOT and it’s pretty cheap considering (2 bucks for oats to last me a month, 2 bucks for honey to last me a month if not longer, 7 bucks for a greek yogurt tub that will last me all week, and apples are about 1.50 a lb).  Less than 2 bucks per day! See calorie count above.

Lunch: black bean soup (from a box, I cheated, but the grocery store didn’t have fresh made soup like it suggested).  Veggieful salad (same as yesterday) with pico, a little hummus, greek yogurt, and shrimp. Apple for desert.  Totally full after, but only 300 calories.  Must snack a lot this afternoon.

3pm snack: 100 calories of unsalted nuts.  Geez, that’s not a lot of nuts!

4pm snack: 1 wasa cracker, carrots, and hummus.  About 150 calories.

6:30pm snack: rice cake – 60 calories

Workout: 20 mins swimming (don’t have the distance – but maybe 1000-1200m? Just slow and steady), 23 minute 2.5 mile run.  Felt very solid here.  Spark says about 550 calories.

Dinner: shrimp stir fry with rice noodles.  Olive and sesame oil, ginger, garlic, crushed red peppers, white pepper, black pepper, a little dash of a chili honey stir fry sauce that didn’t have sodium.  Veggies included broccoli, carrots, celery, onion, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and snow peas.  I caved and put a little lemon pepper seasoning since it had just a TINY bit of salt and that made it better.  Above all, I haven’t missed anything so much as the SALT.

I can go without sweets, even artificial sweeteners and it’s not bugging me so much.  I can go without meat, the fish/beans/nuts are working pretty well to fill that void.  While I would probably go batty without access to some sprouted grain bread or corn tortillas, I’m doing ok.  What is killing me is the sauces.  All I needed tonight was some teriyaki.  Or some soy.  Or some sesame ginger stir fry sauce.  I was hoping drenching it in oil would help, and it did a little, but I needs some salt, yo.

I think this is going to be a lesson – be conscious of salt (ugh, one of the three things I said I wouldn’t do.  It went give up booze, give up salt, give up carbs – the trifecta of things I wouldn’t do unless someone told me I was going to literally die if I didn’t).  While this is a bit over the top, I can make do with a lot less.  The lack of bloat and puffy I’m feeling doesn’t lie. About 600 calories, 59g carbs, 28g fat, 18g protein.

About 1400 calories, 209g carbs, 44g fat, 59g protein.  Hit all my numbers minus 1g below minimum protein req.  Slept about 8.5 – 9 hours.

Wednesday: Weighed in at 171.0 (-1 for the day, -3.6 overall)

Breakfast: same as before, and still in love (see calorie count above).  It boggles my mind that I’m ok eating the same foods over and over for breakfast, but get antsy when I don’t vary my lunch and dinners.  I think it’s that I think of breakfast as fuel, and lunch and dinner as experiences.  Hmmm…

Lunch: leftovers from shrimp stir fry (see yesterday’s calorie count – I literally took the food, split half into tupperware, and ate).  Still lacking sauce, but still pretty yummy overall (shrimp didn’t nuke all that well).

Snacks: Had an apple around 3pm, and a rice cake around 6pm.

Workout: Did my longest swim to date. 2.27 miles (200 laps or 4000 yds or 3657 meters or 3.65k) in 70 mins.  IM.  Yeah, that includes a decent amount of freaking butterfly.  I’m pretty sure this was another good testament – if the diet was making me weak, I’d probably be suffering in my workouts by now.  Not so, I even feel “lighter”.  As if it is less effort to move my body.  Sounds hippie dippie trippy, but I just can’t explain it any other way.  Spark sez about 950 calories burnt, I’m calling shenanigans, but I’m guessing 700 wouldn’t be out of the question.

Dinner: cheated a LITTLE because they didn’t expressly forbid corn tortillas but didn’t mention them either.  Also, used canned beans that ended up being a little saltier than I hoped.  However, tilapia seasoned with garlic and spices (we basically deconstructed the taco mix ingredients and nixed the salt), black beans, hot pico, and cilantro made 4 amazing tacos.  I figured I’d miss the cheese, olives, sour cream, and extra hot sauce, but I totally didn’t.  This is much win, and I’ll make these again exactly the same (maybe with a little greek yogurt for some creaminess – would have tried it, but I left it at work). 475 calories, 77g carbs, 7g fat, 37g protein

Total for the day: 1400 calories, 214 carbs, 37g fat, 70g protein.  Just a wee bit low on the fat.

Thursday morning weight: 169.6 (5 lbs lost overall.  Yeah, you read that right.  I’m kinda in shock too.)

The verdict…

YES!  This seemed to help some of the bloat issues I’ve been having.  My laptop is resting more on my hip bones on my lap, not my poof.  It’s been a while.

YES!  This took off a lot of weight quickly.

YES!  I feel amazing.  Full of potential energy (but not hyper), full of athletic capacity, not as if I’m starving myself, and basically, what my body needs.

NO!  I will not continue this cleanse as is indefinitely.  While it’s awesome taking weight off this quick, I can’t imagine going through life with this strict of a diet 100% of the time.  I definitely have a new appreciation for veganism, because this was no gluten no wheat  low sodium veganism with allowances for greek yogurt and fish.  No dairy, no eggs, no meat, nada.  Y’all have to navigate around a lot of crazy to get a good balanced diet, and I respect that challenge.

YES! I need to lower my salt intake.  To be honest, I had less of a problem giving up wheat/gluten and meat besides seafood than I did the prepared sauces and just SALT.  I thought the bread would be killer, but what’s a sandwich without mustard?  Srsly.

YES!  Next week, I’m going to try M/T/W again with some changes – add chicken/turkey (not lunchmeat), add sprouted grain bread, and adding sauces/dressings/foods if they are below 5% of the daily sodium allowance (and stick to one serving if they are).  Pretty much – see if my body tolerates the white meat and sprouted grain ok, and also just try to limit sodium to normal human levels.

YES!  I’m getting a goddamn hamburger and fries today for lunch.  For breakfast and dinner… I’ll probably stick pretty close to zee rules.

NO!  I’m not sure why I am continuing the YES! and NO! but I’m going with the flow.  Erm. Yeah.  Continuing on.

Some things that didn’t make the consumables list for future food ideas:

rice cakes with beans and pico and greek yogurt (veggie “tostadas”)
rice cakes with tuna salad and veggies
rice noodles w/olive oil, garlic, and pepper w/lime, ginger, garlic, and cilantro tilapia and veggies
shrimp, roasted potatoes w/olive oil, herbs and peppers, roasted veggies

So, I have lots of questions.  First of all, think I’m crazy?  Any low sodium fish/veggie based recipes you’d like to share?  Have you ever done a “cleanse” or just gone all “super clean eating” up in your grill for a while?  Any tips for making food not taste like ass without a lot of the other white devil (some of you may crave the sugar, but I swear, I would have been willing to lick a sweaty person’s face to get some of the salty stuff yesterday) or navigating restaurants trying to be low sodium?  Wanna congratulate me for almost swimming the ironman distance last night?  Hit me up.

Next post is the Warrior Dash and Du Loop wrap up.  Just got the pics today from the latter.  Pinky swear.  No more incessant diet ramblings until next week.  Ta ta internets!!!

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2 Comments

  1. Divinari

    Oh, food, I can talk to you about food!

    I love greek yogurt. You can make ever so many tasty sauces out of it. If your yogurt isn’t really thick, try to get some. It makes a whopping difference. Trader Joe’s has some great “store brand” greek yogurt. Greek yogurt drizzled with honey is so super tastily amazing.

    Ahem.

    For your le tacos – greek yogurt, mixed with garlic, cilantro and dill. Let it rest in the fridge for 5-10 minutes (better if longer). Like, make it first, when making dinner, toss it in the fridge, and pull it out when dinner’s on the table. Add salt if you can. You’ll find that you won’t need much, though. Fresh and bright, esp good for fish or chicken.

    Far as rice noodles go, get some from an Asian market if you can, as opposed to the brown rice noodle crap you get at hippie stores. With the exception of Tinkyada (which actually tastes pretty freaking good), the rest of them are mushy crap. A secret to rice noodles – cook them up, and then immediately rinse in cold water. Firms up the starches, improves the texture. Heat back up with your sauce/stuff. Seems like it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it makes all the difference. With the plain rice noodles, you’ll find you need less oil. Something about them doesn’t absorb as much.

    There are rice tortillas, you can get them in most hippie stores (TJ’s, Whole Foods, your local natural foods store). They are a little more brittle, but if you warm them, you should be okay.

    While at the Asian store, get a bag of super cheap rice flour (glutinous, if you can… it’s sticky (sweet) rice flour, replicates regular flour better). Use it in place of regular flour in sauces to thicken (like roux, not like cornstarch).

    For breakfast, you can make an oatmeal like concoction from rice… brown rice spiced with ginger (cooked into a porridge), basmati rice with cardamom… you can also use millet, amaranth and quinoa. Those last can be tricksy, so experiment a little.

    Always read your ingredient list. Things that say “rice noodles” have wheat flour about 30% of the time. Same with corn tortillas. Wheat is so prevalent in nearly everything we eat in America, it’s very tricksy. I can give you a heads up about eating out and wheat, but I’m guessing that’s probably a little extreme for what you’re doing (as in, a teaspoon worth of flour ain’t gonna do you in).

    If you decide you want a wheat-free bread, try Udi’s. It’ll be in the freezer section of your local natural foods store. It is _the_ best gluten free bread I’ve found in four years, hands down.

    Happy to babble at you about any other questions/thoughts. 😀

    Oh, oh. One leetle tiny warning. After being so good for a week, your body may be a little sensitive to the things you’ve been avoiding. Just eat that glorious burger carefully. 🙂 If your body doesn’t like it, don’t force yourself to keep eating just because you wanted that damned burger. Not saying that you will, but I’ve done it numerous times… and it just doesn’t feel good. Might as well have someone learn from my mistakes. 🙂

  2. Nope, not crazy!! Unless you really do drink Peppermint extract straight from the bottle – that stuff is disgusting. Chewing the leaves isn’t bad though. And congrats on your huge loss!

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