More than halfway.

Only five days left of our two-week detox. The time has flown by. And to be honest, we haven't really felt like we've been detoxing. When we follow someone else's plan, we tend to feel more restricted ("No coffee?! Ever?!"). Even with the Dr. Joshi alkaline detox, my favourite one, we get pretty sick of the limitations on fruit and veggies (no fruit except bananas and lemons, and no acidic vegetables or nightshades, which cuts out most of our favourite ones, like tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini).

Our basic concept boils down to 'No meat, no wheat, no booze, no sweets.' Not so difficult. And after doing various detoxes and diets for 3-6 week intervals, two weeks seems like a piece of cake!

I've been running again, which feels great. I've been going slow and steady (about 7.7 km/h), but unlike when I used to run, I am not taking any walking breaks--I just run for about 20-22 minutes straight with a few minutes of walking on either end (if I stop running for a break, it's hard to start again!). I do about 3.5 km in 28 minutes, but that includes a warm-up and cool-down walk. My fastest 5K speed was 36 minutes about a year and a half ago; I hope to get back to that (or surpass it--I do weigh less now) for the race weekend in May. 

I'm currently down 6.2lbs since we started. Marielle is down about the same, I believe. I've barely spent a penny of my 'weekly cash' (we are attempting some hard-core budgeting, which includes the 'cash in envelopes' system--when you run out of hard cold cash, you do not shop--period) because I'm not grabbing a coffee here or there, or going out for drinks. I feel fantastic and am extremely well-rested, with my average sleep time being 9:30pm - 6:30am in the past week or so. (Normal for me would be going to sleep between 10:30 & 11pm.) Instead of TV before bed we've been reading in bed, and it turns out I am my mother's daughter, and almost hit myself in the face with my book due to sleepiness after fifteen minutes of reading.

I haven't had trouble sleeping until 6:30am most days but today I was up at 5am. Which is okay; I still got enough sleep and I figured it was a good time to update my blog!

One thing we've both noticed, however, is that... well, we're eating a ton of curry. We love Indian food, and it's easy to make vegan Indian. But I was at the gym running the other day and... it's coming out my armpits. Yes, I am sweating curry. Oh well! 

This entry is going to be photo-heavy because I finally started taking more pictures of stuff. When I last wrote, I posted pictures of the organic black rice we were trying for the first time, and mentioned that we were going to attempt to make breakfast fritters out of the leftovers, as a base for a poached egg. It turned out great!

 

 Here's one of the curry culprits. Chana masala and aloo gobi. We couldn't believe the incredible flavours of these ones, especially the chana masala. We loosely followed a recipe but spiced it ourselves and added extra garlic and ginger, as we tend to do. There were full coriander and cumin seeds right in it, and they were so fragrant in the recipe. The trick to Indian, I find, is adding your spices while sautéeing your onions, garlic and ginger. It toasts them and they really cling to the recipe even after you add your liquids. We used some fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, and water for the sauce, and put in a plethora of spices (turmeric, paprika, chili powder, cumin, curry, and garam masala). 

I went to a friend's house for dinner on Tuesday, so we made enough of the Indian for Marielle to have leftovers. I was sad I didn't get to eat it that night, but after telling Tina that I was on a 'vegan detox,' she made us some bean chili, which was fantastic. The only thing in it that I wasn't technically supposed to eat was mushrooms, but I ate them anyway--didn't want to fuss and I figure it will not spoil anything. 

On Wednesday night we made bean tacos on sprouted corn tortillas. We got the tortillas at Market Organics, and unfortunately, they weren't great. I am a flour tortilla kinda gal--I will pick the soft, powdery wheat ones over corn any day. But! No wheat is part of the plan, and these were sprouted corn on top of that, so we figured why not--it would be fun to have the opportunity to make something different ("not Indian"). They weren't awful, but the texture was a tad dry and they ripped a little while you ate them. It was a little messy. But overall, DELICIOUS dinner. 

 

Last night, we tried another Mexican dish--a recipe from the Wild Rose detox cookbook. It was called "black bean and corn loaf", so we were expecting, well, a loaf. It was not. It's a mix of brown rice, black beans, corn, celery, onions, and spices, mixed with two eggs and baked in a loaf pan. But you don't purée any of the ingredients, so it had no chance in hell of actually sticking together. I think if I made these again, I would blitz at least the beans if not the rice and beans, then stir in the corn, celery, etc. Regardless, it was absolutely delicious--I would just call it a 'rice and bean casserole' and bake it in a lasagna tray next time, that's all. They suggest pouring a homemade marinara on top, but we wanted fresh salsa instead (tomato, avocado, cilantro, red onion, lime juice, salt). 

 

We have leftovers of this for lunch today. Yesssss.

Friday is 'sandwich night' for us--it has been for a few months now, and it's not a tradition we want to break too often. Last Friday we had zucchini 'pasta' with marinara, but we made sure to add wheat-free garlic bread, but tonight we're attempting veggie burgers without a recipe. We're using white beans, quinoa, toasted almonds, and lots of spices, garlic, onion, etc. It's 'lacto ovo' Friday, so we can add some egg for binding and even put cheese on it. I forgot to take photos of the salmon burgers we had last Sunday, but they were incredible!

We have a detox date night tomorrow and plan to head to one of the vegetarian restaurants nearby. Afterwards we'll be attending a friend's birthday gathering (drinks and cake!) so we'll go straight from the restaurant to make sure we're not hungry at all, and we'll maybe bring some chilled herbal tea with us so we can feel like we're having a cocktail too. 

On Sunday we have a brunch for my birthday, so there may be a bit of cheating. I plan to order a vegetable omelet, which comes with molasses toast and homefries--I will choose one or the other and not eat both. Although wheat is not on my diet and potatoes are okay, I think I will choose the whole wheat molasses toast and order it dry--much healthier than home fries! Or rye if they have it--my fave. 

It's 6:15 now, time to get ready for work! Happy Friday!