This week, I’m taking part in a “New Year’s Cleanse” eating plan for seven days, to help kick those nasty holiday cravings for salt and sugar. You can read about what it is here. I weighed myself on the morning of the first day. I will be weighing myself at the end to report on the total weight loss, as well as one week later, once the normal eating “floodgates” have been opened, to get a better idea of longer term change.

Day Seven

Yesterday was day seven of the New Year’s food detox (or as I like to refer to it… the light at the end of the tunnel) … Miracle Soup day. The directions for day seven were as follows: “Miracle Soup! Miracle Soup Recipe: 2-3 Large Onions Chopped, 1 head of Cabbage chopped, 1 green pepper chopped, 5-6 celery stalks chopped, 2 large cans of diced tomatoes, and 2 packages of Lipton Beefy Onion Soup Mix.  Put the chopped vegetables in a pan and pour the tomatoes (that have been slightly blended in a blender) over top. Add 4-6 cups of water, enough to barely cover the vegetables. Cook for 10 minutes. Add the Beefy Onion Soup Mix and cook until all the vegetables are tender. Eat to your heart’s content.”

It still feels very weird eating soup for breakfast… and every snack… and every meal. I packed various sizes of the soup for my day… and I can honestly say I really do love this soup! I’m not a fan of cooked celery in, well, anything… so I substituted the celery stalks for 4 fresh jalapenos, which gave the soup just the right amount of kick. At supper last night, I had a bowl of soup… and multigrain toast with it. After eating soup all day long, I just wanted SOMETHING else to have with it. We have a lot of soup left over as well, which is going to be great lunch fillers for my hubby and I through the week!

I weighed myself this morning, and I was down a total of 5.7 pounds from when I started. I was extremely happy about this, because if you’ve followed this blog, you know that in March of 2017 I set out on a lifestyle change to get healthier. I even enlisted the help of my doctor, asking what my goal should be. I didn’t want this to be about getting into a certain size or looking a certain way. I wanted to approach it from the right angle… health… while recognizing and accepting the fact that all of us are different and all of us will have different ideal weights based on our chemistry, body types, and lifestyles. Since being given my goal, I have worked very hard to achieve it, and I had first originally hoped to make goal by my birthday (December 8^th). I ended up plateauing and didn’t make that goal. December was an incredibly frustrating month, because even though I was still doing everything right with my eating and exercise, that stubborn scale would not budge. Actually, to be fair, it moved a lot… it would go up, then back down, then hold steady, then back up. (It’s truly amazing how much your weight can fluctuate in one day… for anyone who is frustrated by progress, I highly recommend weighing yourself every morning… I didn’t get a full appreciation for how much it could fluctuate until I started doing that… and then I finally started cutting myself some slack!) After all this, cue in the New Year and alas, very close but still not at goal.

Then it was time for this… my annual self-torture… I mean, food detox. Truly, it couldn’t have come at a better time, and for the past 7 days I have again worked hard to stick with the plan. I’m very happy with what I accomplished this time around, and it’s not just about losing the 5.7 pounds specifically: I’m happy because this helped get me over that dreaded plateau I’d been on, and on January 8^th I finally made goal! To be honest, I was having trouble believing it… but the fact I have been at goal or below goal every day since January 8^th… well, it might be starting to sink in.

Another thing I was very proud of was that Day 4, Banana and Milk day, was the first year where I managed to get through the entire day without cheating. And let me tell you, it is NOT easy to do on that day! I think that for a while, the only way I’m going to be eating bananas is in my gluten free banana pancakes.

Something else that made me pat myself on the back is that all week long, during the seven days, when I would start daydreaming about food that I couldn’t eat on a particular day (yes… that really happened), I found myself thinking about healthy food… new recipes that have become staples in my normal diet now. I didn’t want a bag of Lays potato chips… I wanted some air popped popcorn. I didn’t want nachos from Boston Pizza… I wanted some naan crackers with light laughing cow. I did, however, want fries. I mean… I’m human. I didn’t morph into a pod person!

The last thing I was very proud of, was that last night, when I was thinking about the fact that I could eat normally today (rather, my “new normal”) and I was packing my food for the day, I was HAPPY about the fact I could eat carrots and clementines… I was looking FORWARD to making my low-cal nachos for supper (these are super good… I will have to share the recipe on this blog sometime)… and I was EXCITED to have gluten free banana pancakes for breakfast. It made me realize how far I’ve come in 2017.

I have officially switched my iTrack Bites app from goal to “lose weight” to goal to “maintain weight” and I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store for me! For those of you who take the time to read these little blog posts, I can’t thank you enough. Here’s to the next chapter!