THE GORY DETAILS!

Six weeks ago (on my last blog post) I promised I would follow the Eat to Live diet rules and report my findings.  I've lived to tell the tale.


DAY ONE

In case you were impressed by the two pounds I lost by passing up chocolate and French fries on more than one occasion prior to starting the diet, DON’T BE.  I made my husband take me to the Roy Ann Diner the night before I began so I could eat one last meal of deep fried chicken croquettes and French fries smothered in gravy.  I’m a sick woman.

Yesterday afternoon I spent my life savings on three huge bags of fruits and vegetables and another three bags of accessory items including indulgences like blueberry vinegar, brown rice, and pomegranate juice.  Don’t go getting all excited about juice.  You’re not allowed to DRINK it, just add it to recipes.

Dr. Furhman recommends washing and preparing your greens all at once on the weekend so you don’t have to torture yourself all week long repeating this process.  I’m opting for the torture plan because I can’t bear to wash all the items in my downstairs refrigerator.  In fact, I don’t know how anyone who doesn't HAVE a downstairs refrigerator can even ATTEMPT this plan. I could barely squeeze it all in.  Just looking into the refrigerator is a little overwhelming.  So much green.

My husband is not joining me for this undertaking.  He says he will “see how I do” before throwing himself into the fray.  He is opting to eat his “real” meal in the cafeteria at work.  He and vegetables go way back.  WAY back to where he learned to swallow them whole or find himself sitting at the kitchen table all night long.  He doesn't eat vegetables anymore.  Except frozen corn; which apparently isn't a real vegetable.  (Thanks Dr. Furhman for ruining Jim’s life.) My daughter the vegetarian can do some of this with me, but there’s no way she’s currently willingly to give up cheese, white bread and pasta.

My breakfast this morning consisted of cut up oranges, and a whole slew of strawberries (also cut up) and all of the above sprinkled with 1 Tbsp of ground flax seed.)  This started out pretty well.  I generally like fruit.  Flax seed doesn't have a flavor, how bad could it be?  I will tell you.  If you think too hard about it, you start to think you are ingesting sawdust by the time you finish the fruit.  It’s a texture thing. It was too much fruit and entirely too much sawdust.  Clearly I’m thinking too hard about what I’m eating.  I need to stop that or this is not going to work.  I hope I didn't get any splinters in my tongue… 

By 10:00 a.m. I was “starving.”  I realize this is a total misuse of the word.  Dr. Furhman does not approve of snacking.  If one is eating enough raw vegetables and fruits, the sheer bulk fills you to the brim.  I guess my sawdust fruit parfait was too small.  This alleged hunger is probably habitual because around 10:00 I usually eat something marvelous like Brownie Brittle or at least some low fat Cheez-Its.  Dr. Furhman says most Americans don’t know what hungry “is.”  He is probably right.  So no Brownie Brittle for me.  Today I filled a tiny medicine cup with approximately 20 cc of raw sunflower seeds.  This means I will have to eat less raw pumpkin seeds on my dinner salad because I’m only allowed ¼ cup of raw seeds or nuts daily.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul.  I do the same thing when I send a payment to the credit card company.

Lunch was a huge pile of romaine lettuce.  On the lettuce was Dr. Furhman’s recipe for “apple pie dressing.”  It consisted of apples, a little orange juice, and cinnamon to taste.  It was not horrible but next time I’m using less cinnamon.  Cinnamon is meant for real apple pie, not dressing on a salad.  I’m afraid this dressing has the potential to ruin me for cinnamon the way morning sickness ruined me for saltines…  I cut up another apple and added it to the salad so I’d have something to bite besides romaine.  I also sprinkled a few raisins on top.  Hey, it’s fruit.  I doubt it was authorized, but that’s the way it had to be today.  I need to ease into this thing slowly.  The recommendation is at least 4 fruits each day.  That’s a lot of fruit but with my sawdust breakfast, I was already at 3+ and feeling pretty accomplished. 

Each day at lunch, one cup of legumes is suggested.  Today I had low salt kidney beans. I added pepper and heated them in the microwave to make them feel more like lunch. I actually said these words to my husband when I got home tonight.  “The best part of my day was kidney beans.”  I ask you, how sad is that?

I was seized by a severe desire for chocolate around 1:30 this afternoon. I eat a tiny piece of dark chocolate almost every day, not because I am hungry, but because it makes me happy.  That little something sweet feels in many ways addictive.  It is CRAZY how once I think about the chocolate, it is almost impossible to STOP thinking about the chocolate until I eat it.  After  desperately considering and finally dismissing the insane idea of chewing it and spitting it out, I pulled myself together and decided I’d find some sweet legal thing to eat when I got home.   What I should have done is make a smoothie with some bananas, ice and unsweetened cocoa powder.  That would have been permissible on this plan.  You may recall my very sad kidney bean comment in the last paragraph.  What happened when I walked into my house with a chocolate-deprived sweet tooth was even sadder.  There was a large yellow tomato sitting on the counter.  This particular orb had seen better days and was marked with a rather unsightly black blemish.  I have never wielded a knife faster than during the black blemish-ectomy which took place in my kitchen this afternoon so I could shove huge chunks of yellow tomato into my mouth.  I am not proud of this. Jim showed appropriate concern when I made the kidney bean statement but his expression changed to something closer to alarm when I told him I gorged myself on a somewhat moldy tomato.  It was rather delicious.

“The first day is the worst” Jim said (to make me OR HIMSELF feel better.)  I considered his wise words over my romaine, raw pumpkin seed, raw zucchini drizzled with balsamic vinegar salad.  I had a small baked sweet potato (my 1 cup of legal starch/grain for the day) and some watermelon too.  And truth be told, it’s 10 p.m. and I’m not hungry.  Small victories. 

DAY TWO

Breakfast today was better without the sawdust.  It was strawberries and bananas- the bananas feeling almost substantial next to most of the produce I've thus far consumed.  I’m saving the daily “sawdust” requirement for my salad, hoping the dusty debris is less obvious on green leaves.

A coworker has expressed interest in joining me, so I copied my “plan” for her reference.  She actually enjoys kale, so this may come easier for her than for most. 

Lunch was a much more pleasant experience today as well.  My baby spinach, fresh tomato and cucumber salad was drizzled with balsamic vinegar and topped with raw sunflower seeds. The salad contained sawdust (also known as ground flax seed) but with salad as the backdrop, the dust didn't bother me at all.  I had one cup of warmed and heavily peppered black-eyed peas.  It is rumored that these daily legumes are the power behind my lunch, the best nutrient-dense carbohydrate source and the reason I should not be hungry in the afternoon.  Today, feeling fully satisfied by my lunch well toward evening, I believe this.  Ate a few cubes of watermelon and actually stopped before finishing my fruit because I felt full. 

I had high hopes for dinner because one cup of brown rice was involved.  I was planning to top my rice with a medley of colorful vegetables to eat alongside yet another spinach salad.  It sounded almost decadent.  Let me just tell you how difficult it is to sauté red peppers, shallots, carrots and zucchini without using olive oil or butter.  I had no idea.  I’m going to need some better pan-scrubbers. 

DAY THREE

I ate a beautiful white peach for breakfast this morning with no flavor whatsoever.  (Not the diet’s fault.) This morning’s accompaniment sounded so promising.  Cashews.  But cashews are a whole different animal when eaten raw. Who knew roasting and salting could have such magical effects?  Biting into my raw cashews this morning reminded me a lot of the tasteless wax lips I attempted to ingest as a child.   (They were meant to be chewed like gum, but eating them was an inexplicable temptation.)

For lunch today I had a pile of romaine with sawdust and Dr. Fuhrman’s special blueberry dressing.  This is a concoction I made last night with fresh blueberries, raw cashew butter and blueberry vinegar.  It’s surprisingly tasty but turns into a semi-solid in the refrigerator.  For my daily dose of lunch beans, edamame was on the menu.  Last night when I was attempting to gather my food items for quick morning departure, I was having trouble locating my soy beans in the freezer. I asked (okay, maybe I screamed) “Where’s my edamame?!”  Jim (ever the supportive spouse) responded quickly with not a small measure of his usual wise guy charm.  “Did you say you can’t find your Mommy?!”

Lunch was so substantial I could barely eat the fresh fig donated to the cause courtesy of my coworker Justin’s tree. It was delicious and perfectly permissible.

Because I chose to go walking with my friend tonight, I ate some droopy leftovers from last night’s brown rice and vegetable bonanza instead of spending 20 minutes in the kitchen assembling a multifaceted giant salad and cooked vegetables.   Day three and already I’m lazy.

DAY FOUR

In a cruel twist of fate, the fall edition of my very favorite magazine arrived in the mail yesterday.  The large, colorful, inspiring, and torturous Food Network Magazine.  It contains over 100 recipes including a giant caramel apple cake.  The dieting woman in me is feeling slimmer but the little red-haired girl inside my brave lettuce-eating exterior is petulantly crying for some of that cake.  I’m going to need to hide the magazine for a little while.

There was apparently a brain lapse when I was originally planning my menu.  Heaven forbid, I ended up planning TWO grains instead of ONE today.  So I made some unsweetened oatmeal with apples (and sawdust) this morning and ate only half.  I’ll eat only half of the whole wheat pita for lunch with my beans and I’ll be back on track. 

It seems premature to say this, but I actually feel a whole lot better on this diet.  My belly, which is always a little bothersome, has been behaving quite nicely.  I have a good deal of energy and I’ve been sleeping well except for the sudden increases in temperature that come in a volcanic flash and wake almost every 51 year old woman.  Friend Paige (who navigated her way through this diet roughly 12 years ago) reports that her nails were never better than when she followed Dr. Fuhrman’s advice.  Maybe I’ll buy a new bottle of some striking green nail color to match my food. 

I should be doing this plan solely for the health benefits, but fitting comfortably into some of the smaller pants in my closet would be a marvelous side effect. If I can lose seven pounds, I’ll be back in “healthy” BMI range. But if I can manage to forget the route to Asher’s Chocolate Factory Store and lose a total of twelve, I will achieve my ideal weight for height, age and activity level.  Fingers crossed.  (I just typed the word chocolate without salivating...it’s possible I’m making progress.)

A wonderful discovery was made this evening when my daughter acquired a driver’s license and celebration was in order.  Ruby Tuesday’s has a combo entrée called Veggie Trio.  You can order three sides (with cooked vegetables including steamed broccoli, roasted spaghetti squash and fresh green beans.)  The Garden Bar comes with the combo where you can load your plate with all sorts of wonderful fresh vegetables and douse it in some red wine vinegar (no oil) without having to wash and chop for 15 minutes in your kitchen.  I did mourn a little bit, feeling deprived as I passed up my favorite Ruby Tuesday garden bar item, the incredible pumpernickel croutons.  But it was otherwise a great way to eat out without full-on cheating.  The flavor of the cooked vegetables gave me a little pause; I’m not sure what the seasonings were, but they were a little too delicious to be allowable. 

DAY FIVE

I continue to feel full, which is rather amazing to me since I am allegedly on a diet.  My previous experience with dieting has always involved at least some moments of what feels like starvation.  Other than my hankering for chocolate early in the week (which resulted in the unfortunate tomato incident), I have to say I’m happy with the way my appetite is so well controlled with these food choices.  My energy level has improved as well.

The good doctor is not a fan of caffeine so while I am so strictly removing items from my food list, I decided to tackle the caffeine issue as well.  He doesn't address tea a whole lot in the readings I've done, but he comes down pretty hard on too much coffee.  (If you are interested, he doesn't approve of decaffeinated coffee either.) His recommendation is to keep it to two cups or less if you are a person who can’t live without it.  Thankfully I dislike coffee unless it is in the form of ice cream, and even then it needs to be coated with an inch-thick layer of hot fudge.  But tea, I need.  I’m limiting myself to one stiff hot tea or iced tea per day, which is a major decrease in consumption.  The new tea rule is going just fine as well; I haven’t noticed any headaches at all.

DAY SIX

Today I tackled one of the recipes in the back of the book.  I was a little hesitant to try any of them because I’ve read so many reviews from people who claim Furhman’s recipes taste like poison.  The menu today included cauliflower soup.  This was like no soup I had ever created before.  It included a giant head of cauliflower, carrots, celery, leeks, garlic, carrot juice, raw cashews and kale.  The leeks caused quite a stir earlier in the week when my carnivorous husband spied them and made a rather large deal out of the “foreign objects” being housed in our refrigerator.  I will admit, though I’ve eaten them from time to time, I have never before prepared leeks in my own kitchen.  Aubrey had to look up step by step instructions for me on her iPad.  

The soup was certainly packed with all sorts of vitamins and protein and one bowl truly filled me up for hours.  It wasn't nearly as horrid as that fad cabbage soup diet I attempted many years ago.  Fat-burning my eye.  THAT stuff could remove the paint from a car. Aubrey enjoyed the cauliflower soup more than I did but I think it was because SHE was allowed to stir in some shredded cheddar cheese.  Oh, how I long for cheese.  Have I mentioned I love cheese?  It is harder than doing without chocolate.

The best part of my day was when I had to go back upstairs to change into a different pair of jeans to go out to some yard sales with my daughter this morning because the first ones kept falling down!  It was so encouraging, I was able to prepare a marinated chicken pita for my husband and bake some chocolate chip cookies for one of my young patients without feeling sorry for myself. 

DAY SEVEN

This morning I combined an interesting potion of ½ cup raw rolled oats, 1 Tbsp raisins, 1 banana (sliced) and 1/3 cup orange juice.  Sounds disgusting, but it was surprisingly tasty and filling. The rest of the day was tricky because I spent most of it volunteering in a park and couldn't really take much portable food with me.  A salad bar across the street got me through the day but I will admit it was necessary to steel myself against the potato salad option.  I was victorious.

DAY EIGHT

I started this eating plan one week ago today so I took the opportunity to step on the scale this morning.  I have lost 7 pounds since last Monday.  Though I wish I could taste certain other foods, I have not been truly hungry.  I’m feeling pretty good about that.  

If you are wondering about vitamins, I've opted to take one multivitamin tablet specifically designed for vegetarians and one vitamin D3 tablet each day. I suspect I am getting more vitamins in my food than I ever have before but wanted to cover my bases.

I need to revisit my mixed feelings about fungus.  I guess in the interest of ever being able to enjoy the health benefits of consuming awful little spore-producing organisms, I should start referring to them as mushrooms.  Love-hate.  I say love because I do appreciate a nice greasy mushroom atop a steaming piece of cheese pizza.  I say hate because when raw, the sponge-like consistency and residue from growing totally skeeves me out.  It bothers me more than a little to see the dark brown deposit on the mushroom and be unable to effectively scrub it away.  And those frilly ribs on a mushroom look too much like gills, making me feel as though I’m about to make a meal of some spongy creature just plucked from a coral reef.  Yuck.

But Furhman says there are three food items that really kick a body’s fat-burning apparatus into overdrive.  BOMs.  These are berries, onions, and mushrooms.  He says these foods are “antiangiogenic.”  This basically means they are instrumental in cutting off the blood supply to your fat cells, Reader’s Digest condensed version- starving those nasty couch-potato globs of chubbiness to death.  So if this is even remotely true, BOMs IT WILL BE!  Research in antiangiogenics is not new.  In fact, there is evidence which seems to corroborate claims that eating antiangiogenic foods can starve cancer cells as well.  It is interesting that the 30+ antiangiogenic foods suggested by researchers for keeping cancer at bay are ALL legal food items on the Eat to Live food plan. So with all of these lofty claims swirling around in my head, I decided to muster the courage to purchase more mushrooms.  You see, I bravely procured a small box last week when I was collecting that plethora of green in my refrigerator.  I shamefully admit I was none too disappointed to realize the little buggers had gone bad before I did anything with them.  With new purpose, I purchased new baby bellas (NOT to be confused with seriously fun-to-open babybels -oh….how I miss those cute little wheels of cheese…..) on my way home from work this afternoon. 

Tonight was Parent-Teacher-Fellowship at Christopher Dock High School.  Jim and I were to attend a meal at Aubrey’s school after which we would race from class to class trying to imagine what our daughter’s day at school is like.  We do this every year and I enjoy it quite a bit. In fact I’m rather envious of her last period of the day, wishing I could secretly audit Mrs. McTavish’s AP Composition class.  Dreams of literature aside, I knew that sitting at a table while being served delicious-smelling banned foods would very nearly kill my carefully-crafted resolve.  So we took two cars and Jim went on ahead for the first hour. 

In the time Jim was enjoying good cooking at Dock, I peeled a beautiful and perfectly ripe eggplant, two sweet potatoes, and a large sweet onion.  I cut each vegetable into chunks, placing them in a bowl with the sliced mushrooms and most of a bag of miniature carrots.  Though I am not supposed to be using oil, I freely admit I CHEATED, dropping a few drops (and I mean DROPS- the vegetables weren't even GLISTENING…) of extra virgin olive oil over the raw veggies.  I generously sprinkled Italian seasoning and pepper over the mixture, stirred well and arranged it all on two foil-covered pans in a 450 degree oven for about 25 minutes.  Aubrey and I ate this with a side salad of fresh spinach, a couple of tomatoes and some sprinkled balsamic vinegar.  It was mercifully delicious.

DAY NINE

For breakfast this morning, bananas, ice cubes and a spoon of cocoa powder went into the blender. Not bad, but not nearly enough chocolate.  I’m going for two spoons of cocoa powder next time. 

I was medicating a six year old this morning in my office when he began to tell me the tale of an injury his mother sustained at SHADY MAPLE.  Of all places.  The powers that be are conspiring against me.  Why couldn't he tell me about getting caught beneath free weights at the gym, spraining an ankle playing baseball while running for a popup fly, or maybe falling off the scale at Weight Watchers?  But no.  I had to hear about his favorite items of food when he visits Shady Maple.  For those who do not know Shady Maple Smorgasbord in Lancaster County, my husband calls it the TEMPLE OF FOOD.  It is all you can eat.  In fact, WAY MORE than you can eat. Or should eat.  Ever.  Elastic waistbands were invented for places like Shady Maple.  Everyone knows that eating to the point of nausea is not a good idea.  Yet the line of victims waiting their turn to overindulge snakes out into the vast lobby, right past the table of portable items like flavored breads made with white flour and topped with frosting.  You know… health food.  I cannot count the number of times I stood in one of those lines, and truth be told, will most likely stand again.  Why do we do these things to ourselves and then have to avoid parent-teacher-fellowship meals in response? 

DAY TEN

Let me tell you what is challenging.  Sitting with friends at book club last night while delicacies like the mouse below were being served on little triangular slices of cheese.  Chocolate AND cheese at the same time.  OH.MY.WORD. I had a cup of hot decaf apricot tea, unsweetened. 

Do not be impressed by my fortitude because I'm feeling a cheat coming on very soon.  You see, I've got a couple of dates on the calendar during which I will be meeting friends for dinner.  Though I do not intend to backslide to the point of double-digit jeans, I was fully prepared to break some rules this evening sitting in one of the dated little dining booths at Spor’s General Store.  I just ASSUMED there would be nothing on the menu I could eat and I would have to misbehave.

But I found something to order.  It was grilled chicken and vegetable wrap. (Ordered on a wheat wrap…  Hold the chicken. ..and hold the wonderful melted cheese. .. AND the side bag of chips…) It was okay but not nearly as marvelous as my usual Spor’s order.  (A juicy chicken cheese steak with lettuce, tomato and mayo, some little pillows of perfection (pierogies) with sour cream and the piece de resistance, a hand spun black and white milk shake served right off the machine with enough excess shake  in the metal cup to satisfy a small thirsty village.) Just typing it makes me drool.

I know; it’s awful. To be fair, I TOLD you I in my initial blog there would be whining.  

And just because you are a free agent, not bound to this six week plan, you are plugging Spor’s into your GPS right now, aren't you?  Dirty Rats, all of you.

DAY ELEVEN

 From here forward I will attempt to use fewer words per day.  I’m taking pity on anyone who actually tries to read through this food plan log.  There will be days I don’t post at all because I realize you don’t really CARE what I’m eating all the time even though food is pretty much ALL I can think about.

Oh Happy Day I get an egg with my dinner tonight.  Believe it or not, I’m roasting more mushrooms to add to my spinach and egg.  Next thing you know I’ll be a fungus-lover.  

DAY TWELVE

 I fear I will not be able to maintain this diet for six weeks and I’ll tell you why.  On the one hand I’m thrilled with the way I am fitting into my clothing.  On the other hand, I’ve been stuck at the same weight for a couple of days.  On page 33, Dr. Fuhrman says “Most people lose weight until they reach their perfect weight and then they stop losing.”  I was hoping for one size smaller Dr. Fuhrman and I go on record right now that I will be most disappointed if I am eating all these nutrient dense foods just for my health.  How’s that for a poor attitude?

DAY THIRTEEN

It’s official.  I am practically a fungus-lover.  I submit as evidence the huge pot of Black Forest Cream of Mushroom Soup I made for dinner tonight.  I found this recipe on Dr. Furhman’s website and this particular soup was entirely too time-consuming.  SO much chopping, prepping, washing, cooking, and blending.  My fingertips are wrinkled and my kitchen looks like a horde of untidy iron chefs spent the afternoon in heated competition.  The secret ingredient was apparently MUSHROOMS and the chefs found it necessary to get every pot, pan, bowl and utensil out of the cabinet in order to make the darn things palatable. 

Once more I had to call upon my iPad-brandishing daughter to look up instructions for a food item I had never before purchased.  Fresh thyme.  For the first half-century of my life, I assumed thyme came solely in Simon and Garfunkel songs or in a little dry spice jar. 

Truth be told, it looks like the plant my grandfather used to place in his aquarium to make things homier for his spoiled guppies. 

Since there is no way on God’s green earth Jim would even taste this soup, he burnt himself an entire Hatfield PA Dutch sausage rope under the broiler instead. Aubrey is as yet unconverted to the wild and wonderful ways of fungus and ate around the beautifully sliced, seasoned, and water-sautéed mushrooms in her soup.  She said something about “rubber” but in the interest of surviving the next 4+ weeks, I’m learning to block out negative comments about the quality of my food AND learning to ignore torturous scents like the dark chocolate and strawberry crepe my daughter ordered this afternoon from a food truck at an art show we attended.  I didn't even taste it (nor did I sample the towering paper tray of warm homemade potato chips my family was devouring at the Farmer’s Market LAST night….) Really, I’m either completely insane or I've got the willpower of ten women.   Willpower, pants that are too big for me, and LOTS of soup to freeze. 

Please note:  The green you see is NOT the guppy plant, it is Popeye's favorite food, spinach.

DAY FOURTEEN

EAT YOUR GREENS SMOOTHIE

5 oz baby spinach

1 banana

1 cup frozen fresh blueberries

½ cup unsweetened almond milk

½ cup pomegranate juice

1 Tbsp ground flax seeds

Blend until smooth and creamy

This was breakfast this morning.  It serves two. Aubrey was responsible for glass number two and I can’t say with any accuracy what happened to her half of the concoction when I left the room.  I, on the other hand, found it surprisingly good and was happy to meet my sawdust requirement so easily today.  The inability to really taste the spinach was unexpected.  

Produce Junction was out of blueberries yesterday so I used frozen strawberries instead.  I think the blueberries probably do more for the color of the finished product.  If I had to name the paint chip to describe the hue inside my morning glass, I’d probably call it SLATE ROOF with an undertone of spinach and strawberry speckle.  Very odd. 

I've used my blender more in the last two weeks than in my entire history with the appliance.

DAY SIXTEEN

 So the government is in an official partial shutdown today and I’m worrying about who is feeding the pandas at the National Zoo.  Is the bamboo self-serve?  I doubt it.  It’s all about food with me, isn’t it?

I won’t bore you with the details of my fruity breakfast or the salad I built for lunch today; I’ll cut to the chase and tell you what you really want to know. 

Stepping on the scale yesterday, I’m down 8 pounds and it has been just over two weeks since I started the plan. 

Physically, I feel really well.  Better than I've probably felt in years.  Last night I had energy enough to go to a late movie in Doylestown with friends.  On a SCHOOL NIGHT, no less.  It’s practically scandalous.

DAY EIGHTEEN

There are a lot of bellyaches in the building today but mine is not one of them.  I’ve got a glass jar marked “Mrs. Shelly’s Crackers” (a cure for all ills - particularly in the elementary end of the building.)  I’ve been handing them out all day and it is beginning to get to me. You know you’ve been good too long when a saltine cracker starts to look lavish.

I’m a little discouraged because I've been STUCK at the same weight again for the last couple of days.  I guess it is possible I won’t lose any more. I am planning to go on a date with my husband tomorrow night and I refuse to worry about every ingredient in my meal. I intend to be as well behaved as possible with a menu in my hands, but not to the point of a plate of undressed greens.  Hopefully my planned bending of the rules will not set me back on the scale.  Devin (the former coworker who got me into this mess) told me he found it necessary to occasionally cheat in order to continue with the plan.  Well, I easily blamed him for telling me about the book in the first place, so I’ll blame him for my Friday night lapse too if things go seriously south. 

DAY NINETEEN

I began my day with half a glass of chocolate almond milk and a honey crisp apple.  Per my new usual, there were lots of raw green things and fruits for lunch. 

But in the interest of full disclosure, I ate tofu pad see you last night at a marvelous Thai restaurant with friends and shortly this evening I will enjoy a real dinner date with my husband.  If you care to know the worst of it, there is not a single ounce of remorse associated with my back-to-back evenings of duplicity. 

It’s a little sad how my alleged willpower goes right down the drain when the scale doesn't continue to announce good tidings of great joy. As declared on day 18…here I am failing to stick to the plan and it is ALL DEVIN’S FAULT!  (Kidding. I wholly accept all the blame for my pitifully crumbling tenacity.)

I guess this is the part of the process where I admit to myself that if I want to see and feel any more progress, it is time to make friends with the gym membership I've been ignoring for several months.  My membership fob hangs reproachfully on my key-chain and screams daily accusations at me while its own frame dangles lazily from the ignition of my car.  I ignore my screaming key-chain the way I ignore the deafening tones of my alarm clock. You see, exercise is right up there with dieting and dragging my groggy self from bed in the morning on the list of things I really don’t care to do. 

But alas, there’s that pesky little inconvenience called healthy living.  If I want to live long enough to hug my great grandchildren, it is going to be necessary for me to make an effort.

I trust you can appreciate that it takes a particularly complicated mind to strategize cheating at dinner and returning to the gym in the same journal entry. I will return tomorrow with rehabilitated enthusiasm for the plan. I can always hope.

DAY TWENTY-TWO

I am officially halfway through my six week plan!  Last night at women’s group, my friends were eating warm chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin dessert while I ate green beans and sipped hot unsweetened cherry tea.  One of my clever friends noted that BYOB was NOT meant to imply “bring your own beans.”

HOWEVER….I had a delicious dinner with my husband on Friday night and was still down one additional pound when I stepped on the scale this morning, so I’m pleased with that. 

I should mention that my carefully written meal plan went completely out the window by day 6 or 7.  I grew tired of my legal pad telling me what to eat and it was just too complicated to do the overwhelming shopping have all the ingredients clogging up my refrigerator and wilting before I had a chance to process them.  I've found I need to just consider the daily rules and decide each day which ways to use my grains/starches, nuts/seeds, legumes, fruits and vegetables.  It has felt more freeing to stand without a list in the line at Produce Junction and see what looks good rather than following a prearranged menu.  I found some additional legal recipes on Furhman’s website and have started developing some of my own while using the principals from the book.  Yesterday I made a rather delicious vegetarian chili with a brown rice accompaniment.  Even my husband enjoyed it (though it is likely he is just tired of fending for his own carnivorous self.)

Dr. Fuhrman’s claims about better health seem to be coming true as well.  I have had short intermittent periods of dizziness over the last three days and I realized the cause this morning. My blood pressure is down to double-digits, making my morning blood pressure medication wonderfully pointless.  I should talk with my doctor about discontinuing that. 

What’s the saying?  “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” I almost believe it.

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

I’m down another half-pound despite the enormous amounts of delicious vegetarian chili and tasty strawberry spinach salad I’ve been consuming for the last three days.

 

I tried changing my blood pressure medication to the evening so that the peak effects would be during my resting hours and my occasional dizziness would improve.  But by about 11 am today the room began swirling and with a diastolic blood pressure of 44, I took matters into my own hands.  I ate two large handfuls of brined and roasted pumpkin seeds.  At 130 mg of sodium in ¼ cup, it is safe to say I've now taken on more salt in one snack than total pooled accumulation over the last 3+ weeks.  After no salt for so long, my taste buds can’t decide if the dominating sensation is how enchanting those little seeds tasted, or just surprisingly and pleasantly reminiscent of mouthfuls of seawater from my years of sucking the Atlantic bay while I worked on my water-skiing technique. 

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

I love lunch dates. I went to the Washington House with my sweetie today and scoured the menu for acceptable items, coming up with a salad and a side dish stolen from one of the featured entrées. 

My lunch was so delicious it was almost too good to be true.  The side dish was balsamic braised Brussels sprouts.  I normally don’t appreciate Brussels sprouts as they remind me of bitter little lettuce heads. But THESE I could eat every day. All day.

Let me tell you about the salad.  Arugula and watercress with figs, pumpkin seeds, shaved fennel, and apple cider vinaigrette.  The salad was meant to include blue cheese crumbles as well.  I prefer my penicillin in capsule form and have never been a fan of cheese that has been injected with horrible spores and left to relax in a cave until some poor sod comes along to crumble it on a salad.  Seriously, who EVER decided that was a good idea?  But instead of saying “hold the cheese” like a well-behaved dieter would, I brazenly asked them to substitute cheddar.  And substitute, they did. HOLY CATS was that salad delicious.  Poor Jim had to sit across the table while I made all sorts of irritating rapturous sounds.  He’s a good man.  I was so completely satisfied after my meal, I actually happily watched my husband enjoy some warm blueberry crisp topped with cinnamon caramel ice cream.  I am categorically more congenial when my own mouth is content.

You may recall I spoke about how improved my usually bothersome belly was feeling during this food plan.  It did not take long after my reckless cheddar infraction to begin to realize that dairy products are probably the trigger for my normal baseline discomfort.  I had almost forgotten how wonderful I was feeling for the all these weeks until that familiar distress returned and reminded me all evening how irresponsible I had been. 

DAY TWENTY-NINE

I've got FOUR WEEKS of this eating plan under my belt and considerably less belly.

We had a meeting with our inter-generational group after church yesterday and lunch was centered around companionship and Landis Supermarket hoagies.  The sandwiches were thankfully not of the foot-long variety and Jim was kind enough to share one with me, giving me approximately 4 inches of his beautiful Italian masterpiece.  It was a triple-threat to my diet.  White flour.  Meat.  Cheese.  I've got to confess; those four bites were positively blissful.  Thankfully the lunch also included a lovely undressed salad and lots of raw vegetables.  With more than a little remorse, I jumped right back onto the Furhman bandwagon for dinner, making a strange vegetarian Hoppin’ John with barley and black-eyed peas. 

Despite twice dipping my toe in the river of temptation this weekend, I have not gained any of my weight back and in fact have lost another ½ pound.  That brings my grand total to 10.5 pounds.  This gives me hope that when I begin reintroducing more ordinary foods back into my diet, I may still manage to maintain if I can just obey the rules most of the time.

Carrying out the much dreaded biannual ritual of shifting my seasonal clothing out of spare closets, boxes and bins on Saturday, I discovered several items of clothing which mercifully and miraculously FIT me again.   I’m wearing a pair of skinny corduroys today and feeling pretty marvelous about that.

DAY THIRTY-TWO

Two things need to be said today. 

1:  Some research results were published today showing that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine in laboratory rats.  Well, duh!  Anyone who has ever tasted one already knew that.

2:  It takes considerably less time to get ready for work in the morning when one can just pull something out of the closet and put it on without redressing nine times, without second-guessing how lumpy one looks in the item of clothing chosen, and without beating oneself up most of the day about how uncomfortable one feels in one’s own attire.  How liberating.  But there is a downside.  I have begun snoozing my alarm clock one additional smack on work mornings, effectively trading one vice for another. 

DAY THIRTY SEVEN

 My son and almost daughter-in-law were visiting this weekend and Sunday was my parent’s 57^th wedding anniversary so it was the perfect time to have a family dinner. 

I could have chosen to make some fat-free vegetable sensation, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth might have been intolerable.  So in the interest of maintaining my reputation as an acclaimed home cook, I decided to make chicken pies, a longstanding fattening favorite at my house.  This recipe (and I use the term loosely since I don’t actually use a recipe) is once again a triple threat to my diet.  Chicken, gravy, and pastry crust with a roof.  (An entrée not exactly on the plan despite the cooked vegetables inside…)  There were healthy side items and appetizers (next to all the unhealthy side items and fat laden appetizers.)  I made a third “meat pie”, this one a vegetarian chicken pie (a categorical oxymoron) for my sweet daughter.  The Quorn variety of chicken tenders is a rather amazing product.  This soy creation comes frozen and ready for the pan. It is delicious after heating with olive oil and seasonings. The phrase is painfully overused, but in this case, it really DOES taste like chicken. 

I needed something edible upon which to inscribe the words Happy Anniversary. So for dessert I ordered a Landis Supermarket cake because it is virtually impossible to bake something better than their sour cream pound cake with raspberry swirl, scratch white icing with a chocolate drape dripping extravagantly down the sides.  Seriously.  Oh, and I made pumpkin ice cream with a gingersnap crust as well.  Because the double-crust on the aforementioned chicken pies wasn’t nearly enough crust…. 

I did not stuff myself but I tasted everything except for the smoked Gouda.  The resulting fireworks in my mouth practically caused me to purr like the unbalanced overindulged cat living at my house. It was a rather amazing experience to remind myself what the big three vices (fat, salt, and sugar) do for one’s taste buds.  My weeks in a leafy green wilderness so resolutely devoid of junk food have made the addictive qualities of all three of these charming evils transparently obvious.  These big three luxuries are going to put us all in the grave prematurely because they taste so freaking delicious.

Thankfully when I stepped onto the scale this morning, my weight did not reflect my evening of weakness.  Just beginning the final week in my six-week adventure, I am down a total of 11.5 pounds.

I met my Monday morning with a honey crisp apple and some roasted unsalted cashews then ate my weight in raw veggies and greens with a side of kidney beans for lunch.  Not as fun as the pumpkin ice cream, but I’m feeling happy and well.  That surely counts for something.

DAY FORTY ONE
Unexpectedly, I’ve lost another 1.5 pounds since my last visit to the scale.  This is awesome news because in a moment of feebleness, I mustered my rationalization skills and started putting bottled (heaven-forbid processed) fat-free and/or low fat dressings on my salads in order to persuade myself to keep eating all these raw greens.  I was a little afraid this addition might thwart the other good steps I was taking so if you know me, you will know there was no small quantity of guilt involved.  (It is a pathetically sad day when putting low-fat dressing on a salad elicits guilt...) But despite the dressing transgression (and the way I have often ignored Dr. Fuhrman’s daily sawdust requirement) my weight loss total is quite amazingly 13 pounds.  It is honestly more than I ever expected to lose. 

I had a delicious vegetable burrito at a great little café (Lilly’s Café America) in Doylestown last night.  Wonderful place for really fresh food.  I was so busy gabbing with friends and enjoying my meal, I forgot to take a photo.  I found the images below on Yelp and via Bing.  

There are two really great options on the menu for people attempting to follow this plan. The first is “The Vegetarian” and the second is the vegetable burrito.  I’ve enjoyed both in the last six weeks.  The burrito is much spicier and contains pumpkin seeds and sweet potato puree.  “The Vegetarian” (pictured below) includes black beans and rice. 

If you are not on the diet, try the fish tacos (which my friend Sue was eating while I was trying really hard not to watch.) It is considered unsightly to drool over your dinner companion’s meal.

There are only THREE MORE DAYS left on this 6 week plan.  Other than the celebratory chicken croquettes WHICH WILL BE HAPPENING SOMETIME SOON, I need to start seriously thinking about what comes next. 

FINAL DAY!
You'll be happy to know I've made it to the final day of this six-week plan.  I feel rather wonderful for a person who has eaten nothing but whole foods for 43 days.  It is possible to live without cheese curls.  Who knew?

I had my blood drawn yesterday to check my lipids.  I'm fairly certain it will be the most magical number I've had in the last 40 years.

Other crazy things have happened.  I am cutting my blood pressure medication into quarters.  (Actually Jim is cutting it for me since I seem incapable of chopping it into equal pieces.)  I'm pretty sure I could stop it altogether were it not such a happy pill for me.  Coincidentally, this particular beta-blocker is used by some for social anxiety.  Popping one of these little fellows an hour before stepping up to a podium to give a speech seems to make wonderful relaxed orators of some folks.  For me, it doesn't just keep my blood pressure and heart rate in check, it apparently makes me a nicer person.  I know this because my husband actually THANKED our friend Todd.  (Todd: The physician who kindly prescribed this miracle drug for me. He was aiming to treat my blood pressure and run-away heart rate and he took the edge off my obsessive personality as well.  Yay him.) So though my heart seems to be much happier eating spinach and fruit, I'm not quite ready to give up the WHOLE pill just yet.  Judging from the appreciative glances I've been receiving from my hubby these last several weeks as I've fit into smaller and smaller sizes, I think Jim is still fond of living with me, even on a fraction of the happy-pill dose.  

(Room for a Thanksgiving turkey in there.) 

No.  This is not a picture of me.  (I wear my heart on my sleeve but I'm not yet ready to wear my belly-button on my blog.)  It may be a photo of an impostor, but the pants I started in have been placed in a box in the attic and the pants I'm wearing as I type this are two sizes smaller.  I've got a feeling if I can keep eating this way, I'll be sending this pair to the attic as well.

Oh, and for all of my dear sisters born in the sixties, I've got some rather incredible news.  Unless it is just some strange coincidence, it appears Dr. Fuhrman's eating plan has had another unexpected and wonderful side effect.  I HAVEN'T HAD A HOT FLASH IN THREE WEEKS. That alone is worth the diet.

Going forward, here's the plan.  Now that I have achieved my goal, the great feat will be to maintain my lovely new BMI.  Since eating this way for breakfast and lunch is relatively painless and has become a very doable routine, I think I will try to stick to that as much as possible. For dinner I will need to do something over-the-top like actually WATCH what I am choosing to eat.  I plan to add chicken, turkey, and fish back into my diet, but only two or three times per week.

And the sweets.  That's the hard part.  I've found a decent solution for those afternoons when chocolate feels necessary.  I keep a box of chocolate almond milk in my refrigerator.  A little sip seems to do the trick. With Christmas less than two months away, I will need to muster my courage and step away from the cookies.  I had some good practice last week when I made a boatload of monster cookies for several events and didn't eat a single one.

My end of the diet celebration meal will include chicken croquettes!  (I am ending the same way I started.)  But croquettes and I are going to have a new relationship.  Going forward I will adore them from afar and eat them only on very special occasions (like the end of this Eat to Live trial period!)

 I'm hoping that by stepping on the scale once each week I can stay ahead of a slow slide back to the land of carbohydrates and processed foods.

If you are still reading, YOU ARE AMAZING!  Knowing I promised to "take one for the team" and attempt this six weeks of dieting and blogging has helped to keep me accountable. THANKS for taking this journey with me.  Okay Dr. Furhman.  I believe.