On my way down to the Outer Banks, I stopped at my friend Tina’s in Virginia for the night, to break up the drive.
As I sat on her couch, chatting with her, I reached for a pillow and covered my stomach with it. I haven’t done that in years.
For the past several months, I’ve looked at the number on the scale, refused to believe it, and kept coming up with a new excuse to justify it.
Oh, it must be water weight. I must be PMS–ing. Maybe something I ate had too much salt in it. Maybe my clothes are really heavy. This isn’t real weight gain.
At the beach, we had lots of delicious, indulgent, not at all healthy food. I took a plate…and then went back for more….every night…and every morning at breakfast. One night, I got sick to my stomach because I’d eaten so much – a feeling that used to be all too familiar, and that I certainly don’t miss.
In isolation, these are all fine. (Well, maybe not eating until you feel sick.) Combined? This makes me nervous that I’m going to fall down that slippery slope of gaining all the weight back.
Maybe you saw me Instagramming pictures of Blueprint Cleanse today? I’d always said I’d never do a cleanse, but as I’ve heard more about them lately, I’ve been intrigued. Yesterday, the juices were on sale at Whole Foods so I decided to give a one-day cleanse a try. Am I expecting to lose weight from one day? Nope. Well, maybe a little water weight tomorrow but I know that’s not a permanent thing. No, I really just wanted a way to pump a bunch of nutrients into me and start to reset some of the unhealthier habits I’ve picked up over the past few months to make sure any recent weight gain isn’t permanent. I’ll do a more in-depth post about the cleanse and my thoughts on it soon, but I wanted to mention it in context with the beginning of the post.
I think that trying to be a “perfect” eater can be equally unhealthy, and I don’t want to follow a strict diet, so I’m just going to say this: more cooking for myself, less wine. Those are my two health downfalls.
Have you ever done a cleanse? Would you? I’m not sure if I’d ever do one for more than a day (by the way, doing it on a nice day in June in NYC? Walking past lots of al fresco diners? Sorta torturous.)
How do you reset when you’ve gained some weight or see yourself slipping back into old habits you thought you’d moved away from?
Unrelated: My running coach, Jess, BQ-ed at San Diego! Go read her recap and congratulate her!
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80/20 my friend, 80/20 :)
(80% healthy. 20% wine ;) )
@Heidi: OOPS, I think I've had that ratio the other way lately :)
@Theodora: I'll trade you. I need more wine in my life. :) (says the new mom with a baby who WON'T NAP)
Ugh...I know exactly what you mean about hiding what makes you feel bad about yourself. I think you look amazing -- strong, healthy, confident -- but it only matters what YOU see. So it sucks that you're beating yourself up.
I got on a juice kick a year or so ago, when I was feeling blah about everything...my weight, my skin, my energy. I never went on a cleanse, per se, but I did detox the toxic stuff that I knew was bringing me down. I'll never cut calories the way I did in the past, because it's just too dangerous and drastic, but I think eating (drinking?) extra clean for a few days is a good idea.
If you're like me, and I think you are, having a little bit of control in something that feels so out of control can make a world of difference.
@Katy Widrick: Katy, Katy, Katy. Always so wise :) And wonderful.
I'm not one for cleanses (I've never done one before) though that's not to say that I'd NEVER do one. The day may come because I like the way you used it almost like a "kickstart" to making healthier choices. My current living situation has made eating the way I'm used to a lot harder and while i'm still making healthy choices, I find it easier to give into my cravings than it used to be. I'm working to change that now instead of waiting for the situation to change.
I've never been on a cleanse, but I have been juicing in place of snacks and breakfast. I usually just have a Kashi bar and water or coffee for breakfast or some tea and something from the Chinese bakery near my train station - not healthy. I tried one of the juices from Cooler Cleanse and I thought it was awful. It was one with some kind of nut milk. I've had and like almond milk, so I know it wasn't that. Plus, I thought it was expensive. I actually really like the green juices at Juice Generation. I bought a Breville juicer and I started making my own green juice and it tastes just like the juice at Juice Generation. It makes me feel better when I have the juice, but I still need to cut out the late afternoon snacking on sweets.
The cleanse could get you back on track by resetting your taste buds. How many calories does the one day cleanse come out to?
@Linda: I've started to like green juice a lot more lately - I like it from Terri, as well as the ones Starbucks has - so that sort of eased me into this. That, and the sale. 5 of the juices were 6.99 (normally 9.99) and one of them was 4! (Normally 9.99.)
Calorie-wise, it was 1070 calories. I ran this morning before all the juices and did a yoga class tonight and that amount of calories seemed to be okay. Though we'll see how hungry I wake up tomorrow :)
I'm really craving a spinach feta wrap from Starbucks, and know they're not bad calorie-wise, but the processed-ness (new word alert) is probably not the best way to break the cleanse...
@Theodora: if you have the supplies, make yourself an egg white spinach and feta omelette (or scramble - what all my omlettes end up as). That stuff at Starbucks isn't too bad calorie-wise, but nothing but the coffee is made fresh there - all the food comes ore-packaged from lord knows where!
I know how you feel! I have been in that same state of denial since last summer, but instead of getting myself in control again, I gave in. So I ended up gaining almost all of the weight back that I had lost. And now I'm back at square one, except this time, I don't have a girls trip to Vegas to look forward to, so my motivation is basically at zero. I wish I could go back every day to when I stopped working out as much, and started introducing large quantities of bad food back into my diet and kick myself every time I made a bad choice.
All of this is to say, congratulations on spotting the issue, and working to stay on track. Don't be me, and slip into old habits!
@Rebecca Ann: You can't go back, but you can go forward!
@Theodora: Working on it, for sure!
I just did a 3 day cleanse (well, I actually only got through 2 days) lol. But I did it for the same reasons you did...I've gaine 10 lbs recently and really wanted to reset my body and get back to healthy eating. Excited to read more about the cleanse you did!
So I have done cleanses, and I think they're great (and once upon a time I swore they were totally ridiculous!). I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow has made juice cleanses a spoiled celeb cliche, but GP aside, I think there can be some benefits. It isn't about weight loss (because you're right, that's temporary) - but just about feeling better.
Like you, I turned to a cleanse when I was just frustrated by what the scale was telling me. I was eating pretty well and working out plenty, but I was hungry all the time and just felt like I was constantly thinking about food and eating for the wrong reasons. I felt uncomfortable, all of my clothes were tight, I was tired, etc. I felt like I needed something a little drastic to hit reset...and it totally worked.
I did Mastercleanse, which is definitely extreme (this was in the days before BP Cleanse). The first time I did it for 2 weeks; a year later, I did 3. Like I said -- totally extreme, but right for me. After a few days I felt great - lots of energy, not hungry, not sluggish. I fell asleep easily and woke at the crack of dawn -- and then headed to the gym and rocked some tough workouts!
My experience was extreme, but I think there are some great benefits from less restrictive programs. I would really recommend trying to stick it out for 3 days -- it really takes a few days before you get all of the benefits (the first few days you feel a little tired and you're definitely missing real food).
Good luck! Maintaining weight loss is the hardest, but I'm sure you'll be feeling good and back in the zone in no time!
Ugh. I so hear this. I'm one month and two weeks away from my black belt test. In some ways, I'm in the best shape of my life (definitely the strongest), but I've undone so much of my progress by packing on pure ol' fat in the midsection, so much that I've hit an all-time high. And no, it's not that I'm denser with muscle. Trust me when I say muscle doesn't pouch over your elastic-waist martial-arts pants like that. ;-)
The problem is, when do I have to feel "bad enough" to do something about it? My stomach is a mess. I'm tired all the time. But I can't seem to care quite enough to start rebuilding my good habits and ditching my crappy ones.
Maybe I SHOULD cleanse...
@Joan: I hope this post didn't come across as cleansing is the best! You should do it! Because I'm honestly still working through my thoughts on it. The bottom line for why I tried it is I saw a decent price, and I'd been thinking about it, so it was sort of a perfect storm.
Oh, so that's not muscle peeking over my yoga pants? Damn.
Girl, I totally feel you on this one -- those dress pants that were getting to the "they're almost too big" point are now back to tighter than I'd like. It's easy to fall back into old habits, but so hard to break them!
I hope the cleanse is a success! I don't think I would purchase a cleanse package, but make myself a bunch of smoothies and juices for a day.