Empowered

It's day three of my detox, and I must say, I'm feeling encouraged, even empowered.

First, I feel my body changing and my reactions to anything sweet changing.  I had a meal high in carbs a few days ago and came home and slept for two hours.  I didn't have dessert, but I did have potatoes and yummy rolls made from a brown rice mix - no yeast, and fruit salad (it's hard to turn down my mother-in-law's amazing cooking).  It's effect was very clear, though.  I'm already feeling accustomed to the substance of my new exclusive carbs - brown rice and quinoa.  Before this meal, I had been wavering on potatoes or no potatoes for this detox.  I'm now leaning closer to no or to maybe in the smallest moderation.

One of my biggest worries going into the detox was my love for diet root beer and Fresca.  I have such a sensitive tummy and carbonation usually does the trick to settle it.  Then  I remembered my best friend, SarFaye, who introduced me to Izze Sodas.  They're part fruit juice and part soda water.  No sugar.  I found them at Dodson's, and low and behold, they've come out with Izze Esque, which has even less fruit juice and more soda water.  It's a bit expensive though, and so in a moment of genius, I figured out how to make my own.  About a quarter part Naked blackberry fruit juice and the rest soda water does the trick!  Crisis averted.

I'll probably dedicated an entire post to breakfast, but for now I'll say this: I was shocked.  Sugar everywhere!  Sugar in my plain corn Chex, corn syrup in every turkey breakfast sausage I could find.  What gives?  I've taken a leaf out of Shauna James, author of Gluten Free Girl, and made popped amaranth cereal.  Here's the recipe.  Don't believe the bad rating, though.  I had no such issues.  http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1724955
I served my popped amaranth with cold milk and fresh blackberries.  Tomorrow I plan to put in a little dollop of all-fruit blackberry jam.  It'll be a good experiment.

It's been three days now since I've had sugar or corn syrup.  I thought this would be hard.  I thought I'd crave and writhe in pain and feel sorry for myself.  Not the case.  I feel so good.  I'm less hungry at meals and I'm less snacky during the day.  Like I said in my first post, we're not eliminating sugars found in fruit because it's my hope that post detox, I will crave fruit rather than sweets. 

I'm already starting around that bend, feeling gitty that my fridge is full of blackberries and strawberries and black grapes.  I have a large mound of clementines on the counter and a few apples for an apple/asparagus/blue cheese salad to bring to community group tomorrow.

As you can see, I am not feeling deprived.  I am, however, feeling satisfied.  And that's empowering.