Elimination Diet Day 2, Almost!

So today was the second day on the elimination diet.  It was a lot easier.  I was able to stay on the diet until dinner when we had to finish off the rest of our tilapia and ice cream (ok so we didn't have to finish off the ice cream, but I wanted to!).  The biggest thing I am struggling with at this point is skipping my morning snack.  Once we start the clean program we are only supposed to eat three times a day, while you can have an AM/PM snack, its better if you don't.  I would really like to get the most out of the program so I really want to be able to avoid it.  I also thankfully didn't miss my coffee as much today and was able to drink all my water for the day at work.  Drinking 64 oz's of water a day has always been a challenge for me mostly because I've never been a big water drinker.  It's helped though trying to make it more interesting by adding lemon or mint.  I also take two 32 oz nalgene bottles to work with me so I can keep track of how much I'm drinking.  So what exactly did I eat today, its as follows:

6:45 am - Blueberry, Cacao & Almond Milk Smoothie + vitamins/supplements
10 am - Organic Apple
Noon - Spinach w/olive oil and red wine vinegar; 1/2 to 3/4 cantaloupe; handful of raw almonds + supplements
6:15 pm - Baked Tilapia w/lemon, brown rice & steamed broccoli
6:30 pm - ice cream

The only thing I drank today was water.  Starting tomorrow we will be on the full elimination diet as we are now out of everything that isn't included on the diet.  One tip I can share is if you do decide to do this it will be easier if you eat or throw away everything you aren't allowed to eat so you aren't tempted, or better yet plan ahead so you can eat it all.  This will give us 4 full days on the elimination diet before we start clean.  It should be enough for us since the majority of what we were eating was already on the approved list.  How long you have to do the elimination diet prior to starting the clean program is based on your diet.  Obviously the more junk food, prepared foods, and take out you eat the longer you will need to be on the elimination diet to give your body time to adjust.  Even eating pretty clean before I have found it difficult to make a full switch.  While we ate healthy we still allowed ourselves to go out or eat things like ice cream.  You may also notice that everything I ate before dinner tonight was not cooked which is again something that takes some getting used to.

All and all though I feel pretty good.  I had more energy today and I didn't get a headache.  Although due to all the water I did have to go to the bathroom what seemed like every 10 minutes.  I am excited to see how I feel tomorrow once we are on the full elimination diet.  We are also going to have two liquid meals, a smoothie for breakfast and soup for lunch out of the clean recipes.  Actually even our dinner tomorrow comes from the clean recipes.  Although once we are on the actual clean program we will have our liquid meals for breakfast and dinner and our actual meal at lunch.  We are just trying to ease into this to give our bodies time to adjust and to make sure we don't just get frustrated and give up.

So I have two more things before I wrap up my entry today.  The first is another tip for if you decide to do this program.  Due to the number of supplements you should take while you are on it I recommend you either buy them online or go to GNC and get their gold card.  You have to pay for the gold card, but it gets you additional savings on top of the sale prices.  We were even able to get the gold card on sale and its already paid for its self.  Originally we bought some of our supplements at Whole Foods while we were grocery shopping and I'll just say I now get the joke "Whole Paycheck."  However, keep in mind that the good supplements are always going to cost more than the cheap ones, as with everything in life you get what you pay for.  You can also buy them from on the clean program website. For anyone who may be tempted to try this program there are two places online you can get free recipes that are part of this program (these are not the ones included in the book).  You can find them here and here.  These recipes were designed to go with the program sold online, however I'll warn you it isn't cheap!  Although I guess based on everything we have bought over the past few days it wasn't cheap either.  However, if you have patience (I don't) and can wait and buy stuff over time before you start it shouldn't be too bad.  Also, keep in mind if you do the program odds are you'll do it again, so consider it an investment.  At least when it comes to the juicer and blender anyways.  Plus who doesn't love a good mixed drink?

Lastly, you will need a good blender since you are replacing a large number of your solid meals with liquid ones.  Like most people we had one that was ok for the occasional mixed drink but really wasn't for every day use.  So we did a little research and found a great and affordable blender.  It is the Kitchen Aid 5 Speed Blender.  You can find them pretty much anywhere, however we got ours at Macy's on sale and were able to use a coupon.  We have used it several times now and can't believe how well it works compared to our old one.

If anyone has any specific questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them!  Starting tomorrow I'll start posting pictures of some of our meals.