Spent

(This is actually a post from Facebook yesterday-Thursday. I have decided to move the progress here to my real blog, since it may be lengthy, too long for Facebook) I found this book at the library when I was taking the kids yesterday. The subtitle is End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again. The last two years have been monumentally stressful and I'm left feeling Spent, as he says. I have been exercising again and eating at least some vegetables :) But I still wake feeling less than energetic, and often drag through the days. So I thought I'd try his 6 week program. It is one of those Extreme programs with NO sugar or processed foods. I will not even attempt to be 100% sugar-free. But I can significantly reduce the amount of bad stuff I put in and try to balance it with lots moe good stuff. He gives daily assignments that all focus around food, exercise, habits, stress-relief. It is a total life system. I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of girl and I give up if I'm not perfect, BUT.... I am going into this with the knowledge that I don't even want to try to be perfect at this... it's way too severe for me to do while still feeding my kids. I'm going to journal the progress here for 6 weeks. May not be daily, but I hope to check in often.

Day one: The biggest change today is that he is asking us to remove sugars in all forms from our diet. I admit to being a sugar-junkie. I will give it my best effort, but not to the point of being ill. He does offer the option of taking glutamineto reduce sugar cravings. I have not heard of this so I will see if it works. For me, the biggest change from day one will be breakfast. Instead of coffee with fancy sweetened creamers and English muffins..... I'll make smoothies. I pulled out the blender and had a strawberry/pina colada one today with coconut juice, one banana, frozen strawberries, and pina colada flavored whey protein sweetened with Stevia. Stevia is the only artificial sweetener allowed, and I have used it for a while and do like it. That's a relief. It makes terrific lemonade. Wesley and I are off today to buy a few supplements he recommends from the natural foods area at HEB,... hope they have it all.