WELL, WE ARE DONE...

And I still have not had any caffeine-all I have in the house is decaf. But, I sure did enjoy my Kashi Peanut granola bar this morning-man, do I love those!

So, there are a few things I am taking away from this. One being that it is actaully quite easy to work in those extra veggies throughout the day. And I will continue to do so. I think depending on how one eats to begin with, this will have a lot to do with what kind of difference this cleanse would make in their life. I know a few people who eating this way would be dramatically different, and they would be amazed at how good they feel and how much flavor can be worked into quality food. Clearly, I am a big fan of salsa. You can have veggies AND enjoy them-it is the best calorie saver w/ flavor!

I have also decided that I am okay with a mild addiction to caffeine. I feel the 1-2 cups I have per day makes me a more efficient human being, and I will keep them in my life!

The absence of "added sugar" is something that I have mixed feelings about. I am certainly going to continue to eat some of the goodies(like the granola bars and cereal) that have the added sugar, but I am now much more aware of it. Just this morning, Brett realized that his vanilla yogurt he uses in his fruit smoothies(that he has not had this past week) had 33grams of sugar.  If he simply switches to a plain yogurt, he could avoid almost half that sugar. Let the fruit and juices sweeten the smoothie. It's a matter of getting the bare minimum that you would need to enjoy your food. This is quite easy to do when you are eating primarily whole and fresh foods. But, when you do have those packaged foods(which we all do), keep the added sugar content low. For example, my kashi peanut bars have only 5g per bar..that's just a little more that 1tsp.

And I did not blog yesterday's menu b/c it was pretty much the same as every other day. 

Dinner was a little exciting though.......

*Whole wheat pasta w/ a tomato sauce which was made with the following:
-the rest of that ground turkey meat cooked in a touch of olive oil w, onions, garlic, red peppers, and broccoli. All mixed together w/ a can of fire roasted tomatoes w/ green chilis.
The pasta was topped w/ a light coating of parm cheese. MMMMMMM

Desert...no surprise-grapefruit and ginger tea. And yes, a spoonful of almond butter. 

And exercise yesterday was a 7 mile run. -Which actually reminds me of the point I wanted to make. The food I have been eating all week was the amount I needed to sustain my activity level. If I was trying to loose weight, I would have eaten the same things, but just less. And if you are a smaller individual,  well then this would certainly be too much food. I am a 5'9 trainer who is training for the half marathon...so, luckily, I get to consume a fair amount.  But, the main goal of the cleanse was to point out how everyone can put all the food groups together and form a truly healthy diet. 

So, that concludes the "cleanse" blogging. There will certainly be more exciting things that we will be chatting about, but feel free to write in with any questions or topics that you would like us to cover. 

Thanks everyone!!!

-J