Friday, February 6, 2009

New Year clean-up

This might come a bit late since it's already February but inspired by this blog post from The Kim Challenge I decided to do a one week detox.

I have been trying to cut out processed food as much as possible recently - for example - I just made my own chicken stock last Sunday. It took me about 10 hours but no more bouillon cubes for me! I boiled the stock down and froze it in handy portion sizes. Anyway - I am trying to cut out as much processed food as possible but it's more difficult here in America, where everything is processed and enriched and somehow modified to taste better than in Austria and Holland - where you can buy a yoghurt that is just that, a yoghurt. 

On top of that it is so common to go out for dinner in America. I never thought I would get so used to eat out but we eat out at least 2 times a week, most of the time more than that. When you go to a place that isn't a fast food place you would expect to get nutritious food, right? Well, I found that every place (that's not some sort of Asian cuisine) serves burgers and fries.

So to sum it up - I have had much more meat and unhealthy foods in t he last 3 month than I ever used to eat and that even though I am making a much bigger effort to avoid those foods. 

Today is my first day of a 7 day detox. The rules:

* No dairy - that will be difficult for me because I love cheese more than anything. Soy and almond milk are OK though.
* No processed foods. Everything has to be in its original state and only I can make it into something else. That cuts out pasta for me.
* Everything has to be organic. I had been eating mostly organic anyway though, so that's not really a big deal.
* No meat. I am going to eat vegan for a week. However I am wondering if I should include fish into my detox plan. What do you think? Obviously if I include fish it wouldn't be vegan anymore.
* No eggs.
* No sugar. Honey is ok but not more than a teaspoon a day.
* Cut out salt as much as possible. This one will probably be the most difficult for me as I have been salting my food like the citizens of Chicago salted their streets recently. However this is also the most important change I feel I need to make.
* No caffeine.

My breakfast today was oatmeal made with soy milk, a bit of honey, spices, almonds, flax seeds, banana and blueberries. However this is my breakfast most days, only that usually I use low-fat milk instead of soy milk. 

I will keep you updated on how it is going!

On another note I have done a lot of painting this week. I painted our dining room in two different colors - a light blue and a beige. My father in law is coming to Chicago for a poetry convention (he is a published poet) and I want to have the apartment as ready as possible until then. So the other project for the next 7 days is painting and re-doing three pieces of furniture and get the house clean and in order.

I will post pictures once it is all done!

My dear husband is off to Las Vegas today until Sunday for a work-bonding experience, so I have all the time I need to get this stuff done.

And little kitten Penelope is back and as healthy as could be. She is a little devil! Her and Anouk spend all day hunting each other through the apartment but they seem to get along most of the time.

I wish you guys a wonderful weekend!

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