The First Week Complete and Thoughts on Cheese

DAY 8 brings the close of the first week of the cleansing phase. It's been a good day so far. I want to wait until the check-in tomorrow to post my weight loss so far, but according to my home scale, I've already lost a pretty good amount for only two weeks since the initial TF+ assessment and only one week on the exercise and meal plan. I woke up with lots of energy today, did the dishes, tidied a bit, packed my lunch and made another yummy omelet for breakfast, this time with sweet potato hash on the side. I used to think I hated sweet potatoes, but they're actually quite nice. Funny how we have certain food aversions from our childhood and once we try again in adulthood, they're gone!

Thinking about this first week, I honestly cannot believe that I went through an entire week without cheese. Seriously. Yesterday I was visiting with a friend and telling her all about my new meal plan and about the TF+ program. We're both vegetarians and she's done lots of raw cleanses in the past so we were swapping stories and recipes. One thing I mentioned was the hardest part so far was the omission of cheese from my diet. She laughed and said "Talk cheese to me". My response: "Creamy brie on crackers... tart goat cheese with fresh chopped herbs... earthy smoked applewood cheddar..." The conversation dissolved into laughter, but I was honestly almost drooling at that point. The problem for me is though, I don't know how to only have a small piece, I want the whole block of it. On an average Friday night I could probably have 6-8 servings of cheese with grapes, crackers, some walnuts and a bottle of wine, and it would be perfection. However, this is clearly not only packing on pounds, it's really not good for me. Now, grant you, I have cut out dairy, flour and alcohol completely for the cleanse, so it could be any of those contributing factors, but my insides feel great this week. I'm not going to go into great detail, as that would be waaayyy too much information, but my body is running so much better and I can really tell the difference. I hate to admit it, but though I love cheese, we may have to consider just being friends in the future, as our relationship has clearly soured and I'm doing much better without it.

A wonderful part of getting fit will be not worrying about things like Spanx. My best friend is getting married next week and I'm the maid of honour, so I went out on Friday night to get some shapewear to wear under my dress. That was a painful process. There I was puffing and panting in the change room, making noises like someone was torturing me to get on a contraption supposedly to shave a few pounds off my waist and smooth things out under my dress. After I got it on, I thought it looked good but my boyfriend said he couldn't tell the difference. Mini-meltdown. These sorts of change room meltdowns will hopefully become fewer and further between as I get into better shape. I love fashion and I want to be able to enjoy it fully. I want to try on clothes and feel confident and beautiful. I don't want to have to put on primitive torture devices or have embarrassing tantrums in clothing stores. I found the photo below on Pinterest and it seemed to fit with this situation. I'm letting the past go... this will soon be a distant memory to laugh about. J