less than a week left

So chronicling my progress has been difficult as I was away for work, and then went to Fairmont with my family over easter weekend.

I had a bit of difficulties in Mexico adhering to all the rules as you cannot really just go and buy a salad most places. But I have still managed to not have any alcohol or coffee, which is pretty good. As well i have managed to maintain the rules about 85-90% of the time. We met up with some friends on Monday, and I definitely ate outside of the rules, as well as a late night snack I had yesterday.

I feel pretty good though. I have been on and off battling some stupid sickness for the last week +, but that is not too unusual for me. It seems with work I am always fighting off a cold of some sort.

I have also been enjoying drinking copious amounts of tea, and also did my second liver flush yesterday. I will have a kale salad for lunch, and maybe some GF pasta for dinner with sautéed veg. It is exciting that I will be packing my detox 4day lunch only once more and then i'm done! Just in time for my birthday too!

Day 4- Thursday March 29

Alright, so today was a bit of a fail.

I got in from work past midnight, so when I had to get up for my 8am dentist appointment I didn't leave enough time to eat anything other than a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt.

I still had my lemon water, but then I was out the door.

Then when I got back I had to leave right away to get to UBC for my academic advising appointment, so I only had time to make a green tea before I left. Unfortunately when I get home the fridge is usually bare of stuff for me to eat since Josh and I do not have the same tastes.

Once I got to UBC I was so hungry I started to feel sick, in order to not miss my appointment I went to tim hortons and grabbed a carrot bran muffin and a steeped tea. :( SAD

Then when I got home I ate a piece of toast with cheese, and tempeh bacon, and an egg on top DOUBLE SAD.

I felt so terrible about today's grand failures that I have made a super delicious giant Lacinato Kale salad for dinner.

I use this tasty recipe, but put sliced carrots, broccoli, snap peas, and sunflower seeds. I also subbed lemon juice in place of apple cider vinegar.

After dinner I did the liver flush that Joshi recommends once a week. It tastes ok, nothing too terrible, I wasn't exact on the amounts, but whatever. I picked up this EveryDay Liver Detox tea and am currently drinking a pot. It's actually not that bad, so I might make a point of drinking it once a night.

Other than being disappointed with myself for my poor lunch choice, I feel pretty good. I didn't have a headache today, but I also figure I got a bit of caffeine from my steeped tea this morning.

Tomorrow will be better!

Day 3- Wednesday March 28

Bad news, the fridge in my hotel room froze all my food. SAD. So I had to throw away all my vegetables, and last boiled egg.

Breakfast- lemon water, a GFmacrobar, and rice cakes with natural peanut butter

Green tea

Lunch- Carrot soup

Snacks- Yogurt(it survived the thawing) Edamame beans (bought at the airport)

Dinner- avocado sushi rolls (they were with white rice, but i'm limited at the airport with an empty lunch box. I also ate some soy sauce.)

Snack- Garden salad

I am having a really hard time saying no to condiments. At home I am happy to make a vinaigrette with just oil and lemon juice, but on the road it is nearly impossible to adhere to the no vinegars/fermented sauces rule. So I have to make concessions.

I had a splitting headache all day, I assume it is caffeine/sugar withdrawal. I caved and got a steeped tea with one sugar from tim hortons. It helped so I didn't have to take anymore ibuprofen for my poor brain. I know the caffeine headaches disappear eventually though, so I won't make a habit of it.

Tuesday March 27 Day 2

I realise that I labeled Monday as being the 27th, but here is the 27th round two!!

Breakfast- I remembered to drink my hot lemon water today. I really try to drink it before I brush my teeth so it doesn't wear on my enamel.

Ate a small greek yogurt (it was peach/mango, but I already bought them and wasn't going to throw them away) and a banana.

I did a work out before I actually ate my breakfast, then drank lots of water and had a green tea.

Lunch- Rice pilaf and brussel sprouts/carrots again.

Snack- handful of sesame cashews

Dinner- 2 eggs (made into salad with celery)

Snack- veggies and hummus with rice crackers, and an orange (they had free oranges in the crew room! so I caved)

I feel ok, mostly just tired (but that's also due to a later shift schedule)

dr. joshi's holistic liver detox

Now I have never, ever pretended to be good at sticking with something. I already even had this conversation last time I tried to start up this blog. However, this time I am chronicling something that has an end in sight.

I will be attempting round three of Dr. Joshi's Holistic Liver Detox. Whereas I usually dislike the term "detox" as it seems to encourage people to drink lemonade and cayenne pepper(which is really closer to a fast), I like this detox as it really just alters my diet enough to encourage me to eat different vegetables- and no junk :(

I eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and for the purposes of the detox I won't be going out and getting special local salmon fish and chips anyways (Damn you Steveston!!). Some goat and bison dairy is also permitted, but I will just omit dairy altogether as that is one of my biggest vices. One of my goals is to stop having the inane desire to eat cheese at almost every meal, and instead reward myself with delicious farmer's market specialty cheese once in a while.

Anyway, this time around a good friend of mine approached me to do the detox with her, and as much and I love my initial detoxing partner, her and I just didn't stick with it. I am not pretending that it will be a magical dietary revelation for me. I would just like to lose a few pounds, and cut down on some of my food cravings.

Here is my first entry- I will not be updating this online everyday- but I will be writing it into my journal so each day gets covered.

Monday, March 27- DAY 1
Breakfast- Green tea, Greek Yogurt, 1 Banana

Snack- 2 rice cakes with 1 egg(salad mayo mustard celery), some veggies with hummous

Lunch- Lentil rice pilaf and Brussel Sprouts+ carrots
Green tea

Snack- Rice crackers and peanut butter

Dinner- Mulligatawny soup (I make a few modifications), and some veggie sticks

How I feel-

The first few days are always the most difficult, as my body has a hard time adapting to eating less snacks, and far less carbs. I make my egg salad with a bit of mayo and mustard, as I am not too sure how else to eat it. I really don’t like eating just plain boiled eggs. However I have found a recipe for egg salad using hummous, so I might try that at home. Other than that I feel pretty good, not going to bed too hungry- just a little peckish.

tsk tsk tsk

So, another fail grade for the blog upkeep. Oh well, what can I say? I have never been one to maintain any kind of hobby on a consistent basis.
Hugues, or oog, or oogie, or wegway or weggie(my favourite) is getting a lot larger now. She still has an incredible amount of jam for brains, and Josh and I are trying to fix this issue.

Hugues is learning the sits and lie downs etc... in our apartment, but when we take her outside it is like she has completely forgotten what "sit" means. However I read something in one of my books as to how to try and change this, so I suppose I will be trying it next time we go for a walk.

This past weekend we took Hugues to Josh's cabin out on Baynes lake( 25 minutes from Fernie). We had a great time. She enjoyed playing in the grass, ripping up clumps of it as if she had been transformed into a small bovine.
She also enjoyed playing games with Jacen, and "helping" Chris with the wheelbarrow.










We also ensured to have the appropriate Weggie sacrifice over the unlit firepit.

So, the weekend was a great success, and Hugues got lots and lots of socialisation and playtime with my friends.









Onto more socialialising, today Hugues got to meet a nice big malamute called Noa. Noa belongs to my best friend Anne's brother, Michael.
It was love at first sight, lots of fun playing, even more slobbers all over poor Weggie's face. Not that she wasn't encouraging it though.
They had a grand old time with another dog too, I think it's name was Darby or something similar.
Once Noa and Hugues got to the park by the Lougheed house they had about a half an hour of more playtime. Or rather, Hugues stuffed her head inside Noa's mouth and got slobbered on.
There was also this hilarious game play where Michael and Noa slowly jog across the field and Hugues tries to catch up with them.
Michael and Noa=1...Hugues =0

Playtime with Noa was a great success, and aside from the fact that she really really needed a bath afterwards, we all had a great time. I cannot wait for them to get to play with each other in Mike's backyard.


I still hate this blog format, and while it is une piece de merde, i will attempt to update more
*i promise*
haha

OH DEAR

well, my attempts to keep up with posting have failed miserably. I would like to blame it on my inability to arrange a proper, esthetically pleasing layout. I am currently in Halifax and cannot post any photos of Hugues, but I will do my best upon my return to Calgary.

The last couple of weeks have gone by very quickly, of course there is a fair amount of annoying "puppy behaviour" to contend with. But for the most part things are going quite smoothly.
I am very anxious to get her next set of shots done so we can hopefully take her outside. I want her to be trained to be able to go to the bathroom outdoors, not just inside on her newspaper/tray thing. The downside to living in an urban apartment is we do not have a safe, uncontaminated backyard in which to start the outdoor training. That is ok though, we will be able to do that soon enough, and hopefully the weather will improve since gale force winds and freezing rain are not good "potty motivators" for a little puppy.

We started puppy classes last thursday. First it was puppy play time, it took Hugues about 5 minutes to stop being shy and then she was bouncing all over the place having a good time. When we got home we gave her a bath. Which she seemed to tolerate pretty well.
This last saturday was the first bright puppy class where we get started on the basic training. Unfortunately she didn't seem to care about the treats we were using, so getting her to respond to the clicker was futile. Slightly frustrating to have the only puppy that could care less about a treat. Although, considering there were only two other puppies i don't feel too bad. So we are just trying to practise at home a bit and see what treats motivate her. Little tiny bits of hot dog definitely motivate her, even though it is kind of gross. So we will be working with that, and also i mixed up some old cheddar with some of her kibble, so we can use the "smelly kibble" for training and she wont get too rotund by the time she grasps anything.

Leash training is another learning curve. Hugues mostly just wants to eat the leash, so i am going to pick up some bitter apple, and continue with letting her wear the leash loose on the floor, but distracting her with training and treats so she forgets that she wants to eat it.

It is a lot of work, we are definitely going to be busy this summer, but she is SO cute, and likes to have nap time with either of us. I never thought i'd be ok with sharing a dog-nap, but since she is so cute and will sleep for an hour of two on the couch with us, i will let it slide.