Unfiltered Mommy

The weight started coming off immediately. Everyday when I weighed myself the first week I was amazed at how quickly it was going down. In the second week it started to level off some. The biggest difference in week 2 was the difference in my waistline, which I also measure every morning before I eat or drink anything. Today I am on day 19 and I have lost 5.5 kg (11.7 pounds) and 13 cm or 5 inches. I’m now about 1kg or 2 pounds away from that Red Flag number.

Other than the weight loss benefits I have had other changes as well. I wake up more refreshed and get right up. I used to wake up still tired and dragged myself out of bed each morning. I think that this is one of the biggest differences I have noticed. I think it is do the not drinking any alcohol and also not putting any toxic chemicals from processed foods into my body. The body can focus on the necessary functions instead of expending so much energy to combat all the toxins. I feel more energetic throughout the day and have also been way more productive than usual. Getting things on my To-Do List used to take a long time, but it seems to be going much faster now.

Another big change I have noticed is with my mood. I have noticed that I am less irritable and more patient with my crazy puppy and my kids. I’m no longer counting down the hours until bedtime and hardly ever get frustrated with the kids now. To me this is the most positive change so far.

The only negative effect I have noticed is that I am having some bad/scary dreams, and one actual nightmare about a week ago. The dreaming is not new. I have always had vivid and frequent dreams, but the content of these is somewhat disturbing. Hopefully that will pass in time.

All-in-all I am still happy with my decision to detox. I have learned how to cook healthier, which was my main motivation for doing it, and I feel overall better than before. My weight has not changed very much in about a week, so that is somewhat disappointing. I had hoped to see at lease a continued reduction to help me stayed motivated. The cooking is somewhat labor intensive as I am constantly cutting up vegetables, but the clean up is less work because there are less pots and pans and no greasy mess to clean.

I will say that I am looking forward to being able to eat avocados and legumes again at some point though, so I m not sure if I will extend the diet period or not. That is something that I will decide in the next few days.

Every Detox Program is different. One of the reasons why I have never done it before is because I like to eat. I never wanted to do a juice cleanse where I couldn’t eat anything or feel like I was starving myself. For me, a program like that is simply not maintainable, and I don’t think it is healthy for our bodies.

When my friend started her detox at the beginning of the year I watched her post photos of all the food she was eating along with her weight loss. I was truly surprised to see that she was eating actual food. A month later, I asked her if I could look at the cookbook and found that there were many recipes similar to things I already liked so it peaked my interest. I had grown tired of trying to dream up what we were going to eat for dinner, and honestly had lost the desire to cook. Cooking has always been my biggest hobby, so I knew that it was time for a change. I remember saying to hubby on several occasions “I know exactly that we shouldn’t be eating this, but I don’t know what else to make.”.

My friend started her business a year or so ago with the company LifePlus. It is an MLM out of the USA that has been operating in Germany for several years. I had already been taking some of the vitamins so I decided to take the plunge. The program is basically a strict Keto diet along with taking several nutritional supplements from LifePlus to support your body while you detox all the junk out of your system.

There are 4 Phases:

Phase 1: Loading Days, 2 days. Basically for the first 2 days you eat everything and anything you possibly can until you can’t eat another bite. 3000-4000 calories per day is the recommend intake. I felt like I was going to puke by 3pm on Day 1. I didn’t realise how hard it is to take in this many calories. My normal daily intake is around 2000 calories.

Phase 2: Diet Phase, 21 days or longer if desired. This is the most restrictive phase. 500-800 calories per day of whole, clean food only. See deception of acceptable food below.

Phase 3: Stabilization Phase, 21 days or longer if desired. Each day you are able to try adding new things from the restricted list back into your diet to see how your body responds. If you add or lose 2 pounds in a day in this period, you have to back to Phase 2 until you reach your desired weight again. This is to ensure that you maintain the weight you’ve lost and do have the yo-yo effect.

Phase 4: Maintenance, hopefully forever. Once you have reached and stayed at your ideal weight, you can slowly add carbs back into your diet.

What do I eat? It is a very clean diet of lean proteins and a specific list of vegetables. Things on the list for the diet phase include: white fish, shrimp, lean ground beef, and chicken. Other sources of protein can be tofu, or low fat dairy products and sugar free protein shakes. The veggies on the list are actually pretty extensive, but the ones that I am eating most are tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, mushrooms, lettuce, fennel, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower. There are many more as well but I am only on day 6 now so I have not ventured out of my comfort zone yet. I have to say I am truly amazed at how delicious all the meals have been so far. I was not expecting to like the food as much as I do, which definitely makes it easier to stick to the program. (I’ll do another post about the food I’m making with pictures.)

NO-GO’s include: fats, oils, or butter of any kind. Sugar, honey, syrup or sweetness other than Stevia or Erythrit. Soda, processed foods, breads, pasts rice, or grains, legumes, nuts, avocado. Fruits with high fructose content such as bananas and mangos.

Drinks: Still water, tea and coffee with no additives and of course, no sugar.

I know that reading this seems intimidating at first but it’s actually pretty easy once you know what to buy.

I also take several nutritional supplements: Aktivator Salt, Fish oil, MSM, Proanthenols, Enerxan and a Daily Vitamin drink that also has colon support in it, and a Protein Shake. I also recently ordered 2 more thing sot help support my body though this process and to have some options for drinks that have a bit of flavor. Those are called X-Cell, which is kind of like a natural energy drink and Key-Tonic, which helps support the body and CNS during Ketose.

In the next post I’ll talk about my eating schedule and include some pictures of what I have made so far. I am down 7 pounds in 5 days. I have not had any hunger attacks or desire to eat things I cannot have. So far the program has been very easy for me to maintain and I have liked everything I have eaten.