Tapioca has met its match

Remember last week when I said my cleanse wasn't that hard or intense?  I am now retracting that statement whole-heartedly.  I was probably still coming off my holiday food orgy so I didn't miss anything in my diet yet.  This weekend I went to a very nice restaurant named "Milo's City Cafe" in NE Portland.  It is one of my favorite places to get oysters and I love them to little bits.  Once I sat down at my booth I instantly thought of how nice a cool glass of white wine would be to wind-down from my Friday when I suddenly realized I wasn't allowed alcohol.  Oops, never-mind.  Then I thought, well maybe I should get a nice dessert to reward myself because I wasn't allowed the wine.  DOH!  Then like a bolt of lightning I realized I wasn't allowed that anymore either.  

I've been on this cleanse for 12 days now and I still am having a hard time with this.  It just leads me to recognize how often I am putting these things into my body without ever really thinking about it.  The whole weekend was a repeat of that short internal conversation with myself.  Suddenly I was staring longingly at basically everything at Trader Joe's, from the kettle corn to the tapioca pudding (it looked kinda sweet and it's pudding right??).  I had emailed my friend earlier telling her of my January challenge and she replied in shock that she would simply die if she gave up "booze, sugar and caffeine" for lack of any other food.  After giggling at her reply I realized just how true this statement might be for me.  What is embarrassing is that I think of myself as a relatively good and nutritional eater.  Yes, I do have a sweet tooth but I also LOVE beans and eggs and this kale my sister makes.  So why all the problems now with January?  

I have yet to have refined sugar, I am as dry as a desert in high summer and I am no longer ingesting any caffeine and THIS IS WORK.  I will continue my journey until the end of the month because more than anything it is a game of wills now.  Stay tuned, tapioca is a tough competitor.  

January cleanse

January is here and so is my annual cleanse.  Okay, so "annual" may be too strong of a word as this is only my second year doing this but I swear I'm committed.  Having proclaimed my intent let me also say that this cleanse is not an intense cleanse.  I avoid all refined sugar (I can still eat honey and fruit and anything natural), caffeine and alcohol.  Last year when I did this I slept like a baby the whole month and felt so good I even did it a few weeks into February.  

This year it seems to be a different story.  In the last year I have semi-ended a five year relationship (though it still continues and it's a long story), moved into two new places (one of them being my parents house, ugh), and started a Pilates studio that I love (and subsequently went into debt for).  Now, that is a lot of change for a girl...maybe too much change.  I have been contemplating this mass shift in my life and I am truly astonished that I'm not hyper-ventilating into a bag as we speak.  When I was younger I would get stressed out about everything.  Eventually I even had a panic attack at the ripe age of 17 and almost went to the ER before it stopped and I could compose myself.   This is not me being melodramatic for the audience (that being the one person to look at this blog).  I had tunnel vision, could not breath and it honestly felt like a heart attack.  So, why with all this new stress in my life is my anxiety not over-whelming me?  Well, the simple answer is: Pilates.  OH!  Of course it is Pilates.  With all my life shifts and stresses I have been regularly been participating in Pilates.  

Bottom line: Pilates is a wonderful way of reducing stress, feeling good and focusing your mind.  I'm sure my cleanse is great and I will try to do it ever year but I will NEVER stop doing Pilates because it is my feel-good de-stresser all year round.