Potpourri for Day 6, Alex. (7 LBS LOST!)

where is this on the pyramid of #self-actualization? ok i don't NEED liquor, but gosh it's nice once a week.

I've decided since it's the weekend, i'm going to give all of us a break and only blog once a day. i'm also going to use these weekend posts as a repository for the deeper, more philosophical thoughts about food, emotions (for which i hope you will join me in the comments) and other info about the cleansing process that i've been thinking about during the week, but didn't fit into my other posts. so the weekend blogs shall henceforth be known as "Potpourri Posts," in the style of Jeopardy. and so it was.

1. First off, i've lost 7 LBS. so there's that.

2. Secondly, and total sidebar here, but have you watched Orphan Black on BBC America? it is AMAZEBALLS. if you have, don't tell me what happens. i'm getting through season 1 on DVD right now. ERMERGHERD ERTS SER GHERD. but, if you have watched it, does anyone know why the eff it didn't get nominated for ANY Emmys?! Tatiana Maslany plays EIGHT characters. EIGHT.

Tatiana in 6 of 8 characters...MAIN characters she plays. often in scenes with herself. DUDE.

3. Third, some strange thoughts about food in general. Allow me to expand.

it's so weird, but i'm not craving any specific food, although i feel bound by this cleanse (and i am bound by it, because i made a commitment to it, so i'm not even entertaining the thought of "cheating" on it. i agreed at the onset with full disclosure that if there was to be a diversion, champagne would be my ONLY deviation. and so it was). anyhow, since i'm not craving any specific type or even an item of food, this simple fact helps to eliminate a lot of food "noise" from my head.

and it leaves me with this big, gaping hole of an epiphany that i wrote about slightly in an earlier blog...just about how emotional food is. i would be lying if i said that i'm not totally in a tizzy about what the hell, exactly, i'm going to start eating and stop eating when i come off this cleanse. i can't have food delivered to my doorstep forever, right? while thinking about what my first "free" meal will be post-cleanse, i found myself at a complete and utter standstill.

(photo from my series of original photography in Downtown Los Angeles' Grand Central Market. For the full series click here.)

i don't know what i WANT to eat. for the first time since i can remember in my state of being a sentient being. i don't crave any certain thing, nor do i like the sound of a greasy, pepperoni pizza, even though i LOVE pepperoni pizza. i like this CLEAN feeling of my body, but i don't like the lack of control or just being able to go out to a restaurant and even order light fare. i just can't do ANY of it now, which is, of course, the intentionally strict part of this cleanse. i imagine if we were left to our own devices to make these soups and meals (which is doable-they aren't super complex) we would likely mis-measure here, sub in some EVOO there, add a dash of something here, blah blah blah...just so that we could break the rules, in some teeny, tiny, miniscule way. and we'd think that this was somehow liberating us...somehow helping assert ourselves as our own person, totes in control of our own life because we EAT WHAT WE WANT, WHEN WE WANT, DAMMIT! but therein lies the whole irony: it's only hurting us. that mind fuck i talked about earlier about food being emotional...control is emotional. breaking the rules is emotional. it makes us FEEL an emotion, and food is the enabler that lets us do it.

so there you have my totally free-falling thoughts on the subject, as of now. like my general creative process has always been -- whether for my personal art or for high-level strategy and brainstorm at work, or even when i'm faced with a problem or a difficult decision -- i have always used one method, one point of origin, for attacking it. i take whatever it is that i'm facing or feeling, and i deconstruct it. disassemble it down to it's most minute of parts, and then, i try to put it back together again, and see if i can riff or make variations or adjustments that will make it better, or different in a better way better suited to my particular need for the situation.

i feel like i have sufficiently deconstructed the idea of food and control, and want vs. need, and have started to scratch the surface of what it is that we tend to be hungry FOR, and now, i have the next 8 days -- and you guys -- to help me figure out exactly how to reassemble how i eat and behave around food. so here we go!

New cleanse-related items on tomorrow's agenda to address in my END OF THE WEEK! blog:

• exercise 
• my new menu for next week, and 
• The Trouble with Tribbles. 

(ok, not really that last one. but it popped into my newly-clean mind. what can i say? once a #trekkie, always a #trekkie. you are, after all, at GeekGirlKnows.com, right? :)

(UPDATED) - Day 5 of 14: How a Dietary Cleanse Can Affect PMS and Allergies

EOD UPDATE+FINAL TALLY

this is pretty much how i feel about everything but my cleanse foods right now.

BUT... day 5, first full work-week of cleansing...CHECK! i have survived and i'm ready to face the weekend.

towards the end of the day today i had really crazy tummy troubles (read: that's a total euphemism for something waaaaay grosser.) that lasted for a few hours, and of course, it happened right when i had to get into the car and sit in LA traffic forever.

INFURIATING LA TRAFFIC.

even though i use that app Waze (thank you to Emmett for introducing me to it...it's AMAZING) to avoid traffic, sometimes that is just plain impossible in LA. especially if you are driving the route nearest the most accessible restroom stops (euphemism).

since i've been very regular until now, this was slightly unexpected... i have two theories:

1. it's either supposed to happen because, duh, i'm CLEANSING my body or 
2. it's because of the seared ahi tuna (read: basically raw fish with a thin layer around the outside cooked) that i took from tonight's dinner meal and put into my lunch puree. it also had brown rice and some raw cucumbers and i think a bit of radish in it, so any of those things could have been the culprit. 

and man, i tell ya, it is crazy when you start eating solid food and you can hear it literally moving through your stomach after you've eaten it. i can monitor my entire digestive tract, pretty much. it is a veritable force.

for those of you who didn't read the morning report, scroll down past The Dude dancing in the GIF for depictions of how (surprisingly) this cleanse has lessened normal effects of my allergies and PMS. as Martha Stewart would say, "it's a good thing."

FINAL DAY 5 TALLY:

LBS LOST: 6 (for SURE i've lost at least another half LB due to the EUPHEMISM above)

NUMBER OF PUREES EATEN: 4

NUMBER OF TIMES I'VE SEMI-FREAKED OUT ABOUT WHEN I START HAVING TO PLAN MY OWN MEALS AGAIN IN A WEEK: 8-9 (more about that in my weekend blogs)

hope you all had a great friday, and have a beautiful weekend planned ahead. i will try to "keep busy" as chef Kelly suggested, so wish me luck with surviving the weekend without structure, but full of purees. (oooh, and some scallops! i have yummy scallops for dinner tomorrow. i almost want it to be tomorrow night already just because of that).

cheers!

--MORNING REPORT--

HAPPY FRIDAY, DUDES!

so i woke up today with a pretty severe case of PMS rage in my head. like, so bad that i got annoyed at myself at something i thought about that didn't actually happen, it was just a hypothetical (in case you are interested, it was this whole diatribe i went on in my head about how some people say "that's mines" instead of "that's mine". it's MINE, not MINES! that's a pretty accurate portrayal of how it went in my head too).

then, i got into work and my food delivery for today through sunday wasn't here yet, i was like RAGGGGGGEEEEEEE. in my head. but outwardly, i was like "cool, thanks, i'll check back in like 15 mins!" to the front desk peeps. i'm actually really surprised that i've been pretty even keel this whole week, which is when i'd normally be just slightly bat-shit crazy in my head all the while trying to keep it cool and seem like the same person on the outside. not some hormone-filled impostor clone who took over daria's body. but i guess i couldn't expect it all to go away. but generally speaking, it is remarkable how normal i've felt--better than normal, in fact--all week long considering what's coming next week.

also something good to report: allergies. not that allergies are good...but the fact that i haven't had to use my Afrin nasal spray to clear out my sinuses all week is great. i have been sneezing a bit in the mornings, but i think that's because LA is being hit with the famous, crazy, Santa Ana winds, and that always makes my allergies go haywire. so really, this cleanse has eliminated a lot of the congestion and other crap that i deal with on a weekly basis allergy wise, which is pretty awesome!

no weight lost today...but, to be fair, i weighed myself before you-know-what. sometimes things just don't work out-what can you do? but i'm fairly confident you-know-what was like 1 solid LB so i'm going to just keep that as a small victory in my head, though not official.

also, i did get my delivery as i was writing this post, and chef Kelly is so cute...she sent me some words of encouragement, and here's my menu of solid food for tonight/the weekend:

my favorite thing is the fact that it says "gingerly" sauce. even though i think it's a typo, i love it and it will forever now be called "gingerly" sauce in my heart and mind.

thank you for all of the support on this first week of my journey! you guys have really helped me out just by following along, and i promise i will not disappoint you! and if i do, i will admit it, and we can get through it together. deal? deal. :)

MORNING TALLY:

NUMBER OF LBS LOST: 5.5
NUMBER OF PMS RAGES HAPPENING IN MY HEAD RIGHT NOW: at least 7. (fucking government is shutdown, miley cyrus is SO annoying and it's "YOU'RE" not "YOUR" if you mean "YOU ARE." and there are TWO forms of the word "TO," which mean completely different things. TOO and TO! SHEESH INTERNET!!!)