(UPDATED. I Did NOT Have a Taco!) I Had Vodka, You Guys. And I'm a CHEAP DATE! Day 12

---EOD REPORT+FINAL TALLY---

this afternoon, one of my co-workers who is also a friend and whom i love (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, TAMMIE! ;) came over to me and was like "OMG did you SEE what is in the KITCHEN?!" and i was like "no!!!", and "that was on purpose!" whatever it is, I CAN'T EAT IT! and she was like "but you have to support meeeee!! we have to stick together!" and i was like "ok ok ok you are right! you have been supporting me in my cleanse, i will go LOOK at what is in the kitchen with you." i'm strong, right?

so i went in the kitchen and come to find that some mystery meanie awesome person had left EVERYTHING for make your own tacos. i'm talkin' chicken meat (white meat, hand cut), beef (again, chunky beef, hand cut), onions, cilantro, limes, cheese, beans, rice....EVERYTHING. all in these neat little containers. let me tell you something...

I HEART TACOS. especially make-your-own tacos. taco night is infamous in my house, always has been. it's a great way to make a group dinner when friends come over, or great for a mid-week dinner with you and your bestie or lover or partner.

anyways, while my co-worker (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, TAMMIE! :) tasted the beef and we discussed how, if you avoid the tortilla, it's basically a healthy bowl of homemade goodness, (#girleconomics) we surveyed the landscape. and i am so proud of myself...i did not take even ONE BITE of any of the spoils before me. which sort of looked like this:

with that hurdle cleared (her tasting and me avoiding tasting), we were surveying what of the leftovers was suitable bag-it-up-to-take-home goods. again, i feel triumphant in this moment, because i did something that satiated me, yet allowed me to keep my word to myself and my diet. i took a ziplock bag, put a generous amount of cilantro (which i LOVE) and some beautiful lime wedges in it, and put it in the fridge with my LAST 3 DAYS' (WOOT) worth of cleanse food. 

when i got home tonight, i had my dinner (seared scallops and a hearty salad), and then when it was time for my final puree of the day (sweet pea, in case you are curious), i took some cilantro out, put it into the soup bowl, squeezed some fresh lime on top, and BAM! i felt like i had gotten my (free) money's worth of food from work. i didn't feel like i was "missing out" on anything just because i wasn't eating the tacos. 

in fact, i felt proud of myself for coming up with a creative, non-caloric and non-cheating-on-my-cleanse solution to free food being offered up at work (a situation that i know we ALL find hard to resist. we somehow talk ourselves out of whatever our normal eating habits are when there is free food involved...even if that food is not something we are craving, or even if it's something that we don't particularly love. what is up with that? #foodnoise, that's what. that's for another day).

so that's my story of the day. i feel like it was a strong finish to the end of a rather difficult yet successful work week. i feel that things are starting to fall into place for me, and this is just the beginning. i'm excited to blog this weekend about some bigger picture and summary thoughts about this life-altering cleanse, and also about the little nuances of it. i've officially made it 12 days as of today, and that is pretty awesome, if i do say so myself.

FINAL EOD TALLY:

-LBS LOST: 10
-NUMBER OF TACOS EATEN: 0
-NUMBER OF TIMES YOU WILL SEE A DANCING TACO ON MY BLOG: this probably isn't the last.

---MORNING REPORT---

so last night, try as i might to find champs at the Henry Fonda theatre, the closest thing i could find was this:

grey goose and soda with a few limes. what?

but when you are seeing this:

Stereophonics. #RockAndRollBaby.

and haven't eaten all of your soup purees, and the band didn't go on until 10 pm, and you all of a sudden feel REALLY old for the first time, a vodka+soda+3 limes is definitely in order.

and let me tell you, i was a CHEAP DATE!!! i took like 3 sips of my cocktail, and i was instantly buzzed. it was so funny! i had to sip it slowly, and then after i drank it, i was totally buzzed, and then like 2 hrs later i had a headache already. HA! my, how things change.

the concert was great, but man was i tired. it's hard enough on a "school night" to go out these days, and it was even harder given my cleansing state currently. but i made it! the concert was great, and i hit another milestone in being able to avoid the street hot dogs outside the theatre on Hollywood Blvd. at midnight last night.

this morning's weight loss tally is still the same (i reckon the alcohol bloated me up a bit too), and i got my FINAL food delivery today from Chef Kelly. we had a great chat about how she is going to help me understand how to continue this new way of eating on my own after Sunday. i CAN NOT WAIT to go to Trader Joe's and go grocery shopping this sunday! I CAN'T WAIT! i've saved so much money not shopping or going out to eat, it's insane. (i did win this cleanse, remember, so it's been free for me, but it is a good amount of money if you are paying for it. but i think that with 5 organic meals a day for 2 weeks, i'd still be saving money even if i was paying for it. #girleconomics.

so tonight, tomorrow and sunday i will be blogging about all of the details you guys have been asking me about privately. specifics about the food, cleanse, effects, etc. it will give a good overview/wrap up of all of the goods, so help me get through my last 3 days! thanks again for continuing to support me on this journey. cheesy as it sounds, i'm a changed woman. 

Day 11: 10 LBS Lost, Going to a Concert Tonight - #Stereophonics

first off, i'm going to a concert tonight. to see the Stereophonics, one of my favorite bands. if you don't know who they are, please make an effort to find out-they are SO worth it! here's a first step:

what a voice, eh? glorious.

so i'm super excited to go to this concert, however i'm a tad trepidatious. (is that even the correct tense/use of that word?). the reason i'm apprehensive (that's better) is that as i said in a previous post, i've been taking the whole social plans thing easy during this two week cleanse period because it's just better/easier that way. not only because it's easier to be away from temptation or being reminded of what you CAN'T have, and because i get more tired than usual because i'm eating less overall, but also because i think a big part of this cleanse is actually about self-reflection.

the quieting of the food noise in my head has left me with a very stripped-down and raw version of ME. and that's a very fragile state to be in, no matter who you are or how confident you are in general. so it makes sense that along with this period of resetting yourself physically, you also take some quiet time out to reset yourself spiritually and emotionally as well. i mean, that kind of happens on its own anyway. i keep saying that i feel like i just got the BEST therapy, but really it was the cleanse. i highly recommend it. (unless you are REALLY in trouble and actually need real therapy or professional help. go get that instead, in that case. :)

in summation, of course i'm excited to see one of my favorite bands. but i'm nervous at how i'm going to feel standing and cheering and dancing for a few hours (in case you've never heard how i behave at a concert, the high-pitched screaming right by the camera in this video is, in fact, me). and also, what if there's no champagne there, and i order a vodka-soda with some limes...is that cheating on my commitment to my cleanse, considering i said i'd only break the fast for champs?

i'm pretty sure i've used this GIF before. i'm totally ok with it. this GIF is important at all times.

lastly, i have lost TEN POUNDS (LBS), you guys! as of this morning! how cray is that? day 11, ten LBS. i know i know i know it's not about the weight loss, but now i'm on a mission to see if i can lose the 15 LBS that the cleanse website says is the high-end of a typical weight loss for this cleanse. since i've pretty much proven to myself beyond the shadow of a pistachio nut shell that i can do this cleanse, now i want to challenge my body to do it to it's maximum results.

wish me luck tonight!

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? :)