Day 15

Doing well (fell asleep last night), except I'm still TIRED. Not tired like I want to fall asleep but tired like slow-moving and not bursting with energy like I'm used to.

For breakfast we had mixed whole-grain toast with butter and a fried egg on top and fresh strawberries with seven stars maple yogurt (I missed ordering from the farm last week and don't have any yogurt!). It was beautiful to look at. Drank homemade beet kvass along with plenty of water.

For lunch fried potatoes with green salad and parsley and leftover leftover veggie fritters (I made the fritters yesterday from leftover mashed sweet potatoes and kale, and today the fritters were left over), some slices of cheddar cheese.

Same thing for dinner, with cortido, plus some homemade Rote Gruetze (ok, it's sweet, but only with a tiny bit of raw honey: fresh strawberries cooked in water and a little honey with tapioca pearls and chilled). More beet kvass and some very lightly sweetened (raw honey) lemonade.

Yesterday I braved La Madeleine with Pshko and kids. Now THAT was a challenge. The smell of the French roast coffee almost knocked me over. Then everybody else ordered dessert, giving me the double whammy of not having any and feeling guilty that the kids were eating what I was avoiding for health reasons (they also had a spinach quiche each).

I wonder how people who are trying to do diets like Adkins or getting rid of candida and can't do any sugars or carbs whatsoever do it. I guess it would get easier after a while, but it's hard for me to imagine not even having a little fruit. As is clear from my food descriptions, I've been far from sugar-free. But it's MUCH less than what I'm used to, and nothing processed...

What has been helping (or maybe I'm craving it now that the sugar and coffee are out?) are sour foods. When I crave sweets, I feel like I'm craving a brightness that's missing, and there's something bright about tart foods. Tomatoes, kim chee... I even really enjoyed water with a little 100% cranberry juice the other day. It even tasted a little sweet to me (?). I can't imagine drinking a glass of store-bought apple juice or other sweet juice--it would seem sickeningly sweet to me. The kids have been drinking lots more water since I've been doing this and not even asking for juice (except tonight when they wanted Orangina so we squeezed the lemons instead).

I'll have to see what I think about all this after the month+ is over, but today I was thinking (as I was moving along at a snail's pace) that if I feel like I can't/don't want to do this all the time (I find it hard to imagine), that at least I'll cut down on sugar and white flour and keep off the coffee, but go on a fast from them a few times a year like what I'm doing now. If meditating and deep relaxation even a few minutes a day makes a difference, then doing this not all the time but a few times a year would be bound to make a difference too, especially if it's more likely to happen that way than if I try to do it all the time. Who knows?