Ode to my Farmer's Market

I love love love the Farmer's Market. Nothing compares to the one in Raleigh, NC. Denver's best is dinky compared to Raleigh's. But I still love love love it. Since I was eating solid food again this weekend, I indulged in lots of good healthy food and lots of bad food too. I only took pictures of the healthy stuff.

We managed to get some really good looking corn. I love corn on the cob and M is always searching of even more yummy ways to grill it. This was definitely my favorite so far- grilled with husks on. 

I found these fabulous striped zuchinnis this week. I wish I remembered the name of the farm who grows them but it is an organic farm out of Arvada. When I saw these, I had to scoop some up. I sauteed them with some avocado oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Yum.

My favorite purchase this week were these yummy shiitakes. There is a mushroom man at the farmer's market and he is very friendly and has the best mushrooms in town. I got myself a half pound of them and added them to another salad on Saturday night. 

Yum.

Now I am back on the final stretch of liquid meals. 4 days this time. Miss A and I decided we were too cranky to push it to 4.5 days as we did last week. Here goes nothing.

Mmmmmm...

I had to grocery shop tonight, so I needed a snack first. I ate quite a bit of almond butter, an apple, and some blueberries. Then I got extremely nauseous while at the grocery store. It did pass, but it was very strange.

I couldn't decide what to have for dinner...everything sounded so good. So I munched on some Brad's while I put away my groceries and contemplated. I first tried Brad's a few weeks ago when I was in search of healthy airplane snacks. They are super expensive but worth every penny. They are so yummy and prepared in some special way that preserves all of the healthy enzymes in kale.

I kept flip flopping between wanting eggs or tuna, and Miss A texted me a picture of her dinner (eggs, turkey, spinach, mushrooms, all looking particularly delicious) and I decided to do both. Why not?

I made tuna salad with dill (and a tiny bit of greek yogurt- I am trying to lay low on the dairy train this weekend). I also fried up two eggs in some olive oil with garlic and put it on top of a bed of green leafy lettuce and sunflower greens, which I had not tried before tonight.

It tasted as good as it looked.

I'll take a moment to shout out about how much I love my grocery stores. I shop at Sprouts and King Soopers (and Costco...and Target...and Whole Foods...and the Farmer's Market... but KS and Sprouts are the staples). I am lucky that they are next door to each other, and I am even luckier that my King Soopers is really nice and carries a lot of organics and local foods. I bought the Brad's Kale there, and I found the sunflower greens today and decided to try them, and it was such a good buy! I am going to juice the rest of them in the morning.

I feel good. Sleepy, tired, and good. I ate some Kind granola for dessert. I may make my "clean" cookie recipe from May if I can muster up the strength. Mmmmm. Here's to hoping I can keep it healthy all weekend without over-doing it. 

Celebratory String Cheese

We did it! Miss A and I made it through 4.5 days of drinking only smoothies, broth (for me), soup (for me) and lots and lots of tea! On her way out of the office, Miss A brought in the perfect celebratory snack to break our liquid cleanse.

String Cheese! Cheers!!!!!!

"Muching on my Muffin"

Today is day 4. Maybel says "Good job Mommy! Now give me a cookie!"

With the exception of spoonfuls of almond butter, I have not wavered. Miss A has done even better. We both are feeling better and a little less bloated and pudgy. I plan to continue this next week, after a 2.5 day weekend break of eating clean but solid foods.

Ohhhh Miss A....how you always say exactly what I was thinking and how you completely understand the way I talk about myself as being a tootsie roll. Today, Miss A told me that she felt really good, and she coined the phrase "munching on my muffin" to refer to the fact that she felt like she was losing some of her fat from her midsection (even though she doesn't have any). I feel the same way. Very small changes have happened, but changes have happened nonetheless and that is encouraging!

Urbandictionary.com describes a muffin top as "When a woman wears a pair of tight jeans that makes her flab spill out over the waistband, just like the top of a muffin sits over the edge of the paper case."

Well said, urbandictionary, well said.

I am embarassingly eating very similar smoothies every day. Today, my breakfast smoothie was kind of gross, but pretty good (is that even possible?). It had a very refreshing flavor that would have done me well if I were sitting on my porch on a hot summer morning, instead of freezing inside my office with my space heater on despite near triple digit temperatures outside.

Alas, this was my view around 8:30am:

Yes, I totally agree with you that nothing in this photo looks particularly exciting. Except maybe the fact that I get two screens.

The smoothie was decent. Must love cucumbers.

Green Morning Smoothie:

1/2 Banana

Handful Kale

1/2 Cucumber

1/4 Zuchinni

1/2 Avocado

1 Tbs Flax

Green Tea (chilled)

You know the drill. Blend, drink, enjoy!

Yesterday's Post....Today

I am busy. I like to be busy. But sometimes I get overwhelmed with how busy I am, and those times I don't blog. Yesterday was one of those days.

My smoothie cleanse is going well. The only hiccup was eating two spoonfuls of almond butter last night. It is totally justifiable because almond butter is like a really thick smoothie, right?

Yesterday I brewed a cup of Stash Double Spice Chai to use in a smoothie for the evening. I simply poured the hot water on it and stuck the lid on and it put it in the fridge. It was nice and cold when I got home. I used half of it for a chai cashew dessert smoothie.

This morning I was feeling sluggish and it was 66 degrees at 4am (forecast high today is 93) so I figured why not have myself a nice cold chai this morning?

I just add almond milk and stevia.

So I have successfully completed three days on this smoothie cleanse so far. We'll pretend the spoonfuls of almond butter are not cheating. Only 1.5 more days to go! After that, Miss A and I plan on eating as clean and light as we can over the weekend, and restarting the 4.5 days next week, for a total of 12 days. I hope we get some results! If nothing else, my digestive system will thank me.

On another note, I have decided I need a straw. There are several reasons for needing a straw in my house.

1. I like to drink iced coffee and iced chai through a straw. It's classy and posh.

2. I waste far too many spoons on a quick stir, and a straw would do me right in this arena.

3. My blog photos would look way cuter with a straw popping out of the mason jar.

It is settled, then. I will get a straw this weekend. Stay tuned.

Day 2!

Things aren't going as bad as I anticipated. Chai tea and Roobios tea with almond milk and stevia are my saving graces. I keep forgetting to take photos of my smoothies before I chug them:

I am definitely less bloated than usual today. It feels really nice. I am also hungry, but that is the breaks when you have major digestive issues like me. In an effort to not embarass Miss A, I won't go into any gory details, but I will say that she is experiencing far better digestive benefits than I am, at least thus far.

Our firm took the paralegals out to lunch today, which obviously works perfect with my whole food, liquid only cleanse. I brought my own smoothie and ordered the only acceptable thing on the menu:

Yep. Green tea. However, I got my own little pot of it and it actually filled that little cup about 7 times, so I was able to sip on it and chat while not looking too awkward as everyone else ate their sodium laden delicious lunches. I sure could use some sodium right about now.

I tend to fall into a rut of making the same foods every day, and this smoothie cleanse has been no exception. My breakfast and lunch smoothies were nearly identical to yesterday. I did make an apple pie snack smoothie which was so yummy, but of course I forgot to take a picture. I will make it again tomorrow and give you the recipe. I find Fall to be a somewhat depressing season, however the smells and flavors of fall are very comforting to me. The apple pie smoothie was like Fall in a Ball jar.

I am currently snacking drinking on some vegetable broth. It.is.so.yummy. I told Miss A that I need a salt lick. I am so used to eating sunflower seeds, I really need my salt fix. 

Tonight I am meeting up with a girlfriend for a bible study and in an effort to not falter, I think I will bring a smoothie and put it in her fridge. I am not so concerned about prior or during, but the drive home (which is about 35 minutes) will have me wanting something to munch on. If you know me, you know I am usually always eating sunflower seeds while driving. I even have some in my car right now. It will be the ultimate test in self control. :)

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

I feel like I should mention that I am not alone in this liquid diet quest. My good friend from work, who we'll call A, is also doing it with me. I probably couldn't do it without her. Several times today (at least 8 because I have to walk by her to get to the kitchen to get my tea) I sauntered by her desk and inquired about her well-being and asked if she thought she was going to make it. It was more for my benefit than hers, she has more willpower than I do. She is also eating drinking about a third as much as me on this cleanse too. Not sure how she is doing it.

My split pea soup was delish but I needed something sweet to top it off. One of my all-time favorite combinations is chocolate and peanut butter. Almond butter, however has less saturated fat, more monounsaturated fats (the good stuff) and has has many more vitamins and nutrients. Most importantly, for me at least, is that almond butter is an alkaline food while peanut butter is considered acidic.


 If you haven't done a whole lot of research into alkalinity and the benefits of being alkaline vs. acidic, it is a little complicated but explained very well in this silly video below. If you have eight minutes, I highly recommend you watch it!




Off my soapbox and back to my dessert smoothie. It was easy peasy. If I wasn't trying to lose a few extra pounds I would have added more almond butter and cacao, but for this smoothie, I used just enough to satisfy.

The ingredients were simple:
Almond Butter
1 Banana
Ice Cubes
Almond Milk
Raw Cacao

Stick in the vitamix and blend away, then drink to your hearts content.

It didn't last long in my hands. Have I mentioned how much I love my new glass jars?