Day 13 - It's all Froze up!

Yesterday my in-laws water pipes froze.  It was out all night and into this morning.  We really had no idea how bad it was until this morning.  We had assumed the problems was right up at the house or somewhere under the driveway since both those locations are the closest to the air (it has been really cold – teens or colder – for a number of weeks).  Well this morning my father-in-law began the propane heater on valve near the street; we went and took a peek and realized the whole valve hole was filled with water which had turned to ice.  I think my father-in-law felt like the leak was either his fault or he wanted to fix it on his own.  We convinced him it was likely the cities issue and we should call them.  One quick call and within 45 minutes the water was back on.

Steel cut oats and green lemonade for breakfast.  Since my in-laws water was out this morning we made the juice here and then brought it to their house where my mother-in-law had our steel cut oats waiting.  We did spend some time helping my mother-in-law negotiate some of my father-in-laws stuff.  You see… my father-in-law is a packrat of sorts.  It is actually something that runs in both of our families and is tendency we have fought about every day of our married life.  It is easier that we both want to fight the urge to keep stuff—in that regard it is much more difficult for my mother-in-law since her husband wants to keep as many items as he can, we often joke that he is keeping one of his knick knacks for “Justin.”

We’ve decided Justin is a greedy little man that never gives up—he wants everything for himself: “Justin Case.”  So anyway… how it relates to today is my in-laws use to keep the Christmas decorations in the attic, but this year has proven that it is much more difficult for them to get up into the attic to retrieve the goods (they are getting a bit older) and it is harder for us to get over there to do it for them (we are more busy than ever, so we (my mother-in-law and us) have decided it would be better to keep the Christmas decorations in another place.  We helped organize some of dad’s stuff to allow this to happen.  Those of you who have packrats in the family know that there are volumes of stories in that one word alone (how many boxes of toilet paper do two people need... but we’ll save those stories for another time…

Lunch was quick; fried zucchini, onions, green onions and purple cabbage.  It was a very good lunch.  My wife had the day off work today and we all went tubing early this afternoon.  I was worried about my son going off a big jump a few weeks ago, but decided to let him hit the same jump.  I think all the talk of being careful and hitting his head may have made him a little skittish because when he went to go down the hill he kept slowing himself down a little—he did hit the jump once pretty good and yelled out that he almost did the splits.  I had to laugh just a little because I remember doing that as a kid (all part of the good memories), but he probably thought I was the worst father ever.

Energy wise the days keep getting more consistent—I had quite a bit of energy this morning, but not really until I pulled myself out of bed which is still very hard to do on my own.  However; I have not taken any sort of medication—prescription or over the counter—since I stopped last Wednesday.  While it made things really rough for a few days it has really helped since—I do feel like my body is making progress again and to be honest I don’t miss the sugar all that much today.  Although we did do a trip to Costco and the lucky charms were callin my name from the cereal isle—just one of many reasons it is good to have at least two people do this type of cleanse together.

The most frustrating part of the cleanse now is all the different information and ideas we are getting from everywhere.  So far we love the Mlis program—mostly—but are frustrated at times at how vague the instructions and calendar for the program are.  I’ve mentioned being worried about eating food that is “illegal” which we think we have not done (thank goodness), but that doesn’t help the feeling that we are not doing everything we could be doing.  However; we do just keep going and are sure to take the supplements everyday and are hopeful things will continue to improve.  We may just have to stop reading everything on the Internet—or at least not worrying too much about what we find.

We had my mom and dad over for dinner tonight.  We got a call on Saturday that my mom wanted to have us over to her house for dinner for my wife’s birthday.  I listened to the conversation from my wife’s side, but could tell they wanted us over there.  As my wife kept talking and agreeing with the date and time I kept thinking: “What about our diet…” I couldn’t believe my wife was forgetting about the restrictions we are under right now.  Turns out she just didn’t know what to say to my mom and didn’t want to upset her.  Well right away I knew we could have a problem—and my wife knew it to.

One of the fears that I have with our lifestyle changes are the restrictions becoming burdensome on other people.  I don’t want to be the guy that says “yes” to a dinner invitation but then says—like the Genie in Alladin says—“well… there are a couple of provisos… uh some quid-pro-quos” (picture me talking in a snooty English accent now) “we can’t have sugar, we can have carrots, but not too many we can have stir fry but no sauce or no sauce with all these ingredients…”  You get the idea.  We thought it best to stop by to explain what was happening—oh crap—not home; did they already go out to get the stuff for the dinner?  We had to make the call.

My wife and I are good at putting things off (sometimes), but this forced us to call right away—since the last thing we wanted was for my mom to buy all the stuff for our dinner before we talked to her.  I called and explained our diet restrictions and that we didn’t want to burden her with the cans and cannots so could we have them to our house for dinner.  She was just fine and that brings us to the point of them coming for dinner tonight.

I think dinner was a great success—we had chicken fried in olive oil, lemon, basil, oregano… etc.  (basically our favorite spices right now).  I think the dinner was a huge success, but I’m unsure on whether they liked the dessert all that much—they ate it, but I think that’s about it.  They were very polite, but I got the vibe that they were thinking… “these guys are bat crap crazy” (voice trailing off as they get to crazy) as they choked the dessert down.  Same as last night: cake made with carrot tailings (from juicing), coconut oil, almond flour, walnuts, and 2 eggs—frosted with coconut milk mixed with cashews, lemon juice and lemon zest (with stevia in both)—we thought it was very good again, although we could not eat as much last night.

Tonight was our last meat night for a few weeks since we are coming to the only vegetable portion of the cleanse in preparation for the actual juice cleanse set to start this Thursday—YIKES.  We decided we better finish off the turkey meatballs from last night (delicious).  We also made our favorite dessert (chocolate meal replacement mixed with almond milk, stevia, some pure dark cocoa powder blended in the blend tec with some ice) MMMMMMMMMM!!!  Sufficiently stuffed and bloated now—sufficed to say… we were very happy!

We have—however—noticed that our gassiness has yet to get better and has actually gotten a little worse.  My wife read somewhere (there we go reading the internet again) that this is a sign of die off—I hope those little candida die slow painful deaths full of the misery they put me through for all those years… those little bas!@#%&s.  There is still slow progress on my sinuses, but I am unsure on what to do with the essential oil.  I ran out of my doTerra sample and so went to our local health food store and picked up a different brand—not sure if it is working as well, but still feel like my ears and sinuses are progressing.  I need to decide whether to bite the bullet and pay the 60.00 or whatever it is for the doTerra… what to do, what to do?

Day 12 - Smooth Sailing?

Another Sunday, but nothing really exciting to report other than it was another good day—perhaps not as good as yesterday, but good nonetheless.  I feel like I don't even need to mention our breakfast since it is really the same every single day:  steel cut oats with cinnamon, almond milk and stevia.  Juice was lemon, ginger, celery, cucumber, romaine lettuce and water.

I did get very tired for about 20 minutes this morning, but it was gone for until early this afternoon.  We had leftovers but nothing past 2 days—didn't want to push the three day rule.  We also had some of the leftover cake my wife cooked for her birthday (again… another example of how bad of a husband I am—my wife baked her own cake!).  Another Sunday afternoon nap; although this time we did not set an alarm and let our two kids play on the iPads—we ended up sleeping for about 3 hours.  It felt nice but now we don't feel much like going to bed—instead we decided to watch Mission impossible Ghost protocol—very good movie.

We made turkey meatballs for dinner, which called for 4 egg whites.  Since we are only suppose to have 2 eggs a week we decided to try to substitute the eggs.  Pulled out the Blend Tec and went to town—used the smoothie setting to mix water and chia seeds.  The consistency was like egg and the final product tasted divine; ingredients: Ground Turkey, green onions, our nice fake egg mixture and garlic—salt and pepper to taste.

Again—the energy was not as great as yesterday but still good—the cloudiness was not as bad today.  I studied some scriptures to be ready for a lesson I would be teaching in Sunday school (I’ll blame the procrastination on the candida ;) ) today and was able to focus in on what I was reading when a lot of times my mind would wander and I would lose focus.  This is starting to get good!

Day 11 - Great Games--Old Flames

There is some light at the end of the tunnel!!  At least it feels like that today.  This has been the best day of the process so far—and especially since I stopped taking any medication.  We were able to sleep in until about 7:00am, our little boys actually woke us up.  My oldest son was worried because my wife was still in bed with me and he expected her to be gone running so we could make her breakfast in bed for her birthday.  I assured him she would be leaving soon enough and we would be able to have our fun getting her birthday ready.

What a slow morning, we took our time getting going, sang happy birthday to my wife and then frantically made her her "favorite" breakfast while she ran.  I do have to say that I think—and others will agree—that my wife is crazy.  It was 13 degrees this morning and she had 6 miles to run; although last week I think it was 3 degrees and she ran 8!... YIKES.  We had a blast coloring birthday cards for her and getting her steel cut oats and green lemonade—along with the cards and her birthday present up on our bed so she could still have breakfast "in bed."

We barely got everything ready when my wife opened the garage so we hurried up into our bedroom so we could wait for her to find us and then yell surprise.  My 4 year old had no interest in yelling surprise but wanted to roar like a lion instead—it was great and a big success which I knew because my wife had a huge smile on her face.

Breakfast for me was the same as for my wife—oats and our favorite green drink: celery, cucumber, ginger, kale and distilled water.  Since we have introduced stevia into our dessert diet we thought it appropriate to try it on our oats—still not a huge fan of stevia, but I liked it enough that I may try it again.  At least it gives a little sweetness to our lives if nothing else.

The morning went quick, tried to clean up a bit with our boys and then off to a local arcade so we could have a great time playing arcades for a nickel or two each.  I feel like I need to be clear here that it was my wife's idea to go to the arcade—I really wanted to take her and the boys sledding, but she is not a huge fan of the extreme cold unless it involves running, so she won and after lunch we were off (I do have to be fair that since we have two boys she wanted to try to do something they—along with her—would all enjoy).  Lunch was great—we had quinoa with green onions, carrots and peas seasoned with the typical lemon, basil, sea salt and olive oil; which was all put over a huge bed of spring mix salad—mmm mmm mmm it was VERY GOOD!

The arcade was really fun, but it was funny we pulled into the arcade which is in a slightly rougher area of town (the hood as my wife joked—although I'm pretty sure it is not really the hood).  With her comment in mind my eye was drawn to a girl carrying a young baby across the parking lot—as I watched I thought "this area can't be too bad... that girl is carrying a baby."  As I parked I looked up and noticed the "girl" was somebody I knew—my wife said it first... "Hey, I think that's Carol your ex-girlfriend."  As she said that I knew for sure—it was Carol there with what must have been her fairly new baby.

My wife and I have always been up front with each other and so as we were dating and first married we talked about our past relationships so it was no surprise my wife recognized my ex-girlfriend and she seemed fine with it.  I was not the one who was fine with it though—at least for a brief moment I felt a little bit of anxiety creep up on me.  Now it must have been a 5 years or more since I last saw Carol and I thought it silly that I began to feel nervous.  But as quickly as the nerves set in they were gone and we were off with our boys to have a blast.

I did run into Carol inside who said hi when she saw me—we exchanged chit-chat, simple pleasantries and then wished each other well.  That was it—no additional nervousness, no trying to out do each other with what we were up to, just a nice hello and good-bye which is the way I think it should be.  While I have a story I could tell with all the girls I dated—Carol included—we both have gone on to live our separate ways and both seem to be very happy doing it.  I felt like I had to point out to my wife on our way home that she was the one who wanted to go to the arcade—which was a whole lot of fun by the way.  I think she gave me a sly look, we held hands and kept on driving home—It does help me realize how much I love my wife—she is great.

Dinner was great—for my wife's birthday dinner she chose (based on the necessity of our diet of course) chicken cooked in green onions, olive oil, basil and of course sea salt—along with assorted vegetables which tonight meant kale, carrots and of course the green onions.  All this was served with or over quinoa, depending on how you liked it.  We had my in-laws over so my mother-in-law could watch our kids after dinner while we went to see Les Miserables.

In my opinion one of THE BEST MOVIES of all time.  I love the play and have had the chance to see it in production, but the movie helped to clear some of the story up in my head—not having seen the play for 15 years may have something to do with it as well.  I was a little worried because it seems you either love the  movie or hate it, but in this case both my wife and I LOVE IT and were reminded how big of babies we are (it brought us both to tears).  I do love the line "to love another person is to see the face of God."  WOW!  good good good!

Some of you may be wondering what we did about having a cake for my wife's birthday... well don't worry about that my wife had that covered.  While I was frantically making her birthday dinner she found a recipe for a cake and frosting that works with the candida diet.  The caked included almond flour, carrot tailings (from juicing), walnut, coconut oil and 2 eggs mixed with baking soda and baking powder.  She even found a frosting recipe that works with it: coconut milk, cashews, lemon juice and lemon zest and of stevia to help with sweetness (stevia was also in the cake).  Good Good Good

The only thing about les miserables is that it is a fairly long movie—it is late and time for bed!  Good night (since this is the up of the roller coaster we'll see if tomorrow changes, but it really has been the best day yet!

Day 10 - Crash and Burn

Yesterday night got crazy and by the time I was in bed I realized I hadn’t posted my entry yet, so here is the post for yesterday.

Today was another hard day... I'm not sure how long it will take to come off of the vyvanse, but I can't wait until it happens—this is enough!  I'm sure some may think I am crazy for going off it cold turkey and to be honest I had not intended to do it, but I thought it may be better to take a few crappy days so I can get to better days (or at least that is what my logic tells me—which I am willing to admit may be WAY OFF).

We decided it would be a good day to sleep in until about 6:20am which felt very nice.  We had a late night last night with my son chipping his tooth and then turning blue while crying about it.  I half expected him to sleep in until 7:00am or later—but who am I kidding; he is—after all—my boy and I should know he rarely sleeps in—he was up by 6:45am.  I was so tired and worn out today I actually started our steel cut oats and then laid on the sofa in our little Kitchen sitting area and was almost asleep when my son called my name.

The morning seemed to drag—I keep waiting for my energy to pick back up, like it has before when doing a juice cleanse, but it never came and to be honest it is extremely frustrating!  I keep hoping for the change, I notice glimpses of what I think is coming and then NOTHING!  Lunch was a quinoa vegetable medley over salad—very good and a much better dressing than lemon juice along.  Don't get me wrong, I love lemon juice, but it doesn't always help with some of the very bitter leaves you find in spring mix.

I ALMOST FORGOT what happened next, or this evening rather.  We decided we would try to have a spaghetti dinner, one of our favorite dinners for a long time.  We had already picked up some brown rice pasta, but needed some tomatoes (fresh so we don't eat the citric acid found in canned tomatoes).  Yes, citric acid is OK in lemon or lime, but evidently the citric acid in most canned items is actually derived from yeast so it is something we cannot have.

We had to hurry and get our boys some food because our oldest had karate tonight--my wife and I ate the lunch leftovers so we wouldn't starve, but all I could think about the whole time we were at karate was coming home and having our spaghetti.  We did get some ground turkey (which is legal), sent our kids to bed and then cooked our spaghetti.  I have not felt this full IN A LONG TIME—I actually had a rough time with the bloated feeling I had.  Although the food we ate was "allowed" I know for sure I ate too much—I should have taken a picture of my plate because it was SOOOOO FULL.

Of course we had to have our favorite dessert, which we scarfed down—nothing has changed as it has been—for the most part—in previous posts and it was still great.  It did seem like my energy picked up a little more tonight but to be honest I am ready for bed!

Day 9 - Once in a Lifetime Opportunity!

Breakfast was back to a juice this morning—mostly because yesterdays was a bit hard to stomach, but also because we have quite a few vegetables that we would not be able to get through if we just started smoothies every morning.  Standard green lemonade including: lemon/lime juice, celery, cucumber, kale, and distilled water.

Very hard day because of the healing crisis coming off of vyvanse

Lunch was a big salad topped with the leftover soup from last night—I added a little more quinoa into the soup, but the big salad was the very nice thing.

Dinner was a chicken dinner:  Chicken sautéed with green onions, onions, lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, pepper, basil and oregano—mixed with vegetables sautéed with the same minus the green onions (collard greens, kale, carrots and peppers).  Mixed them all together and then quickly ate (having my kids eat fast so we could take them to their uncles to be babysat while mom and dad went on a date).  Well it wasn’t a “real” date, but it was just the two of us out on the town—OK… really it was one of those offers to go listen to a sales pitch and get something for free.  Tonight’s freebie was an Amazon Kindle and a 100.00 gift card to restaurants.com.

Interesting night, but ultimately too expensive to “join the club” even though it seemed like a pretty good package—maybe we can have this once in a lifetime opportunity another time.  Went to pick up the kids and my son chipped his tooth while we were there, what a night!  Energy levels really bad through the day—probably the result of coming off of the vyvanse—but picked up a little after dinner.  Sorry about the uneventful day, but it was extremely difficult for most of today—hopefully better tomorrow.

Day 8 - The Joys and Marvels of Modern Medicine!

My wife and I had an early appointment with Tony Horton—we did a P90X session (Kempo)—it was pretty good, but our DVD player had a problem in the middle of our session so we had to quit; although I can’t say I was terribly upset.  Decided to mix things up with breakfast this morning.  Pulled out the Blend Tec and made a morning smoothie.  I know there are a lot of recepies in the Blend Tec box, but I just decided to through some vegetables together.  Put a few carrots, some romaine lettuce, spinach, kale, lemon juice and some distilled water—blender did amazing mixing the concoction together.  Although it was very similar ingredients to the juices we make it was a bit harder to get down (our bodies are not use to all those fibers we lose in the juice.

Today was a pretty hard day for me, and I think the next couple of days will be hard.  I have to this point weaned myself off of all medications except one well 2 actually.  One of the things we have tried off and on over the last few years is some medication for ADD.  I went to the Doctor a number of years ago and I have all the symptoms, so my doctor prescribed me some medication.  I have tried Aderal and I think Ridilan as well as one other more generic one, but the one that seemed to work the very best without many--at least thats what I thought at the time--of the side affects is Vyvanse.  The biggest problem with Vyvanse was the cost—since it is not covered by insurance it would cost about 185.00 per month, but really seemed to help me keep focus.

I didn’t feel “drugged out” or “spaced out” on it, it just let me focus on one thing for longer than a few minutes.  Not only did it help my attention span it also helped my extreme lack of energy I felt during the day and would allow me to stay alert and well focused during the morning hours—I thought I had finally found the answer.  It wasn’t until taking it for about 5 or 6 months straight (4-6 times per week) that I noticed side affects.  It became a little harder to sleep, and then I started to get more headaches and what felt like swelling in my neck as well as some pretty bad nausea issues.

I also noticed that my energy levels began to go back down and found that taking the pill didn’t even help with that anymore.  While I did feel like it still helped with the attention, it definitely made things worse in too many other ways.  I weaned myself off it (mostly) and only used it once and maybe twice a week and actually was completely off it all during law school.  More recently I got back on it because my focus seemed to just be getting worse and worse so I started it initially to be able to work better, but then I was on it pretty much full time.  That is until the symptoms started to come back, but they seemed worse this time--I even think it was contributing to my depression and anxiety.

Again… I weaned off it, and would only take it if I felt like I needed it.  Along with my other symptoms my ADD started getting worse after this and I decided to set up another appointment with my doctor, so to get ready for it and so I could tell him what the medicine was doing I began taking it every day.  I scheduled the appointment about 4 weeks out, but I had already started the cleanse when it was time.  The doctor did give me a different prescription for my ADD but I decided to hold off until after this cleanse to see how I felt.  I did't want to have to rough of a time at the beginning of the cleanse (since I knew it would be bad anyway) and I actually had thought I would get well through the cleanse before completely weaning off.  However; I decided one week in that cold turkey would be the toughest, but--in the end--the quickest and in a weird way the easiest way to go.

I mentioned that I had been taking 2 medications.  One of the medications I was prescribed a long time ago was for Inderal.  I have--for a long time--been victim to panic attacks (not the completely debilitating ones, but ones that would make me shake for no reason.  It would hit at times and then would be consistent--Like if I were to give a talk to a large group or train a large group, or when I first started to travel for work (I was a scared flyer).  The inderal would  make those times bearable, but what I also noticed is it made some of the symptoms of the Vyvanse much less severe.  If I didn't take the inderal with the vyvanse I would get really shaky and if I got to that point it was hard to get over it, so I pretty much took it at least once a day or twice a day while on vyvanse, but I decided to stop that medicine cold turkey as well.  I will have to see how the lack of both affect me for at least the next couple of days--but will also need to see about training groups or speaking to groups of people.

Now don't get me wrong... I do think that this type of medication, as well as many others, do have their place in our society and in some peoples lives, but in todays world it does appear the easy answer when somebody tells you something is wrong is to give them a pill.  I don't ever once remember hearing over the course of 20 years that the food I'm eating may be a problem.  We are raised to not question the authority of those who have the education that is required to get to where they are.  One thing I learned for sure in law school is that those who go to school for a long time--thinking of myself here--do NOT know as much as people think or assume they do.  This may be part of the reason I even questioned my doctor in the first place.  So while I believe medicine should and needs to have a place in our society (some of the benefits for people who suffer serious diseases are amazing) I don't think it should be the very first thing the doctors jump to before looking at what we eat.  I guess "we are what we eat" really may mean something huh.

Lunch: today’s lunch was quick because I needed to help my wife get to a class, I had spinach mixed with chicken cooked in olive oil, lemon juice, basil, oregano and green onions—I am now a huge fan of all these ingredients.  For dinner: I pulled out the Blend Tec for a recipe that I found in their binder.  It was a tortilla soup without the forbidden candida stuff (AKA, the tortilla chips and a few other ingredients).  I ended up putting water, onions, carrots, tomatoes, seasoning, and then mixed it on the soup setting.  It came out puree but extremely hot, I mixed some black beans and some cooked onions and some quinoa in with the mix.  My children were not fans at all—although my 4 year old did seem to eat it OK until my 8 year old called out that he didn’t like it and he thought it was making him sick, then all of a sudden my 4 year old didn’t like it either and it was making him sick too.  Silly children!?!?

Same dessert for late tonight--I'm going to miss these when they are gone--still at least another week until we have to cut all of that good stuff out of diet, but until then we will enjoy! enjoy! enjoy!

Day 7 - On top of a roller coaster hill

Such a good day… although didn’t start out that way.  Mornings have always been difficult for me and this morning was no exception.  My wife has been a morning person pretty much her whole life so when she has to get up, or rather, wants to get up at 5:00am to exercise she gets up and exercises.  I have a small battle every morning.  I always go to bed the night before with all the energy in the world and every intention of waking up early—thinking: “it will be easy.”

Well, it has yet to be real easy and unless I am getting up to specifically go somewhere or to exercise with my wife then my pillow wins out most of the time.  Since we can’t leave our kids home alone my wife leaves the house to go running at least every other day.  I did get up with her and then as she left I could hear my pillow calling to me—it seemed so real—so I laid back down in bed at about 5:15am and decided to close my eyes (only for a minute) about one hour later I was tackled by two boys—so much for exercise early this morning, time to make two hungry boys breakfast.

Breakfast was—of course—steel cut oats and juice, which included: lemon juice, spinach, kale, ginger, celery and of course distilled water.  We also took our 30 pills (or however many they are), which are part of the candida program we are using (Mlis).  However; we had a treat… each of us enjoyed one of our two eggs we can currently have during a one week period cooked in coconut oil (probably the most versatile oil on the planet) mmmmmmmmm.

I got a lot more energy during the morning and felt guilty for not exercising earlier so I spent some time with Tony doing a P90X session—he and I are becoming pretty good friends now… but even though it seems like he’s talking to me through the TV he never answers my questions or gives me five or punches my knuckle like he does with his other friends in the video, but I still hang with him sometimes.  It always feels better after exercising and I felt better.

Lunch was rushed today because I had to get my son to school and didn’t realize that time had gone so fast—being hit with a surge of energy I was able to get quite a bit done.  Well; with about 25 minutes to get him there I had to get something down my stomach so I did a quick meal mix and had a few vegetables—I am getting too use to these meal mixes, not sure what I will do when the tub of mix is gone since the stuff is fairly pricey.

Very productive afternoon, felt like I had a ton of energy and also felt like there was more movement in my sinuses and head.  There was a slight scare today however… nothing big or real scary, but… well let me explain.  Beginning this program we talked with my wife’s mom and watched a webinar with her that explained a little bit about the program, like what foods you can eat and what foods you can’t.  You can’t have dairy, but can have ‘legal dairy’—up until today we were under the impression that we could eat “legal” dairy right now (after all it is called ‘legal dairy’ right?).

Unfortunately for us my mother-in-law found out today that we should not even be having the legal dairy right now.  We had purchased some cottage cheese  (one of the legal dairy products) to take with us to my mom’s birthday party, just in case there were snacks there we couldn’t eat (besides the cake;) ) and we felt snackish.  Although we didn’t eat the cottage cheese I had taken one bite before heading to their house so there was a chance we would have to start this whole program again.  Fortunately in our situation it appears we are clear to continue the program as before.

Dinner: Fish cooked in—of course—lemon juice, olive oil, basil, oregano, sea salt and sautéed green onions.  We mixed this with a medley of vegetables—cooked in a splash of olive oil—which included: broccoli, red cabbage, onions and peppers sprinkled with lemon juice and sea salt.  We are also beginning to develop a favorite dessert: chocolate meal mix from Mlis mixed with almond milk and ice blended, but we added something that makes it even better.

My wife’s birthday is coming up and she decided—on one of our Costco runs today—that she wanted a Blend Tec.  We must have talked about getting a vitamix or a blend tec for one year or more but just haven’t done it.  We borrowed a vitamix from my sister for a few days a while back and liked it, but wasn’t in love with the bulkiness of the device.  We opted for the blend tec strictly because of the look (didn’t look like something my mom would have bought in the 70’s).

Anyway… as soon as the boys were in bed, which thankfully is generally pretty early, we ripped the packaging open and went to town.  Mixed all our ingredients in the blender tonight and our drink is better than ever, so smooth including the crushed ice, this may become a nightly thing since it is soooo good.  Definitely a fan of the Blend Tec—at least for the time we have used it.  We thought it would help us on our journey to better health and hopefully help with the candida issue.