Cleanse Day 3: Tea, Baked Eggs, and then it all went wrong

Day Three.  It started out with not much hope. I was hungry, but I stuck it out and distracted myself with tea and doing some things on my to-do list in the morning when I would normally be eating breakfast.  Headache still going strong.  I was wavering, especially when I almost fell back asleep having showered and dressed, just because I sat on my sofa to tie my shoes and lost all energy.  But my job is what really became a problem, that is why I gave up less than half-way.

Today was a very rough day at work. Too much happening at once, and then someone else’s work was suddenly piled on me.  They haven’t been doing it for two weeks and I was handed all of it, along with a side of screaming customers and a teacher who quit last minute.

I am on my feet at least half my work day, and today it was a lot longer because I also had to do a bunch of shipping.  By about 1:00 I was so exhausted with the amount of work I was doing, and with the lack of any food that I was shaking and was very clearly upset.  I couldn’t keep my head on straight. I ordered a Ginger tea from the cafe, and tried to walk off with the tea bag – no hot water, no cup – the tea bag.  I was determined to stick it out, though.  And I after a fifteen-minute lunch break for my leftover eggs (which do not reheat well) I was back at it.  And while I was dealign with angry customers, learning to do a job I don’t know how to do, I had to then train someone. Once everyone left for the day, I was able to finally get to my work.

Then, after maybe an hour and a half working on my own, praying I can get this done, my friend came in. She had shut down the cafe, and thought my office light was on by accident, because our office is never open that late.  After reminding me that I have already reached my cap on overtime hours for the week (so wasn’t being paid for being there) and that I looked like I was dying, she convinced me I needed to take care of myself.  She said something that mae a lot of sense “You can only go so much, girl, at or at some point, you’ll just break.” So I left the literal bile of work on my desk (technically it’s a pile of books with paperwork in them)  and we went grocery shopping. And I had a normal dinner.  And my god has it improved my very long day.

That’s right, I failed.

I didn’t make it three full days.

I know I should feel guilty and quite bad about this, but its hard to.  The past two days I’ve been exhausted, angry and hungry. I don’t know if my stomach is better because it was crying out constantly. It was obvious to everyone today that I wasn’t well – a few people thought I was ill.  So why was I doing this again? To feel healthy and to do something about my regular stomach pain… so I went through, feeling awful and having constant stomach pain?

It’s not like I went home and had a pizza or ate a box of truffles. I went home and had a filling meal – I had blackbeans, tomatoes, and avacado in a rice  with some cheese on top. It was nice. It was not crazy fattening. It wasn’t pre-packaged, and it included veggies.  And now I’m full. And feel so much better. No headache, no screaming stomach ache.  No grumpy me, no shaking.

I am still going to cook the meals I intended to and I’ll put them up on this blog, because I am wanting to eat healthy and have these recipes as options. But I’m doing so and having a greek salad for lunch (my favourite salad!) or a tuna and guacamole sandwich (my favourite sandwich).

What I am taking away is two things.  One, I really should eat less sugar. It’s been two days and I haven’t died or had insane sugar cravings, and we don’t actually need sugar in our lives.  Low sugar is completely reasonable goal, and will be much more healthy. And this I actually can stick to.

The second thing is that theres a difference between eating healthy and dieting/cleansing.  I definitely can’t do a cleanse. I can’t imagine eating less than I have – I wouldn’t have made it into work. And I didn’t feel very healthy. I felt worse than I have in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I eat some unhealthy stuff. Just look at this blog! But I also eat a lot of salad and chicken and very healthy dishes. Just look at this blog. I can happily tip the balance to being more healthy. But this was awful. Genuinely awful.

Here is what I ate from Gut Gastronomy:

BREAKFAST: Tea

Boo!  Just tea… I’m HUNGRY!

LUNCH: Baked Eggs

This was leftover (recipe here) and it reheats terribly. The e.g. gets all waxy and the sauce was just chunks. It was hard to eat.

 AND THATS WHERE I BROKE OFF

I’ll still make the recipes and post them, because I could use more healthy recipes. But the structure of the cleanse is out.  That being said, I’m having oatmeal and fruit again tomorrow. Its much healthier than cereal and its just lovely.