Finishing up the Cleanse

It wasn't easy and Karen got more than an earful from all my griping over the past few days. But as we wrap things up, here are some of our reflections on the 21 day detox/cleanse:

Some random reflections as we bring this to a close -

Mostly positive:

More aware of portion size - we just don't need to eat so much.

It's easier than we thought to break old bad habits like cream in coffee, or drinking coffee at all

It gave us confidence to try to new recipes, and we found some GREAT ones!

We realized some things don't taste as good as we remember; I (David) think I could go for many more weeks with out another beer or ice cream.

We both acknowledged that we had been eating out of habit or just because it's there. If we don't buy it in the first place, we won't eat it.

We learned the lesson of exchanging foods, not just eliminating, but replacing not-so-good-foods with things we like that are good.

Vegetables can be filling - for the future, we can and will make vegetables the main course at most meals

We realized cooking fish makes the house reek -REEK- , and worse, don't re-heat it at work!

We can learn to like vegetable juice - it actually tastes sweet when you aren't used sugar

We want to start cooking some more Indian food; we love the flavors and it's lots of veggies.

Fruit, especially when you aren't eating a lot of other simple sugars, is a great dessert after dinner.

Some Negative:

Light headedness (anyone else feel this?) - I'm sure it was from decrease blood sugar.

First week gas . . .

Social restrictions when out with friends or going to their homes. It makes you feel snobbish bringing your own food.

For us, there wasn't a LOT more time in the kitchen but there was some more, certainly.