Cleano de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo was yesterday, and I managed a totally clean approach to my meal. I made a whole wheat tortilla wrap with chili-spiced tofu, fresh spinach, chopped tomatoes, avocado, and a tomatillo salsa. It was fantastic. In fact, I made plenty of extra so that I can have leftovers for subsequent meals. Remember not so long ago when I was struggling with clean eating? Now, it's hardly even an issue.

One thing that is an issue is having enough energy to get through the afternoon without snacking. I eat lunch with the 2 year old at 10:30 - incredibly early (however, I have breakfast at 5, so I am usually very hungry by then anyway). I decided yesterday that I need a low-calorie protein shake in the afternoon to keep me from being hungry all day. I discovered one that is easy to make, only 140 calories (including milk), and tastes so bad I can't even tell you. It's like sawdust sort of, but if I decided that the sawdust wasn't bad enough so I mixed in some poo and then drank it. That's what it tasted like. Not sure I can force myself to drink that every day.

Harbingers of Death

I also have a friend who is a distributor for Juice Plus and she gave me some samples of their smoothie mix. Luckily, I thought to look through the ingredients list before giving the sample a shot. It seems like a wonderful product, but unfortunately it uses one of the foods to which I am the most allergic - cherries. I have a lot of food allergies, exclusively related to fruit, and the most painful one is the cherry allergy. The last time I actually ate a cherry was when I was in high school. I was constantly getting very itchy, bleeding rashes, not dissimilar from those I experienced from strawberries, but much more intense. Years later, when I was on my own and able to see an allergist, I had a series of tests done and tried some different treatments but I found that the best option was just to give up on foods that gave me adverse reactions. As the years passed, I saw my cherry allergy increase. At one point, I ate a brownie that had been covered in whipped cream with a maraschino cherry on top. I scraped off all of the whipped cream and still had a reaction. At another time, I ate some cut vegetables that had been on the same tray as cherries, but not next to each other and certainly not touching. Same reaction. Unfortunately, Juice Plus uses cherries as part of their blend. As such, I'll never know what it tastes like because it's just not worth it.

And so, today I am going to go on a hunt for a decent tasting, low calorie, protein drink. I think this will help to fuel my afternoons, leave me feeling full, and help with my workout routines.

Speaking of workout routines, I started a new arms routine yesterday. Amazingly, only a few days after complaining again and again to Oxygen about not receiving my magazines, I received a magazine. Funny how that works. So I started this arms routine and it promises me that within a month, I will have killer arms. If my arms are not shapely and awesome within one month, I'm going to ask that anyone and everyone berate me for not trying hard enough and/or trusting a magazine to give me the approach I need for my physique.

I also worked out last week with a friend of mine who is a professional trainer and is taking part in the same weight loss competition I am. She created a workout routine that we can do with our strollers that involves walking up and down hilly streets, doing squats, walking lunges, pushups, and ab work. I seemed like a good workout at the time. The next day, I could barely walk down the stairs in our house. Three days later, and I am still sore and very much looking forward to the next workout.

As far as the scale is concerned, I'm really floating in the same area I've been in for a while. I dropped several pounds after the initial weigh in, which we all know were dummy pounds anyway, and now I need to find a way to go past this spot where my body seems to be comfortable. I need to lose at least 10 more pounds over the course of the next 11 weeks, but I refuse to do so in a way that could be unhealthy or detrimental to me in the long run.