Beyond a Cleanse - Day 4

Happiness Exercise:I did the Advocare cleanse a couple months ago and was using that 10 days and then the 14 day challenge afterwards to get used to eating raw fruits and vegetables, cooked chicken and fish, and drinking water and tea (I was fashioning my diet off of raw and paleo). The cleanse had some pills and a fiber drink in the morning, and then an energy drink. I did it with a friend who does it every 3 months (it's coming up 3 months soon).

I've never been a "I have to have coffee" person, but I love the warm liquid sensation in the mornings (it took awhile to switch to tea since it's not sweet and I don't like adding sweetener) and it might not have been the caffiene withdrawal, but the Advocare cleanse made my head hurt like crazy and my body super tired! After the initial 10 days I had ridiculous amounts of energy. I don't know if the cleanse worked or not, but having done that and now this, I realize this is so much more than a cleanse. It's how I want to live the rest of my life!

I was literally counting down the 10 days on the Advocare cleanse. With the raw, I had to think what day it was! Now, I might count days later on, but right now...it just seems natural. If anything I'm looking what day of the week it is for menu stuff!

Kind of an awesome sensation to know you're on the right path. :)

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Weight Loss Tip:
Simple tip to a flat tummy quickly: cut way down on salt.

Salt causes your cells to retain water. By decreasing your salt intake, you will loose water weight, and over a few days of cutting your salt intake in half you can loose about 5-10 lbs of water weight. The RDA, recommended daily allowance, of salt is 1 teaspoon. Put aside 1/4 or a 1/2 teaspoon of salt to use on your meals for today. You don't have to use it all, but don't use more. As a rule, don't eat anything with salt added already, like chips, crackers, or processed food. One bag of even raw crackers can contain more than the RDA.

I am going to try this tomorrow! Set out 1/2 a teaspoon for the day and make sure that's all I'm using (including recipes). I haven't added extra salt to anything AFTER making it, but I've also not really measured when making recipes...just went by the taste.

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Day 4 Journal Exercise

This part of this Program is designed to help you get to know yourself better. Self-knowledge is an important ingredient in health, and in this fast-paced world some of us don't have time to slow down and even find out what brings us joy. This exercise today, called "My Favorite Things", is very simple, just exploring in our journals or blogs some things that have made us happy or contributed to who we are today...Feel free to improvise on these exercises, with other categories of favorite things too...


My Favorite Things

--- My favorite music: techno (not all), drum & bass, electronic, orchestra (soundtracks), ambience

--- My favorite books: sci-fi and/or fantasy mainly with some self-helps thrown in

--- My favorite films: 5th Element, Finding Nemo, Star Wars Episode IV and VI, Avengers, Thor

--- My favorite places: the mountains, the beach, open field back home on the ranch, hiking trail, a lake (I realize these are not a specific spot, but I love all of them!)

--- My favorite other things: flowers, turtles, cats, anything miniature, bright colors, traveling

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I half wanted to roll over and reset my alarm for a later time at 5am this morning. Instead I turned on the light and let my body adjust. The past couple days it's been stormy and the thunder has woken me up throughout the night. I did go to bed earlier than normal, so I'm sure I got enough sleep.

Tomorrow is definitely going to be interested! I've decided, after finding a driver, that I'm going to do the sedation with the procedure, which means I am not allowed to eat or drink 8 hours before...that means I stop after 7. No water?! No food?!  ....yikes... all other procedures I've had were in the morning so I just had to fast over night while sleeping; no biggie. Never had to fast all DAY! Luckily it's a light day...except I won't get to drink water :(  I imagine I won't want dinner either.

**TMI Alert**

Has anyone been having issues with bowel movements?