July 14th, 2011 - Day 05 of 60

Not a lot of deep insight today (or any day, really).  Work was quite hectic as I am taking a few days off and wanted to get things in order.  The first order of business for the day threw off my eating schedule, but I didn't worry about it.  Then meetings and tying up loose ends ate up the rest of my day while I, contrarily,  continued not to eat (just drink).  Day five was odd in that I felt it was the first day that I was sliding toward a sense of normalcy.  I am not there yet by any means, but it was the first day where all I was doing was "normal".  After a period of years, one settles into a comfortable groove.  You slide out of bed at the same time, put on those ratty slippers of yours, shuffle off to the bathroom, peek outside through squinted eyes, find your way into the kitchen and put on a pot of something warm and vivifying, hose your body down, etc.  The day is segmented into familiar tasks.  Each task brings with it, not only a sense of comfort, but anticipation for the next comfort-inducing slice.  Then, after the day is over and the last piece is your head hitting a cool pillow, you look back and wonder how long you can keep it up or where the time went or what you even did.  But then, you throw in a monkey-wrench...

When you change something as profoundly as your diet, life is not missed.  The only things to which I can compare the feeling is when you start a new job, buy a new car, find a new love or move to a new location.  The latter is my simile of choice as the new home makes each step one filled with mindfulness.  You can't navigate those corners as mindlessly and blindly as you one did.  You can't transport yourself from the living room to the kitchen while reading the paper or drunk or half-asleep.  You can't go on auto-pilot when you come home and head up the steps.  You have to be awake.  Where is that door knob?  Where did I put the corn flakes?  When starting a profoundly different diet, you start to pay attention.  Do I have enough of the right produce?  Do I have clean containers for my juice?  Do I have enough juice for the day?  What new combination can I use?  You simply must pay attention.  The first kiss from a new love brings a heady rush.  The first steps on a new lifestyle change is the same.  Then, as time goes on, the kiss, while still potent, doesn't make you swoon as much.  You even find, after a number of years, that you can do it without "being there".  It's not that you want to, it just happens.  It is taken for granted.  Today, day five, the first creeping steps of that started for me.  I didn't think about drinking a smoothie for lunch rather than eating.  The process of making the drink has gotten into a small rhythm.  I think less about the drink and more about the things I do around food.  That will be a subject for another day.  But on day five, I wanted you to know that I was starting to get a bit comfortable with things.  Not fully.  Not at all.  But the honeymoon may be starting to end.  And, oddly enough, I think that is good.  It is good because my hope is that excitement and anticipation and wonderment will spill over into all parts of my day, not just when I am making, cleaning up after and drinking my rations.

Here is a quick picture of today's early smoothie just after the mix of red stuff and green stuff took off in earnest:

It looks nice.  Far better than the result of the mixing with its off-brown hue.  Still, it is nutrition, not art (at least not yet).

My weight loss seems to have slowed, so that is good.  I imagine the water loss and other such things may be getting stable.  I am going to poke around for new recipes that suit me.

My hope is that all of you are finding nothing but motivation and success from your Reboots.  Keep looking ahead.

Progress:

I am 5% through the 60 days.

Weight: 163.4 lbs.

Food: Fruit/Veg Smoothie With Hemp Seed and some Juice.

Did a bit of juice today.