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Woke on day eight feeling good. I feel lighter. No hungover feeling.
My whoozyness and headaches have stopped.
Husband is waking me at 6.30am – half an hour earlier than usual – and I start the day in front of My Workout on the tele or on the treadmill.
NOT missing dairy. NOT missing wheat. I think it helps that I ate hardly any wheat to start with. Honestly, you can replace bread with so much – think corn and rice and rye. Also, once you’re off this regime, reintroduce wheat by eating flatbread and give that nasty old yeast a miss. Yeast feeds on sugar and creates nastiness in the bowel.
I can’t believe how ‘bouncy’ the muscles in my thighs are becoming – like an inflated balloon! Sure, there’s still a layer of fat keeping them nice and squidgy, but the tone is incredible. Squats, girls, squats!
Whenever I stand on my feet (which is not often given my writing busyness), I find myself automatically squatting, lunging, bending, kicking, pelvic tucking. Good thing. I just love how my body is feeling – that gorgeousness you feel when you stretch a tired muscle… it’s like that all the time. And my flexibility is improving by the day.
I was SOOO hungry by the afternoon, it took me by surprise. Drank lots of water and herbal tea and ate a million rice crackers. Stared at the sugar-ridden, fat-rife, wheat-laden Iced Vovos for lengthy periods, without blinking. Then walked away. Not happy, Jan. Aaaaaaaaaargh!
Crashed and burned emotionally in the early evening. Could have been due to ‘that time of the month’. Felt angry, weepy, despairing. So badly wanted a Chardonnay, I could taste it on my lips.
Mood improved after a nutrition-packed tuna and bean salad with lots of raw vegies.
FOOD TIPS: Instead of nibbling when I’m hungry, I sip instead (often thirst is mistaken for hunger). If it’s not sparkling mineral water (plain!), it’s the most divine tea my friend Mary sent me from The Silva Spoon – called ‘wellbeing’. It’s a blend of lemongrass, ginger, dandelion, peppermint, cinnamon and liquorice. I like herbal teas, but this one is totally addictive and fills lots of sweet cravings spaces.
The other thing I’m doing is drinking miso soup. You can buy it in little sachets at the supermarket. I’ll concede it may be an acquired taste, but give it a try and you’ll soon become addicted. It is ideal as a base to which you can add lots, including rice noodles.
Naturopath tomorrow. I’m going to need this visit – psychologically more than anything.
Hi Tania,
Interesting read. Just one tip from a person who is both not much of an exerciser and has a desk based job. If you are working from home, try standing with your computer on your kitchen counter. Its a nice change of perspective, not hard on your back while you type and hey, at least you’re holding yourself up and stretching out a bit. Not a miracle cure, but it helps.
I’ve also heard from others that using an exercise ball instead of a desk chair does wonders for your core muscles. I’m not tall enough to be able to reach my desktop that way, but you likely are!
Much love to you, and I’m considering starting this for a couple of weeks to detox from a very heavy few weeks of friends visiting, excellent food and far too many martinis…
Sarah in Beijing
I find it interesting that the blurb for this site says “Australian Women Online (AWO) is a business, career and lifestyle website for women. AWO publishes quality content in the categories of lifestyle, business, career, books, health and much more”. I think this type of diet and perspective on health is neither healthy phycially or mentally. It gives into the perception that women should be a certain shape and size [the body image], when I would have thought that a website of this calibre was a bit more socially conscience. I’m not saying that women can’t strive to be their best and be fit and all that, however after reading this I felt dissappointed that this woman is starving herself and thinking it’s a good thing! I have to ask if this is “quality content”, especially when the next few posts are about young girls modelling too early and domestic bullying, which are both truly quality content.
Response to Michelle Holt:
I think you are confusing the term “quality content” with the term “value judgment” here.
This series of posts by Tania McCartney is ‘quality content’ as it is well written and well researched.
Your objection to this piece is actually a value judgment about body image and dextox diets.
Where we have referred to AWO being a publisher of ‘quality content’ on the ‘About Us’ page, we are making reference to the quality of the writing, research and depth of content.
While this particular content written by Tania McCartney is not something I would have chosen to write about (personally I think detox diets are not only dangerous but ineffective over the longer term), I cannot fault the quality of the writing, the research, or the depth of understanding she has demonstrated here.
Dear Michelle,
It’s clear from your comment that you haven’t read the entire series of these posts or have read them blindly, with an inbuilt personal filter. I couldn’t disagree with you more – the ENTIRE ethos behind these posts was how I was striving for health and to feel better – psychologically, physically, spiritually WITHOUT focusing on being thin, nor expecting to become thin. How you construed anything otherwise is simply beyond me.
When on earth have I ever starved myself in this series!?
The hunger I felt on this day was purely due to a) the massive POSITIVE changes going on in my body, b) a hormone crash that was totally unrelated to the ‘diet’ and c) the fact that I probably hadn’t eaten enough of all the wonderful things I was eating. That moment in time when I cracker-binged was simply my body reacting to being starved of JUNK FOOD… My body was cleansing and fought all the way for refined sugar and carbs. Isn’t it wonderful how I didn’t cave and instead gobbled down the things I WAS ‘allowed’ to eat on this regime? How about some applause?
This regime was not about being thin. It was not about trying to be something I’m not and if you read the post in their entirety, you’ll find I make that repetitively clear. It was about cleansing my body and feeling HEALTHY and HAPPY and ENERGETIC again. It wasn’t easy, but I did achieve that, and honestly – the biggest learning lesson from ALL of this was not on how great I felt in the end – it was the eye-opening lessons on psychology that I learned from the occasional, embittered and misconstrued comment that made a tough 2 weeks oftentimes MORE difficult.
Nonetheless, the positivity and support and encouragement I felt from the majority who ‘got it’ continues to fill me and I don’t regret a moment of this regime NOR the HUGE amount of hits and interest it attracted from readers, both on AWO directly and on other sites that quoted me in an extraordinarily positive manner that clearly (and most proudly) reflected the quality content that is AWO.
Tania
And one more comment on all this – if it’s still not clear – THIS WAS NOT A DETOX DIET!!!! This was simply adopting a ‘diet’ that eliminated JUNK FOOD. Nothing more, nothing less.