Menopause Sucks – Week 2, more pounds and inches gone

Ah, it is the end of week two of my 30-day nutritional superfood cleanse.   How is it going?  I’m thrilled.

Before I get into the details, I have a couple of notes about this cleanse.  A, I would only recommend someone do it if you are all in.  You are really sick and tired of the extra weight and/or lack of energy. Something like this requires a commitment. You can do it for 9 days or 30 or more. I committed to the 30 because I knew I had to do something now. This kind of cleanse isn’t hard after the first few days, but you can’t half-ass it for 30 days or you’ll have wasted your time and money.

So far I had one meal out where i went a little off plan with a glass and a half of wine and a bite of dessert. I won’t do that again during the next two weeks. Adapting this to my life after I’m done with the major overhaul work, I will have the occasional wine and bite of dessert. You have to live, and this cleanse isn’t about not living or enjoying some special things to eat, but those should be special and not the norm. This is a huge shift for me in thinking because I’ve had so many exceptions even when I thought I was eating mostly healthy. You know the eating exceptions –

• I don’t feel well
• He/she/they were mean to me
• I’m overworked
• I’m stressed
• I deserve it
• That was a hard workout, I’ve already worked off this teensy treat I’m about to have
• My car battery died
• My cat threw up on the floor
• My dog peed on the floor
• I do yoga almost every day, surely I can have the occasional handful of chocolate chips

You know that list, right?  That list has to go away if you do this.  If you do decide to commit, then plan on shifting all of those thoughts.

So why am I writing this weekly?  To keep myself accountable. If someone reads this and gets something out of it, great.  If not, then I know I have to every week look at how the last week has gone, for better or worse.  I”m trying to get rid of the above “exceptions.”

The deets –

Weight – down 1.5 pounds. I expected a slowdown after the first week’s big loss, and I’m happy (yeah, I know!) to see it. I didn’t want to worry if that big loss extended into the second week. Total pounds lost in two weeks – 11.5.  Okay, I have to just think about that.  I spent 30 days on a workout/weight loss plan three years ago. We worked out like 5-6 days a week, ate healthy, met weekly, it was a big, solid, nutritionally sound program. I lost 5 pounds that whole month and I was starving all the time. I’ve lots 11.5 pounds in two weeks and haven’t felt starved at all. Huh.

Inches lost makes me even more happy –   I’ve lost another 2.5 inches off my waist.  Yeah, exactly!  That’s 5.5 inches total.  No need to worry about my waist diminsihing too fast. So much of my weight gain was packed in around there, that menopausal buddha belly, I’ve got a lot of inches to lose. To see it shrinking this much two weeks in a row has me so happy. I almost have a teeny indent around my waist now.  And I’m not longer a square!  My waits measurement is now more than 3 inches smaller than my bust and hip. Wow, that’s a first in a long time.  Chest is down 2 inches for a total loss of 4 inches.  Hip is down 1 inch for a total of 2 inches.  Upper thigh is down 1 inch for a total of 2 inches lost.  Arm is down 1/4 inch, a total of 3/4 inches.  Calf is unchanged.  Total inches lost this week – 7.  Total in two weeks – 16.

Energy – Amazing. Again, I am doing tasks that have languished around the house forever due to lack of energy, catching up on put-off work things  I continue to feel like some former version of myself 10-15 years ago in terms of energy.  There were times in the last few years that I’ve felt like I was running out the clock, which is so antithetical to my existence that it horrified me.  I did get my balcony all cleaned off, set up my new hammock up there. I’ve re-organized my yarn (this is a bigger job than you might think).  No gardening this last week other than weed pulling with all the hailstorms. Those sweet little annuals aren’t safe yet!  Not to mention tomato plants. I’m cooking more – this from someone who has gone through a several-year period of hating cooking and ordered out or went out all the time instead.  Energy?  Maybe. Could be I’m just enjoying the things I eat more than I used to.  I’m also sleeping great. I went through a period over the last few months where I would wake up once or twice during the night and be awake, and I never felt rested by morning. I’m sleeping straight through for the last two weeks.  I do wake up early, about 5-6a, but  I feel happy and energetic all the way through evening, it’s okay with me!  Morning bird singing is lovely.

Exercise – I didn’t do much this last week because?  I don’t know, just didn’t feel like it, I was having more fun running around and doing other projects. I will add some in this week, probably  kettlebells and sprints one day and yoga another.

My sister, update on her. She lost 10 pounds as well in her first full week, and last I checked, she was down about 5-6 inches in her waist.

To answer some questions I’ve gotten.

Are you hungry?  Not really. I have normal hunger.  I’ve done low carb where you do lose your appetite, and this isn’t that.  I do have normal hunger, but it’s not gnawing or persistent.  I eat or have a shake, and I feel great.  I’ve done the meal replacement shake in the past and not felt that way. I don’t know if it’s the particular ingredients in this shake or that I’m following a total program. I’m thinking it’s the latter. I still have “head hunger,” but less of it as I deal with it emotionally.  I think I need to eat if I’m bored or tired or overworked and need a break.  I never eat much, but just a little something here and there.  Every time the dogs need let out, I have to go through the kitchen to the back door and I used to grab a little something or feel I needed to look for something every time.  Most of that is gone.  Like i said, the program itself doesn’t deal with that, but I’ve had to in order to stick with the plan.

Do you feel deprived?  No. I’m taking a lot of care to not feel like that.  I did go out with friends.  I didn’t make all the best choices, but I made better choices than I have in the past, and I still felt like I had a great time.  I do some other self-care things like a manicure or pedicare (give them to myself with my nifty Sonicare Pedi, which should have gone on my Fave Things list and I gapped it), go for a walk, read a book, I would say take a nap, but my normal daily nap has also disappeared. Huh. Didn’t even realize that until now. I miss it!  But I guess I don’t need it anymore.

Isn’t this cleanse expensive?  Yes’ish.  It’s not cheap, but I have to look at the expenses that are now gone, which may not be true for everyone.  I used to eat out or have food delivered too many times in a month.   $40 for deli salads,  $80 for sushi, $50 for Chinese and it added up every month to about 300-400, I’m guessing, probably more, but I don’t want to think about that right now.  When I was ordering out that much, my grocery bill would also go down. I’m not spending anything on takeout food now, I haven’t used my food delivery services in two weeks – bet they are super-sad! Now I have-a more scaled-down grocery bill.  Looking at the trade-offs, I think I’m saving a lot of money.  My situation is different because I paid for convenience and barely cooked.

How does it taste?  Delicious!  I mean which?  Today I’ve got an amazing Pot au Feu on the stove.  The shakes are really pretty good.  There’s vanilla and chocolate, and they  mix up well and don’t taste chalky. Overall, they are probably the best-tasting and easiest to down shakes (protein or meal replacement) I’ve ever had.

Do you get tired of it?  Not so far.  It’s only been two weeks, and typically boredom with whatever I’m doing sets in week 3 or 4.  So the next two weeks will be a good test of that.  I have to say, I enjoy worrying only about one meal a day. I put more care and planning and joy into that one meal than if I had to worry about three. I LOVE that.  I don’t miss eating those other two meals at all and am happy to slurp them down with my vitamins.  This 30-day cleanse has been something of a test to see if this was a plan I could continue to lose all the weight and not just jump-start it. I wasn’t sure at the beginning which way this would go.  My belief now is I could do this indefinitely.  I get variety in whatever meal I plan for the day and make it fun and super-delicious and healthy and enjoy that meal completely from preparation to finishing the last bite.  This is new and way better.

How bad are the fast/deep cleanse days?  You know, they aren’t as bad as I thought they would be.  You don’t have to do them to do this plan. So far I’ve done three of them in two weeks.  Those days you just do the cleansing formula all day, and you get this green tea chocolate snack and a berry snack, all meant to support you for the day.  I’m not one to do without food on any day ever.  You know, it’s not that bad.  I think the rest of the plan helps get you ready for it, if you choose to do it.  You wind up doing an IF (intermittent fast), which is all the latest body-building/weight loss rage, narrowing the window of when you eat every day so your body has to eat fat for fuel.  I was eating mostly paleo before this. In my reading, human beings never used to eat like we do now.  They would hunt for food, they would feast some days and go very hungry other days.  Sometimes there were no meals, sometimes there were a couple. It is only in modern society where we believe in three squares a day. I believed in that.  Now I don’t think I do. I’m still researching and reading, but I think the IF and having a routine fasting day once a week or every two weeks is something closer to how we were meant to thrive.  Three squares a day are killing us, unless our job is hard manual labor and you need that much fuel to function.  I certainly don’t need it.

So that’s the update. Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend!  Let me know if you have any questions by e-mail (patty at perfumeposse dawtcawm) or dropping a comment here.