The party's over :-(

Sad to say and hard to believe its two weeks on Madam D's nutritional detox! Time flies when you are having fun! While my purpose for the detox was to learn more about my body and what should and should not go in it I ended up losing 3 pounds to boot! I reported no weight loss the after the first week and with a commitment to the finish I was very surprised to see this result and can hope that by incorporating much of the ingredients of the meal plan and eliminating the junk, I can continue towards healthier living. Conincidently and as many of you may already know or are coming to realize, Madam D is really onto something here and her advise and services are really starting to hit mainstream. Check out this link to recent nutritional coverage on the very mainstream aol healthly living site! www.aolhealth.com\2010\02\25\surprising-superfoods Hats off to Madam D - Thank You! Good luck to all!

Taste buds, teeth, skin and the Blender!

First, thanks all to having increased the contributions to the blog, I'm feeling a lot less lonely out here and can relate to most all comments, observations, feelings, etc. I did get to gym last night and had an excellent light weight, bike and elliptical work out with short 15 min dry sauna. I'm still feeling the toxins (the starting of a charlie house which dissipates) in my calf muscles. I also seem to be able to stretch slightly more on warm up/wind down. Finally did weigh myself and much to my surprise had only lost 1 pound! On title - I've noticed a marked difference in my taste sensors, particularly to salt and sugars (never realized how sugary tasting bananas and apples can be). And strangely, I seem to have a need to brush my teeth throughout the day as I sense/feel that "fuzzy socks over teeth" sensation mid day and mid evening. I am also noticing that my normally very oily face & head is much less oily and my skin is indeed softer to the touch and my hands seem to dry up more than normal around finger tips and palms. I'm still varying up the meals by combining some of the approved ingredients - so far, no killer recipes worth sharing and thanks to others who have shared! As title denotes, I'm in market for new blender having blown the motor on my relatively new one on Sunday nite. It still works, but its not going to much longer and its giving out a "you've burned up the motor dummy" smell now every time I use it to refresh my current smoothie. I've made large batches to last 1-2 and sometime 3 days and it work wonderfully during the first week. I probably got a bit over confident in its ability and overfed it on the last batch. Caution to others: if using standard blenders - feed in small doses and stick with smaller batches!

Its Sunday ALREADY?

My how time flies when you are having fun! Forgive me all for passage of time since my my last entry. This is partly due to simply not having time, not devoting the time and feeling guilty about cheating. Yes, I cheated! I cheated yesterday. I only cheated once - kinda. I took my kids to a very bright place right next to one of those expensive smoothie places in Shirlington: Johnny Rockets. Amazingly found something that I actually enjoyed but realized it was still cheating - a soy burger; they also had turkey burger to my surprise. Wheat bread with iceberg lettuce and tomato with a side salad (with slight sprinkle of some kind of plastic cheese) and a vinaigrette dressing on the side which I would dip my fork into then dip into the salad and as you can imagine, there seemed to be as much dressing left when I finished as was served. I also had a fry from my kids plate here and there. And this morning, I could actually feel the affect of going off diet almost as if my body was reminding me of my bad choices. Otherwise, I have been true to the meal plan and found myself drinking tons of water over the weekend probably because of good workouts and lots of fluid loss in combination thereto. I did not weight myself yesterday or today at the gym and will do so next time I go. Most important, I also, as others have indicated, will likely keep quite a few lessons learned from this week's experience. Every time I go to a store, I get snobbish about all the crap that is constantly dangled in front of us to buy, eat, buy, eat, buy and eat... I have also spoken one on one with Madam D and suggest that if you have not, you do so. She is very knowledgeable and really helped me see my way through not only this week but to a healthier way forward. I've found that as with all aspects of life, choice matters. Madam D and the D week have truly helped me be better prepared to make smarter choices for this ole boy...

Freindly Fast Fuels Fire Within...

With a view that juice fast was more like a juice feast; I think overall I held up fairly well today on smoothie and water all day. It was a busy day at the office with meetings that provided much distraction which helped; still making record trips to the restroom eliminating the water mostly. After gobbling down a large serving of smoothie I finally made it to the gym this evening although much later than I normally do. The circuit training and light weight routine went off without a hitch; however, the elyptical was killer and I had strange feelings in leg muscles that I've not felt before. At first it felt like I was about to get major charlie horse in both calves, the left more severe than the right calf; I slowed down the pace and contemplated stopping but then at the slower pace the sensations subsided almost feeling as if I was working something out of the muscles in a downward fashion, slowly but after about 10 minutes at the slower pace I was easily able to return to my normal pace and actually hit a good second hard sweat. Then I thoroughly enjoyed about 20 min in the dry sauna which provided a good constant sweat. Needless to say - I'm rehydrating now and am hoping to sleep well. And how can I forget - I weighed in, on the same and only scale I use and oddly can report no change to my weight... and yes, I realize its not a goal rather a result, but gee, with all the trips to the restroom I thought for sure I'd have a different result... maybe next trip... I am looking forward to the broccoli event - one of my all time favorite greens! Ah - also finally found Bulgar wheat and an amazing amount - and entire and large grocery isle - of all the stuff on the gro list for making the meals in the week... And also finally found two bags of frozen mangos, they must be popular as 3 x prior at different grocers the frozen mango shelf was empty... damn those Philippians and Panamanians (I've done extensive travel to both and there is no doubt that the best mangos in the world are at either of these spots...) and yes, its a hell of a long way to go for a mango! sounds kinda lyricy, eh? Thanks to those who respond to the call for contributions!

D Day 2

After staying fairly close to diet, with some substitutions from other days here and there, I am amazed how not hungry I am. I am eating a bit late in the evening, I did beets & tofu tonight - very yummy quasi stir fried in some sesame seed oil. I clearly do not follow directions well: sorry! It all goes to the same place so I threw everything into a light simmer and had my fill. I do wonder if there are time restrictions as with a normal diet, I presume these general rules, i.e. try not to eat after 7pm, also apply with our detox meal plan? Madam Dominique if you are willing & able, please comment on general timeframes for eating - or slap me for having missed directions on same in some of the literature! I missed exercise today and am really looking forward to some tomorrow; will likely go easier than normal simply because of detox diet... I suppose... Also, have very slight headaches in the morning mostly; glad to also report first and relatively normal bm which seemed to kick start the excess gas thing; wow! I was getting a bit bloated, no longer! I think I may have overdone the kale in my first batch of smoothie as I think I've pee'd near green at least once now, then in the morning it a bright yellow and then clear all day - damn near a rainbow with all the colors! OK - on that nasty note, best to call it a blog, drink some H2O, and dream sweetly about hump smoothie Wednesday!

3 Weeks down and looking forward to more.

Well, this is our first entry. We meet Dominique about 2 months ago and knew then that we had to do something. Combined my wife and I need to lose about 280 or so pounds. We thought we knew nutrition and thought we were eating okay. We were wrong.

We weigh ourselves once a week. At the 3-week mark we are both down 9 pounds. I have not been hungry at all and my wife only briefly. What a way to lose weight. We don't have to worry about portion control (okay, we do with the trail mix) but other than that we eat however much we like of the good foods.

We both loved meat, but it has not been that hard to give up. Because I failed to take lunch into work two days I ended up eating a subway sub (Buffalo Chicken). Other than that transgression there has been no other meet in my diet. I also have given up on Diet Coke. I loved diet cokes. I had cravings for diet coke. There were times I would get to work and just have to have a diet coke. Since I have been on this diet, I have not had any cravings and have not had any diet coke at all! I have a hard time believing it is just the diet, but who knows. My water intake is still lower than it should be but much better than it was.

I know in the end, my wife and I will go back to eating meat. It is just a part of who we are. But I think we will balance it out much better than what we have in the past.

Thanksgiving is coming up and we know we will enjoy that time. We plan to eat Turkey and all the trimmings on that day. We will just start by eating healthy foods first then go in for the meat and leave a little room for a small variety of deserts.

Something that you should know is that I am a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with rectal cancer back in January of '08. After two surgeries, chemo, radiation and all, I am all clear. This was one of the areas Dominique took into account when she came up with our diet.

Since my surgeries, I have been unable to go up to a buffet more than once without getting too full or almost sick. One of the advantages I guess of the surgeries. Anyway, when we had the Vegan buffet at Vespucci a month ago, I went up 3 times and didn't have to worry about it. I also felt full, but not uncomfortable or anything and it was all healthy food! Yum! And what a difference over what I have been able to do recently.

Anyway, back to Dominique. She has taken a lot of time with us to go over our likes. This has helped her and us get recipes for food that we like. After two weeks we both realize that we typically like the food a little more spicy than what Dominique was doing for us. Not a worry as it is always easy to add spices to food rather than take spices away.

I'm sure we will chime back in from time to time. We look forward to the weeks and months ahead as we have a plan and a method for getting us there. We can't help but thank Dominique enough for helping us down this road.

B & H

3 Weeks down and looking forward to more.

Well, this is our first entry. We meet Dominique about 2 months ago and knew then that we had to do something. Combined my wife and I need to lose about 280 or so pounds. We thought we knew nutrition and thought we were eating okay. We were wrong.

We weigh ourselves once a week. At the 3-week mark we are both down 9 pounds. I have not been hungry at all and my wife only briefly. What a way to lose weight. We don't have to worry about portion control (okay, we do with the trail mix) but other than that we eat however much we like of the good foods.

We both loved meat, but it has not been that hard to give up. Because I failed to take lunch into work two days I ended up eating a subway sub (Buffalo Chicken). Other than that transgression there has been no other meet in my diet. I also have given up on Diet Coke. I loved diet cokes. I had cravings for diet coke. There were times I would get to work and just have to have a diet coke. Since I have been on this diet, I have not had any cravings and have not had any diet coke at all! I have a hard time believing it is just the diet, but who knows. My water intake is still lower than it should be but much better than it was.

I know in the end, my wife and I will go back to eating meat. It is just a part of who we are. But I think we will balance it out much better than what we have in the past.

Thanksgiving is coming up and we know we will enjoy that time. We plan to eat Turkey and all the trimmings on that day. We will just start by eating healthy foods first then go in for the meat and leave a little room for a small variety of deserts.

Something that you should know is that I am a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with rectal cancer back in January of '08. After two surgeries, chemo, radiation and all, I am all clear. This was one of the areas Dominique took into account when she came up with our diet.

Since my surgeries, I have been unable to go up to a buffet more than once without getting too full or almost sick. One of the advantages I guess of the surgeries. Anyway, when we had the Vegan buffet at Vespucci a month ago, I went up 3 times and didn't have to worry about it. I also felt full, but not uncomfortable or anything and it was all healthy food! Yum! And what a difference over what I have been able to do recently.

Anyway, back to Dominique. She has taken a lot of time with us to go over our likes. This has helped her and us get recipes for food that we like. After two weeks we both realize that we typically like the food a little more spicy than what Dominique was doing for us. Not a worry as it is always easy to add spices to food rather than take spices away.

I'm sure we will chime back in from time to time. We look forward to the weeks and months ahead as we have a plan and a method for getting us there. We can't help but thank Dominique enough for helping us down this road.

B & H