Most of my handwritten journal entries starting with the very first (age 8 or 9) begin with "it's been a long time since I wrote last."  I'd like to blame my inactivity on having been enveloped by the weekend and all it's sundry needs - date night, 8 dozen rolls for a ladies church activity, the church activity, a second date night, church, not to mention the needs of 7 children including a nursing 5-mo-old.  So...it's been a long time since I wrote last...

I have had a relatively good time of it with the dietary restrictions.  I feel like the Lord has literally taken away my "need" for these foods.  It's never happened like this before and I've done this numerous times in one form or another.  Usually the first 3 days are HELL, feeling like you're being punished every time you see a delectable treat or a craving attacks you like a wild dog.  Not this time.  We ate at a function Friday night that had take out from Panda Express and a couple of beautiful red velvet cakes for dessert.  I went in knowing that I was going to "cheat" a little but not be blatant about it.  I felt good about that - in control.  My "cheat" was two deep fried bites of chicken.  The rest of what I ate was meat and veggies.  I know that there was a little sugar in the sauces but not enough for me to feel bad about.  Mostly I ate veggies and rice - no fried wantons, no egg rolls and definitely no cake...AND I DIDN'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT!

Saturday I made a ton of bread in a very stressful environment (bread is definitely a trigger for me) because I was supposed to do it on Friday and have it ready to go by 10 am.  I rushed it to the place at almost 11:30 with half of it still hot.  I chose to eat a white french bread roll as part of a meat sandwich - no cheese, no mayo, yes lettuce, yes tomato, yes mustard (I love mustard!).  I also ate fruit and chips (chips aren't exactly health food but, hey, no dairy, white flour or sugar, right?).  That night my husband and I ate over at another couples house.  The "cheat" there was barbeque sauce (I have NEVER eaten such good pork), maybe dairy in the smashed potatoes and definitely dairy in the very small portion of angel food cake and strawberries topped with whipped cream.  The strawberries were not sweetened (so much better than traditional sugary strawberries!) and my piece of cake was less than an inch thick.  I was delicious I enjoyed every bite and I marked my calendar in black on that day. 

A quick note about the calendar - I printed off 3 pages of blank calendar grids and then filled them in with the dates.  Since I started last Tuesday I drew an "X" to mark that as a "clean" day.  I red X'd each following day last week in red and then X'd Saturday in black to indicate a "cheat" day.  I feel like if I can choose at least 6 "clean" days a week then 1 "cheat" day is still healthy.  I worry that if I don't give myself a little room to eat something yummy when I'm out in the world then I will cave and fail.  So I feel good about my choices over the weekend.  Sunday was totally "clean" and I felt great this morning.

Overall I feel good right now.  I have been a bit hungry this morning after a breakfast of quick oats, flax meal, fresh peach, xylitol and almond milk (oh, and a little handful of soaked almonds early this morning), but I've been so busy that I haven't really had time to think about it.  That's good, right?  I was kind of groggy on Friday and Saturday, even Sunday wasn't a real peak energy day but today I feel like I could conquer the world if my house wasn't in such disarray. So I've been learning about how to make laundry soap (we ran out and getting more right now isn't an option but the towels and rags didn't want to wait), reading up on baby's first foods so that I don't destroy my baby's digestive tract, and folding and hanging laundry.  Pretty busy morning but you wouldn't know it for looking at my house.  There is still daylight left for getting things done.

I felt really good exercising this morning (up before 4 am, at the track by 4:35), I had a shower and got myself looking cute before I ever had to take kids to school.  I even managed to eat my oatmeal before my chauffeur duties began.  That's a first since the diet change.  Usually I haven't eaten anything by the time I've got everyone gone at 8 or sometimes 9.  When you're up at 4 that's a long time too wait.  As far as symptoms go My mood is pretty steady (even survived some words from hubby about finances), my armpit/gland swelling has noticeably decreased, my energy level has also increased dramatically today.  My weight isn't moving much and my bowels aren't moving as quickly as I thought they would but I didn't really drink enough over the weekend.  Now the baby's mad at me so I'll be done analyzing myself for now.