Flu Virus

Hey guys! I'm alive! I truly believe had I been 90+ years old and in poor health, I would not have made it through the weekend! I lost 14 pounds between Sunday at 5pm ish and Monday at 6:30 am... all via hugging the porcelain bowl and a little flu virus. Ugh! I don't know what strand got a hold of me, but it kicked my butt. Between the headaches, the pain, the aches, the time in the bathroom, I was useless. My sweet wife bought Pedialyte to help replace the electrolytes, nutrients and some of the calories lost. I'm so glad she did, as my body needed it.

With that said, I'm just getting a chance to read some of the posts this morning. My facebook notifications say I have 39 unseen items. I wanted to touch base via the blog as well. I'll get to those notices on the reboot support page right after I post this. If you don't know, here is the link to it; https://www.facebook.com/RebootSupport Feel free to swing by and say hi.

Monday afternoon the family and I took some much needed family time and spent the afternoon and Tuesday at Disneyland where we met up with some friends.

After hugging the porcelain bowl for over 12 hours the last thing I wanted was any form of liquid, juice, etc... so on Monday I didn't have a juice. The first time in 145 days! I had a juice in the fridge, but I just couldn't bring myself to down any liquid, not after the 12 hours. Instead I made a refried bean burrito with a whole wheat tortilla. I had to get a solid substance in my stomach. I ate it half at a time and made sure I could keep it down. It was nice to finally do so.

Back on juicing! I made an awesome juice this morning. Kale and pink lady apples. Then I added about a pound of carrots and enjoyed that too. For a treat I made a grape juice. I've decided that as I'm still juicing and lovin' life, I'll make sure that the nutrients are the most important thing I get. Calories are a must... yes. But for sure, nutrients.

Today I made breakfast for my wife, and the two little ones. Of course, the boy wanted pancakes, the girl and wife, waffles. And me, a juice. So... I took care of them first and then cleaned up. And then got to making my juices for the day. Just in time for the boy to say he was hungry again. haha

The life of a proud papa, husband, father, cook, family chief, kitchen cleaner, go to person for just about everything, is busy busy busy... :) Not complaining though. Just busy. As I can only imagine that we all are.

I'm staying clear of most processed foods. The whole wheat tortilla has I believe 4, maybe 6 ingredients. Pretty cool. At 145 days of juicing 90 to 95% and then going through the flu bug, I'm contemplating how much percentage I'll be doing from here on out. Thinking about 70 to 80%. Still testing the waters. This may change. I know that now, after completing his fast, Joe eats real food and then does a reboot from time to time. I was inspired by his and Phil's results, but my juicing and their's has not been a verbatim path. No two people's will be, as we all have different elements that make us unique. But... all of us has similarities too, which makes having support while doing this, so very helpful and ideal. :)

A reboot is both a physical and a mental thing. Find your inspiration that got you started and add to it. As you reflect on it often, you hopefully will be able to draw strength from it and make yourself stronger. Yes. It is true, every person is different. And each of us have a unique road.

Each time I found temptations to be strong, I tried to down water, or have a juice. I initially tried to avoid being around temptations, but that isn't practical, especially since I'm the main meal preparer around here. Food preparation and cooking is mostly my job. I love unique flavors and exotic tastes and so does most of my family, so hiding from those things would be very difficult.

I used reverse psychology on myself.
Instead of hiding from the food, the scents and all that goes along with meals, I made a juice. Had the juice on the side and took large whiffs in and just smelled everything as I cooked. If we went to Downtown Disney, a restaurant or anywhere else with immense food scents, I'd embrace all the food smells. It was torture. And I was miserable... at first.

Then, I made a game of it. I told myself that the parts of me that truly ENJOY food are my senses. My taste buds, my nose, my eyes, etc... My waistline doesn't. My waistline hates how much my eyes, nose, ears, and taste buds LOVE LOVE LOVE food... as they just can't get enough of it. So... yes, I took on an attack. I launched an attack and said; "Feel free to smell and bring in everything via my senses but don't consume them." It sucked. It really did. I learned to "savor" all the senses as I just opened my mouth and breathed in deep. Doing so slowly and just enjoyed. I would do so, and happily tell myself, I'm enjoying all the characteristics of food without gaining or swallowing the calories. Yes... that sounds a bit odd. But it worked. And an important lesson is, do what works for you. No one else can lose the weight for you. No one else can put it on for you. Doing what works, works. Don't be embarrassed by it. As no one else will harvest the results that you have the potential to harvest.

Part of my motivation was signing up for weight loss contests to keep me motivated. This helped me when the desire to quit came upon me.

The end results:
I'm getting $300 from HealthyWage for successfully losing 10% of my body weight and I lost 26.76% while participating in the HealthyLoser $5,000 challenge! The two cool things about HealthyLoser are that "All participants who lose at least 15% of their Body Weight will win Cash." They award at least $8,000 to each group and each group is limited to 300 people. Also, you start when you want to. You don't have to wait until a designated starting day. This allowed me to start the same day I found them and not have to wait to engage my newly found inspiration! Which means, I was losing weight on my time!