It's been slow around here

 

This is a little snap shot of a painting I started last week.  I had a few good days where I was able to spend a fair amount of time on it, but that was last week.  My husband and I started a cleanse 3 weeks ago and it's been pretty rough on me to say the least.  Why a cleanse?  I didn't really want to do it, but my husband did.  He has a lot of aches and pains, reflux, and snoring.  I joined him for the support.  We've been doing it with a master nutritionist and her guidelines.  The idea is to not eat common allergens such as gluten, dairy, corn, tomatoes, eggs, sugar, peanut butter and a few others for 3 weeks.  You still eat 3 meals a day and snacks.  After the 3 weeks, you slowly reintroduce these foods to see what kind of reaction you have, if any.  Wow, I've really missed my peanut butter on toast with a glass of milk!  The first week I was having constant cravings and felt so unsatisfied.

I've been so incredibly tired through this whole thing, and oh so crabby!  There have been nights when I've went to bed with the kids at 8:00!  This past week I've had a lot of headaches and joint and muscle aches.  The aches and pains are like when you have the flu.  I guess this isn't the typical reaction and we are wondering if I'm not having a reaction to something that I'm eating a lot of, such as almonds and almond butter or the protein shake that we've had for the last 3 weeks.  Luckily we are finished with the protein drink and have started introducing the foods yesterday.  I had 2 eggs yesterday and boy were they yummy!  Now that there is a bit more daylight, my chickens have started to lay eggs again.

I'm kind of bummed out with it all.  I know a lot of people who have done this cleanse and have hadwonderful results, especially with eliminating gluten from their diet.  So far that hasn't been my experience.  Tomorrow I get to have a glass of milk so maybe now I'll start to feel better!  I live in Wisconsin, I need my dairy!

Even though I haven't felt very well, it has been a good experience.  We've been eating a larger variety of vegetables, wonderful salads, lots of rice and all sorts of beans.  Instead of grabbing the carbs such as toast for a snack, we've been eating apples or celery with almond butter on it, carrots, and lots of nuts.  I've learned to make spouted almonds, how to eat buckwheat groats (which are quite yummy),  found lots of ways to eat brown rice, cooked more fish and found out that Fischer LOVES turkey burgers. (no red meat with the cleanse)

I finally found some energy to work on this painting today.  Hopefully I will finish it tomorrow or Thursday and I will be much happier because I will have had my milk!