Detox update #2: on the home straight!!

Well nearly.... have started week 4 (our final week) today.
Week 3 was a toughie because we were fasting. It was a liquid fast for 7 days.
Our daily menu went a little like this:
Upon waking: veggie juice
Mid morning: herbal tea
Lunch: veggie soup
Dinner: veggie juice and small salad
Before retiring: miso soup
We could have a small salad at dinner if we wanted to and a piece of fruit with morning juice.
It was really hard by day 5.... thinking of what we could chew on, looking at what others were eating!
I suggested to Mr bpab that perhaps we could shorten the fast a day, but he said no.
Then yesterday, Mr bpab was complaining about having to eat another miso soup etc..... he was really struggling too. I felt rather weak yesterday and just wanted to chill out watching movies. Instead I went food shopping for the next few days worth of food and then drove 40 minutes each way to see my very sick Vovo (grandma) with my sister. (It was her only day off....)
Also was very edgy during the week and the kids were tipping me over the edge.

I've come out to the other side and have lost 5kg in the process. We had a beautiful lunch today of brown rice, homemade tomato sauce, steamed tofu, carrot, corn on the cob and seaweed. I enjoyed cooking it all too! Lots of love went into our first meal!!

Eye Spy... a discovery!

As you probably already know, Mr bpab and myself have been doing a 30 day detox. We are in the middle of week 2 and things are looking pretty good!
We've discovered that when you are restricted to certain foods, you can really taste the sweetness or spice of foods. It's like we have a clean palette, as we have not been eating anything refined or artificially enhanced in any way. (Discovery #1!)

(Discovery #2) How to cook with new grains (some I knew about already, but never had cause to use). And they are very yummy! Here are some of them below:

Clock wise from top left: Buckwheat, Bourghal, Barley, Soy Grits, Millet.

In the middle is Wholewheat Vegetable Alphabets (for soup!!)

(Discovery #3) Sea Vegetables! Well I did know about them and have had them time to time, but never have I cooked with them. We have 4 types in our pantry now! Here they are below:

Top: Kombu (dark sea kelp raked from the ocean floor)
Middle: Arame (A wide leaf kelp sliced into strands)
Bottom: Wakame (grows in temperate waters, raked from the ocean floor)
*Not pictured: Nori (flat sheets usually rolled to form casing for sushi)

In this last discovery, (sea vegetables) the 'book' told us to steam them. Works fine for nori as it's so thin..... but the others were tough as old boots! So we boiled them in water and they tenderised and were thus delicious (esp. with a (homemade) black bean sauce! Shhhh! Don't tell the detox book!

So that's pretty much my discovery x3 this week!
Thanks to Megan from The Byron Life for this weeks theme. Mmmmm Byron Bay.....
To play click on the Eye Spy picture on the left. It's fun!

Week 2 of the 30 day DETOX!

I've been meaning to write about our lovely month long detox all week!
Mr bpab and I are cleansing ourselves.... my mum was doing it and I loved the idea of having a book tell me what to eat, drink etc in an attempt to get me feeling and looking great! (She lasted 2 weeks on it as dad wanted to go out for dinner one night and that was it. On ya dad!) Anyway, so I stole the book off mum and here we are.... 1 week gone already!
We have been eating 3 meals a day and drinking water in between. The meals are vegetarian and focus on whole grains, tofu, steaming vegetables, salads, yogurt, spa dressings, fruit, herbal teas. All the meals so far have been sooo yummy and I haven't even been tempted to sneak a chocolate or biscuit!
We have not eaten anything processed (you make tomato sauce/ketchup), the only sweetener we've had is honey and fruit of course. No alcohol, chocolate (I thought I would die!) or coffee and no eggs or bread.
I've had some mild headaches now and again. I though it may be because of lack of sleep earlier on in the week. I was reminded that we've taken all sugar out of our diet, so I guess I have purged a bit!
If I feel a bit peckish between meals I drink water (because that's all we can have!) and magically I forget that I was wanting something to eat! So when 'they' tell you to drink some water first if you want something to eat, well you probably should. ('They' also go on to say that if you still feel hungry after the water, then you probably are hungry.)

Anyway, that's the low down. The 1st week was about preparing our body for detox and getting into eating a bit differently.
This 2nd week starts with more juices and liquid meals, as well as some grains etc.
See how we go....