I wore Uggs to Whole Foods...and lived to tell about it.

As many of you know, TJ and I have decided to do a 30 day "cleanse" this month, and several of you have asked me to blog about it.  Thank you for being interested!  There is a timeline included on their website which describes how you may feel each day of your detox.  So far, it has been dead on for me, and on Day 4 when they said I was going to wake up and just want to "kill all the things"?  Well, let's just say that at one point TJ was hysterically laughing at how grumpy I was.  And I think it was because he was trying to keep from killing ME.  Apparently "kill all the things" day didn't hit him as hard as it did me.  Someone had to be there for the children...

We both felt the need to do something drastic to get healthy, and hey, as they say, bathing suit bodies are made in the winter!  We are horrible at "healthy eating".  Mostly because, we just don't know what to eat!  There are so many things out there that seem healthy, but are they?  Will it really do anything if we start eating whole grain bread instead of honey wheat?  Also, all cleanses seem to want you to eat a ton of beans and eggs to make up for all the other stuff that you're NOT allowed to eat. This has always been one of the huge issues for me when trying to get into a more healthy eating habit.  I hate beans and eggs.  And I have to eat something!  I finally stumbled upon the Whole30 cleanse.  In a small nut shell, it is your basic Paleo diet, commonly known as the way cave men probable ate, with a few more restrictions.  In this cleanse we are not allowed to have beans, grains, dairy, sugar, or alcohol.  None.  At all.  Even as an ingredient in other things.  Even vanilla extract to sweeten my black, dead coffee.  And boy, let me tell you, sugar is in EVERYTHING.  It has a lot of different names that you get to memorize in order to avoid it, but it's even in things like frozen hash brown potatoes, lunch meat, even bacon!  Follow this link if you would like to learn more about the Whole30 plan.  We are not hungry, and it has helped me get very creative in the kitchen.

  http://whole30.com/

In this past week, I have done things I have never even considered before.  I made my own mayonnaise!  If you have never done that, you should try it.  It is delicious! I made up several side dishes so that we wouldn't get bored with your basic green beans.  I'm nightly telling TJ "I'm nailing this."  I didn't know I could cook that way!  Several of the ingredients and sugar free things that I felt would make cooking and preparing dishes that we would actually enjoy easier, forced me to go to Whole Foods. Now, I have always been a fan of Whole Foods, but it's not a one stop shop for me, and with limited kid free time in the week, I just don't usually have time to go to two stores.  The one very big draw back from eating this way, is the amount of planning, preparation, and shopping it takes.  It is extremely time consuming.  However, I am committed to this, and I have just completed my second weekly trip to Whole Foods...I caution you, if you are going to shop at this crunchy fine establishment, wear Uggs at your own risk.

It is pretty cold here for Nashville, and when it gets chilly out I like to wear my favorite Ugg boots to keep my toes nice and warm.  Today was one of those days.  As I walk up to Whole Foods, I am looking forward to hunting down Japanese sweet potatoes, and some red palm oil, and adding some good old fashioned tamarind paste to the cart.  I was really in search of what was apparently the holy grail of dijon mustard, made without sugar or white wine, so I could make some salad dressing that my friend Autumn posted about on Facebook, and eat a salad again.  I'm deep in thought on where this mustard might be when I was accosted by a lady coming out of Whole Foods.  She gave me a good tongue lashing about how terrible it is to skin sheep just to keep my feet warm, and was it really worth it to me to cruelly take the life of an animal just to wear something on my feet?  I have no idea what my face looked like, but if you know me, you can imagine.  I stared at her for a few seconds, and then I said, "Well, I'm Paleo.  I think I recently read somewhere that cave men wore sheep skin boots, so I guess it just goes along with my diet.", spun on my heel, and walked purposefully toward the Japanese sweet potatoes as if I was getting paid to do so.

Me in my very very offensive Uggs.

If you have any questions about the cleanse I'm doing or how it's going, feel free to message me on Facebook or shoot me an e-mail.  I'm sure I will post about it again before it's all over.  Follow the link if you'd like to learn more about it yourself.  It's been a very doable cleanse so far.  We are focusing on all the yummy things we can eat, (HELLO! I can have steak for breakfast!), instead of what we can't.  So far so good from the cavemen on day 7.