Cleanse

So for three weeks, I've given up the following:

Caffeine.

Alcohol.

Animal Products.

Gluten.

And Sugar.

Sounds like fun, right?  In an attempt to learn better eating habits (ie quit snacking all the time, and when I do snack craving fruit instead of chocolate) I'm doing a three week cleanse my friend Katie and her family started doing every year.  So far, I'm loving it.  I was expecting major headaches from caffeine withdraw, but I only endured two days of mild headaches.  I think that's totally a score.  I'm only on my first week, so it hasn't been too difficult yet.  I mostly miss my daily egg & cheese sandwich for breakfast.  I'm a total cheese addict, so I'm still longing for my dairy fix.  But cutting out dairy was made easier by the fact that Steve and I switched to soy milk a month or so ago.  I don't know if the switch is permanent, but I've discovered there's not much in this world that can't be helped by a large cup of tea with copious amounts of soy.

While I don't miss gluten and sugar much, they're definitely the hardest things to watch out for.  I made a stir fry on our first cleanse night and went to throw in soy sauce - only it had wheat in it.  I never would have guessed.  And then the next day I went to enjoy some gluten free chips with hummus only to see they had sugar.  I'm reading labels like fiend.

I'll let you know if I get crabby.  Or if Steve gets crabby cause I'm depriving him of snacky foods.  Also, I'm giving up meat for Lent again this year.  Combined with this cleanse that's two whole months of meat free living (I will start eating fish again once the cleanse is over I don't really want to forgo my annual sushi birthday dinner).  I actually don't anticipate minding the vegetarian routine much, so long as no one grills a steak under my nostrils.