Post-Fast Healthy Eating Tips

So, you completed the Master Cleanse Fast and you want to try to keep the weight off. Here are a few things I learned when I walked around the grocery store comparing a variety of things to see what my healthiest option(s)  for lunches at work would be.

-Condiments/sauces are usually the biggest source of fat in a meal, but they are also what makes most meals taste so good. What to do?! Fear not, there are some low/no fat choices. I looked at a lot of barbecue sauce, ketchup, and mustard packages and all of them seem to be fat free no matter what flavor or brand you get. Also, mayonnaise and a lot of salad dressings (I looked at ranch and thousand island-my personal favorites-and noticed at least a few others) that have no-fat and low-fat options. I haven’t actually tried any of these yet, but I imagine if they even taste different from their regular-fat counterparts, they would be an acquired taste that wouldn’t take long to get used to.

-Some companies are retarded, but I say that in the nicest way possible. Basically, make sure to look at the serving sizes when reading the nutritional labels on the backs of foods. Some packages have a serving that is fairly intuitive, but others make a serving quite confusing. I noticed this when I was looking for meat patties I could heat up in the microwave and put on a bun to make an easy sandwich for lunch at work. Some packages would say “1 serving =1 chicken breast” whereas other packages would say “1 serving=4 ounces of chicken.” I didn’t really want to figure out how many ounces were in a package and how many chicken breasts were in a package and have to do complex math to find out how many ounces of chicken were in a patty and then figure out how many grams of fat that equaled. So, I bought chicken breasts from the smart company; the company that made it easy for me to know-every time I eat a chicken breast, I am intaking 2.5g of fat.

-If you really like the taste of chips, you will probably think baked chips taste like cardboard, which isn’t a good thing. I’m not going to try to tell you that you need to switch from regular to baked, because I don’t think I can, and that is pretty much the exact definition of hypocritical. I will say, however, that baked Cheetos don’t taste too bad, and I doubt it will even take me a week to acquire the taste of them. Don’t just take my word for it, though. Who knows? Maybe you will like the taste of baked chips and you can turn over a healthier leaf without having to sacrifice something that tastes good. If you do try baked chips for a week, and you still find yourself really not liking them, then the best advice I can give is limit your servings. Find out how many chips and how many grams of fat are in a serving, and if your daily intake of fat for that day was a little high, only eat one serving of chips. If you haven’t eaten many fatty foods that day, maybe you can have two servings of chips as a treat. The biggest thing you need to do though, is actually count out a serving into a bowl, or, better yet, onto a paper towel, so you can soak up some of the grease that comes inherently from the chips making process, and put the bag away, so you are less tempted to eat more than one serving.

These are only three ideas I came up with while walking around the grocery store looking for healthy food ideas that wouldn’t sacrifice taste. I know there are a billion more on the internet, so go to Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc and do a search to find more ways to eat healthy. The biggest reason people speak up against various diets is because the weight lost during the diet usually comes back because the dieter goes back to their old eating habits. A few changes here and there with most people’s eating habits would go a long way to shutting up all of the detractors.

Fasting (Take 2) 8-Breaking the Fast Early:(

My dehydration I mentioned yesterday didn’t go away all day Sunday, no matter how much water I drank. I was able to go to work and finish what I needed to get done, so that was good, but I was really fatigued the whole time. When I got home, I just moped around the house, feeling like a truck hit me. Around 9:00 PM my wife came downstairs and told me she wanted me to break the fast because I was doing nothing but hurting myself. I agreed so she made me a bowl of chicken broth. We went to bed an hour later, and I was just about to get into deep sleep when the chicken broth decided it didn’t like being in my stomach so it forced its way back out the way it went in.

I went back to bed feeling a lot better in my stomach, but I now had a headache, which caused me to toss and turn most of the night. I woke up yesterday morning, still having a headache and feeling pretty weak, so I decided I would just go to class and skip work and hopefully get some sleep. When I weighed myself, I found I had lost another 3 pounds, most of which was probably from throwing up the chicken broth. At the urging of my wife I decided to eat a nutrigrain bar for breakfast and see if I could keep solid foods down. Much to my surprise and delight I was. When I was driving home from class I decided to try something else solid, so I stopped at Burger King and got a cheeseburger. While I don’t recommend jumping straight to solid foods once you decide to break the fast, it worked for me, so it might work for you too. I do highly recommend breaking the fast the way I broke my first one, with chicken broth the first day or two, then moving up to adding some vegetables to the broth for another day or two, then eating lighter solid foods. The only reason I jumped straight into solid foods was because my dehydration was causing my stomach to get to full on the chicken broth and regurgitate it back up.

To those of you who are thinking about doing the Master Cleanse Fast, the most important thing I learned from this fast is make sure you don’t exert yourself too much and drip plenty of water. Getting dehydrated is no fun. You feel really weak, your joints hurt, your head feels kinda fuzzy, and your vision gets a little blurry, at least for me. Not only that, but trying to beat dehydration is a pain in the rear. I actually got to the point where I checked which hospitals were covered by my insurance in case I needed to go to the emergency room and get an IV put in to help me regain my fluids.

Fasting (Take 2) Day 7

As I mentioned 2 days ago, I was helping my cousin move because that’s just the type of guy I am. And really, he is more than just a cousin, he is a good friend and my wife and I hang out with them in a social setting quite often, which is even more of a reason for me to help out.

Usually when people ask me to move it is to help carry the big furniture, not because I know how to pack a truck so that everything fits nicely and won’t shift during the drive. So, that is what I did. There were four guys that lifted the heavy furniture, but I know I did more than fair share of lifting. I’m not telling you this to brag, but to give you the back story so you will understand what I felt like last night and this morning.

Last night I was really tired and sore. So tired and sore, in fact, that when I got home from helping with the move I took a hot bath for close to an hour. I chalked up the tiredness and soreness to the fact that I just got done lifting heavy furniture for seven hours, and I thought I would probably have been just as worn out if I hadn’t been on the fast.

Then I woke up this morning and felt kind of like I was hung-over. I had really nasty-tasting plaque in my mouth, was super-weak, and my muscles were really sore. I rinsed with mouth wash and brushed my teeth when I got up and still had all the symptoms mentioned before, although the bad taste was a little less nasty. I took a hot shower and was barely able to move. It helped out a little bit with my fatigue for about five minute but by the time I got to the kitchen to pour my “lemonade” into my water bottle I take to work, I felt like I was going to pass out. I drank a little bit of water and that made me want to throw up. Nothing I did helped my situation.

It turns out I was super dehydrated, because my wife, in her brilliant wisdom, told me to sit on the couch and drink a twenty-ounce bottle of water before I even attempted to drive to work. Sure enough, it worked. I sat on the couch for forty-five minutes sipping my water and when I stood up to go to work I felt ten times better. I still didn’t feel great, but I felt good enough to be able to drive to work without having to worry about passing out or having my muscles stop working.

When I weighed myself this morning I had lost 1.8 pounds (for a total just over 10 pounds), which is quite significant considering I didn’t have a bowel movement. Basically, I lost almost 2 pounds of water because I didn’t keep myself hydrated yesterday. I also lost almost 3/4 of an inch on my waist (for a total of over 3 inches) between yesterday and today.

The moral of the story is that if you are helping someone move, or doing some other strenuous activity, make sure to keep well hydrated, especially if you are on the Master Cleanse Fast. I would probably take the severely dehydrated feeling I had this morning after the I’m-so-sick-I’m-puking-my-guts-out feeling you get when you have the flu.

*I didn’t post this yesterday because I felt so crappy.*

Fasting (Take 2) Day 6

OK, let’s get the numbers out of the way. I lost another 1.0 pounds for a total of 7.8 pounds and another 1/4 inch off my waist for a total of 1 1/2 inches. That’s a pretty good pace, if I say so myself. While I don’t recommend using the Master Cleanse Fast as a weight loss tool, you will invariably lose a decent amount of weight.

I’ve mentioned before that I timed the fast so that I would be doing my last weigh-in for the “Biggest Loser” type challenge at work just as I got done with the fast. I did this because, as mentioned above, the fast invariably causes weight loss. Anyway, yesterday at work my boss bought pizza (my favorite food) from Godfather’s (one of my favorite pizza places) for the team. Then, last night my parents came over to give us some baby stuff and afterwards took us out to dinner, not knowing I was on the fast. We went to Carlos O’Kelly’s, which just happens to be one of my favorite 5-10 restaurants and where I just had water and a cup of hot tea. After that, my wife and I met some friends to go to a movie, and I had a craving for popcorn, but I think mostly only because I always eat popcorn at the movies. Today, I am helping my cousin move and he will be buying pizza for everyone (did I mention pizza was my favorite food?). For tonight, my parents gave my wife and me free tickets to a spaghetti dinner (my second favorite food-as long as there are meatballs in the meat sauce) that her Lion’s Club is having. And, to top it all off, tomorrow night we are celebrating my father-in-law’s birthday by going out to dinner.

Obviously I am missing out on this free food, but I can’t decide if it is a good thing or bad thing. It is bad because four of the five meals are some of my favorites of all time (tomorrow’s dinner is at a Chinese restaurant, which I’m not fond of in the least) and I am missing out on them. On the other hand though, it is good that I am missing them all because I probably would have gorged myself, which wouldn’t be healthy and would probably offset the weight I have lost during the first two months or so of the weigh-loss challenge.

I didn’t mind missing the pizza that much yesterday because I didn’t have to look at it, but at Carlos O’Kelly’s I had the food right in front of me, so it was quite a bit more difficult. I caught myself staring at the chips they had for an appetizer a few times, and if you know me you know how much I don’t like plain chips. Luckily for me I was born without a sense of smell, so it was probably only 1/3 as tempting for me as it would be for someone who would have been able to smell the food.

I guess the moral of my ramblings are, if I can not give in to all of those temptations right in a row, you can handle your food temptations too.

Fasting (Take 2) Day 5

There isn’t a lot for me to report today. I lost another 2.2 pounds and another quarter inch off my waist. It appears the bulk of my weight loss occurs on the days I drink the salt water mixture in the morning to purge myself of toxins (surprise, surprise-having a bowel movement helps with weight loss when you aren’t intaking any food).

A lot of people are surprised to hear that not eating any food for numerous consequtive days doesn’t make you feel that bad. It is quite the contrary for me, actually; I feel pretty good. I did get a little tired and sore yesterday building a putt-putt hole for my work, but I’m not sure if that wouldn’t have happened even if I had been eating for the last week.

This fast still seems to be going a lot easier than the last one. My theory is that two factors play into this. One, I have done it before so I know what to expect and I know I can do it. Two, the first time I fasted I had twenty-four years’ worth of toxins in my body, but this time I don’t even have a year’s worth, so it isn’t nearly as hard on my body getting rid of them.