It's been over a month since I wrote a blog here. I've been super busy and focused more on my daily fitness/health blog at : fitem.blogspot.com
If you want to stay up to date with my fitness adventures, go there.

My newest adventure is about gaining control over my diet. I've lost a lot of weight over the last few years and kept it off (92lbs), but I haven't lost any weight in over a year. While I am comfortable with my body and know I am incredibly strong, I would like to get rid of the extra fat that I still carry and really see the muscles I've been working so hard for.

My eating has been getting out of hand lately. Lots more sugar and processed snacks were sneaking in, and my weight started to creep up. That's not okay. Since I am not currently training for an event, this is the perfect time to do something about my diet, so I decided to do a detox.

*I would like to stop here and say that I am very, very skeptical of detoxes in general. This one is mostly comprised of cranberry juice and flax, and it is accompanied by eating 3 meals and snacks - super clean food, but plenty of food. This is not some crazy juice diet. I'm never going to back to those stupid diets again. They don't work.*

Anyway, whenever I change something, I always start on a Monday, and I usually use it as an excuse to overindulge all weekend before I start. I didn't want to do that this time, so I did something completely out of character and started on Saturday. I've been very successful at sticking with it so far, and I feel fantastic. I got up for my morning run this morning without any food hangover (which is common on Monday mornings). I feel great. I'm sleeping better. I'm a lot less stressed. And, I actually feel healthier. I weighed myself this morning, and I am down 2.6 pounds!

The detox is for 10 days, so I will be ending it just before Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that by breaking my addiction to sugar I will have an easier time resisting all of the holiday goodies. My current goal is to not gain (and hopefully continue to lose) weight during the holidays. Once the detox ends I plan to continue to eat clean and avoid sweets. If I eat clean on Thanksgiving, I will allow myself a small slice of pumpkin pie. I like this plan better than my usual free pass on the holiday. That always gets out of hand and makes it hard to go back to healthy eating the next day.

The one thing that has really surprised me about this detox is that I am even more addicted to dairy than I thought. I never realized how much of it I consume, and I don't buy non-fat (or low fat) dairy (except Greek yogurt, which I am still consuming). That's a lot of extra saturated fat! I've had a lot more temptation from dairy than from sweets, which is not something I would have expected. I'm really curious to see how my body changes during this detox. I already feel the difference.

I really feel like I am back on track with weight loss. I'm ready to drop the last 35 pounds and see how good I feel then - and how much faster I'll run!