This morning the alarm was set for 5:00am to rise and shine and hit the treadmill — but I was woken before 5:00am with the inevitable throbbing, pounding, post-first-day-of-no-caffeine headache. Good lord, this one was a doozy, took over 2 hours for the Advil to even dull the pain, I was counting the minutes until I could take a second dose. I would like you all to also take into account that I run a daycare in my home, and that all 4 of my own kids are still on winter break…Oh. My. Poor. Head. AND there was the added bonus of this being the day after a holiday, a holiday which we all purposefully stay up into the early morning hours to ring in the new year — it was an overall lousy day, but tomorrow we’ll be back on track and my caffeine withdrawal will have mostly subsided…I hope…

Diet-wise, today I was totally fine. No battles with cravings, just caught myself opening and closing cabinets just to see what snacks were in there out of habit. Breakfast was gooooooood, I went back to an old diet favorite, the Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie (1 cup coconut milk, 1 frozen banana, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1 tbsp cocoa powder, 3-4 ice cubes). For the sake of calories, I should actually only be putting in 2 tbsp of peanut butter, but I’ve found (in my many attempts at restarting this diet) that I really need that extra protein and fat at the start of the day in order to control cravings later on.

Lunch was a new recipe that I tried out for myself AND the daycare kiddos! That sure made lunch easier only fixing one meal for all of us, and they loved it — score 1 for the daycare provider! We had Cranberry Tuna Salad on Apple Slices, I found this recipe on good ol’ Pinterest.

Dinner…I was running short on time, PLUS I forgot to buy zucchini to make my veggie noodles for my Bolognese sauce I prepped yesterday. So, I had leftovers from last night that I already had proportioned while the kids ate regular pasta.

I have three meals a day plus snacks planned for the first 10 days, so I’m hoping this first week and a half with fly by with no problems. Sure, things are bound to come up and throw me off schedule, but I’m hoping I did enough prep work over the weekend to have backups and quick fixes for when those hiccups come along!

Unrelated to the diet, I’ve been trying out a few new products lately to coincide with all my healthy, clean life changes. I have had a terrible relationship with commercial deodorants/antiperspirants, they work great for a few months and then…they don’t. I did my research and decided to give the Native deodorants a try after reading exceptional reviews. I figured winter would be the best time to try this out since I’m not all sweaty and gross out in the summer Kansas heat. I started using it a month ago and I gotta say, I am a huge fan now! I was pretty skeptical but my fears have been laid to rest.

I have also started using a much safer facial regime and makeup line. I only began using my new Beautycounter products yesterday, so I will keep you all posted as I continue to use them regularly!

Well, my sleepytime tea is kicking in, my feet have been sufficiently oiled with my favorite relaxing scent…it’s time to me to bid you all adieu and drift off to sleep. Night, everybody!

~~ Amie