Abundance Diet, Day 10

Double digits, yo!! I'm finally in the days with two numbers on my 28-day Abundance Diet meal plan. For the month of January, I'm following the plan (and recipes) in Somer McCowan's The Abundance Diet cookbook as a way to get my eating habits back on track. This means no processed food, no white sugar, no gluten, and very limited red wine (that's my own rule ... I think Somer recommends no alcohol in the book, but that's taking things too far. Ha!).

This morning, I had a couple peanut butter-stuffed dates around 6 a.m., and then I headed outside for a 4-mile run. I listened to my David Bowie playlist, and it was just perfect. Along the way, I noticed someone had stenciled "Make Your Own Path" and "Don't Forget to Be Awesome" on the sidewalk near Rhodes College. Those inspirational messages were just what I needed right then.

When I got home, I had my usual weekday green smoothie. This was Somer's Blueberry Vanilla Green Smoothie. It's pretty much the exact same recipe as the Chocolate-Covered Blues Green Smoothie that I had on Monday morning but minus the cocoa powder. Kale, spinach, blueberries, banana, and almond-cashew milk. And I added some Manitoba Harvest Hemp Pro70 vanilla protein powder. I'm really loving Hemp Pro70 powder these days.

I had a lot of meetings at work this morning, so I didn't get to eat my first lunch until 12:30! I've been having my first lunch, which is a salad on Somer's diet, around 11 each day. So I was famished by 12:30. But this small bowl of Cream of Broccoli Soup hit the spot. I know I said yesterday's corn chowder was my fave soup so far, but now I have a new fave. LOVE this broccoli soup. It's so thick and creamy from the cashews and tapioca starch. And ground mustard powder gives it a sort of cheesy kick.

After my soup, I had my much larger second lunch of Hearty Pasta Salad — gluten-free quinoa shells, kidney beans, broccoli, carrots, cucumber, kalamata olives, and Somer's homemade oil-free balsamic vinaigrette. This was, indeed, very hearty. I loved the combo of olives and balsamic dressing, and I was really just happy to be eating pasta.

I had Cardio Hoop Fit class after work. That's where we do squats, crunches, jumping jacks, and other exercises with hula hoops! I'm lucky to have a hula-hoop studio located a block from my house, so I joined for six months to take unlimited classes. Before class, I snacked on these Gluten-Free Cheesy Crackers. I first made these to go with Somer's vegan egg salad last week, but the recipe made a lot. And they're quite tasty on their own. Very noochy!

After class, I had the giant-est, most awesome bowl of Raw Pad Thai! This has zucchini noodles, carrots, broccoli, red bell pepper, purple cabbage, mint, raw cashews, and a homemade oil-free pad thai sauce. It's been awhile since I've had raw pasta, but I really love anything with zucchini noodles. I bought some huge-ass zucchini, so one veggie made so many noodles. And I ate them all.

Today is my friend Shara's birthday, so she had a party at Juicy Jim's this evening. It's a pizza place, but they don't have any vegan options. And they definitely don't have cleanse-friendy options! So I ate my Pad Thai at home before heading over there. I'd planned to have a few glasses of red wine on my cleanse, and I thought I'd have some tonight. But when I got there, I discovered they don't have wine! There's a full bar but no wine. I could've cheated and had a beer. But I decided I'd rather stick to the rules I set. So I did! No booze for me, and I still somehow managed to have a good time!

Tomorrow is a leftovers day, but I will be blogging because I've got a fun blogger meetup planned, and I'll be eating out on the cleanse!