Captain’s log: Day 1.

The 28 day challenge began for us on Monday.  Cutting out the few ‘food’ ingredients that were off plan wasn’t the challenge (well, not really), it was the loss of half and half in my coffee and any potential thought of a glass of wine that nearly brought me down in hour 1, of day 1.

Cristina recommends adding coconut milk, pumpkin spice and cinnamon to coffee to give it a little kick, but in that most desperate first hour I was unable to comprehend anything other than having my full on creamer, so I went without coffee.  That was my first major mistake of the week, and I paid for it fully around 3pm.

On the ‘good news’ side of this report, Whole Foods Cville had a flash sale on ground beef (85%) from 12pm – 6pm on Monday, pricing it at $3.49/lb.  Since a good majority of my daily food intake is coming from meat this month, the sale created a near hysterical reaction that caused me to drive to whole foods within the first hour of the sale.  Remember, I had no coffee.  Panic was a natural response, and so was this next meal.

Sunday had been a plan ahead day for meals, so thankfully I already had roasted two spaghetti squash, and they were ready to go in the fridge.

The meat and the spaghetti squash were awesome together – I just added a little salt and pepper to season, and lunch/dinner was born.

At 3pm when my complete caffeine depravation hit me I went to the extreme of  blending coffee with ice, coconut milk, unsweetened cocoa powder, blueberries and strawberries with a half handful of almonds to bring myself back into the realm of sanity, but that’s a story for another time.  Until then, here’s what it looked like:

I’m not sure if it was mental, or if just the flavor of the cocoa and coconut milk, plus fruit sugars, were enough to quiet the screams of my sugar withdrawal, but something did it.

So here come the questions for you – what are your favorite juice/smoothie/vitamx blends?  We’re loving the experimentation, from these cocoa based, to the super green, so tell us what you’ve got going on in your kichen!