Gastric Confusion | 14 Days In
Let me start off by saying, holy [bleep] was this week tough. Having only veggies to consume this week, you’d have to be a vegan to begin with to appreciate this week! To recap, I began Gastric Confusion 14 days ago, a 21 day diet program meant to detoxify the body, shrink the stomach, and restart the metabolism with strictly fruit [Week One] and veggies [Week Two] for the for first 14 days. This entry concentrates on the second week. That being said, I began the week with certain apprehension to say the least, being I only enjoy vegetables when meat is present.
Going into this week we made a conscious decision to replace V8 with oatmeal for breakfast with either orange juice or V8 Fusion. Frankly, I hate V8 and unless I’m dehydrated and there’s nothing else to drink, I’m not touching it. As far as snacks go we decided to use the 5 saltines per snack and spreading hummus on them. Again, for those just reading, eating saltines and oatmeal is simply a means for the body to get the minimum carbohydrates needed short of crashing.
On Day One, my girlfriend whipped up a massive vegetable soup. We made so much soup it last all the way to Wednesday night, that’s Day Four, doubling as both lunch and dinner. Some salads were thrown in to substitute the soup, salads that I had to use Italian dressing, since I couldn’t use Caesar or Honey Mustard.
By Day Three I was sick and tired of soup and bland-ass salads and was seriously contemplating cheating of some kind. My saving grace was the saltines and the hummus, and I no fan of hummus let me tell you. It leaves and weird after-taste and I had to drown that with green tea. On Day Four I went to local market and purchased a plethora of extra veggies. My intention was to use the slow cooker and make a kick ass vegetable stew. I let the slow cooker go on overnight, and I was expecting an awesome lunch, but… let me preface this with the following, I make an awesome chili and an equally bad ass meat stew with the slow cooker. When I finally sat down and tasted my latest experiment I was totally and completely disappointed. I had no idea meat added so much flavor to my stews. Forcibly, I jammed spoonfuls of this food into my mouth simply to satiate my body’s desire for energy. This continued for two days.
By the end of Day Six, which was a Friday, my girlfriend and I have had it with this diet, and short of totally cheating, we grilled… wait for it… MorningStar Veggie Burgers! We looked at the ingredients of the Veggie Burgers and saw that it only had less than 2% of the items forbidden, as in eggs and rice, but at this point we didn’t care! It less than 2%! We grilled the Veggie Burgers, cut them into cubes, and had Veggie Burger Salad, of which I added Newman’s Own Low Fat Honey Mustard, and it was best item I had eaten all week!
Finally we reached Day Seven, and it was a glorious and sunny Saturday. Our friends, whom we haven’t seen in two weeks, goaded us into going to the beach. We made another Veggie Burger Salad, and headed out to the beach. By the end of the day we ended up at the Parrot. Now if you ever been to the Parrot you know they specialize in Philly Cheesesteaks sandwiches and well made burgers and fries. The salad menu was weak at best. So we decided to begin our third week early by having a tossed salad with grill mahi-mahi with Italian dressing and a giant pint of beer. It was awesome.
By the end of Week Two, I have nothing promising to say other than it was really difficult to get through. We had to substitute and get creative with our veggies to make it all work out in the end. Nevertheless, we did get through it in the end.
Week Two Meal Plan
Breakfast: Instant Oatmeal, 1 cup of Orange Juice or V8 Fusion
Snack: 5 Saltines with Roasted Garlic Hummus
Lunch: Garden Salad or Vegetable Minestrone Soup [sans shells] (Days 1-4)
Vegetable Stew (Days 5-6)
Grilled Morningstar Veggie Burger Patty w/ Salad (Day 7)
Snack: 5 Saltines with Roasted Garlic Hummus
Dinner: Garden Salad or Vegetable Minestrone Soup [sans shells] (Days 1-3)
Vegetable Stew (Days 5)
Grilled Morningstar Veggie Burger Patty w/ Salad (Day 6)
Tossed Salad with Mahi-Mahi and Italian Dressing (Day 7)
Weight Loss
Day One Weigh In: 187lbs
Day Seven Weigh In: 182lbs
