40 Days Fruit Fast, Day 1

I know what you're thinking. She's gone off the deep end! No worries,I'm not doing a fruit fast for 40 Days! 40 Days to a Personal Revolution is the name of the program we are doing at Divine Yoga this Spring. Our studio is a Baptiste studio and the basis for this program is the book by Baron Baptiste, 40 Days to Personal Revolution: A Breakthrough Program to Radically Change Your Body and Awaken the Sacred Within Your Soul. Its focus is on a deep personal awareness through daily yoga practice, meditation, and diet, plus reading and excavation questions along with a weekly meeting. Some days have been more challenging than others to fit everything in. Definitely not doing so well with the meditation practice but have an awareness and intention to improve over the next few weeks.

We're about halfway through the 40 days and this week calls for a 3 day fruit fast/cleanse. I started mine today. We are to eat as close to fresh fruits and nothing else. Thad and I decided to make a few exceptions for ourselves with adding in herbs and small amount of spice. I also decided that it was important to listen to my body and added in the protein powder and creatine with my after run smoothie because of how I felt. Luckily a lot of things you might consider vegetables are actually fruit - eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber. I love fruit in any case, so hoping that this won't be too difficult for me. They suggest eating fruit frequently throughout the day to not become hungry and avoid spikes in blood sugar, and that's worked out well today for me.

Today's Food Diary

7:30am Pre-Run - 1 banana, 5 dried cherries
9:30am Post-Run - 1 banana
10:00am Breakfast - smoothie made with 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen mango, 1 cara cara orange, 1/2 TB coconut oil, 1 cup water (plus I added a scoop of protein powder and creatine for muscle recovery/building)
12:00pm Samples at Costco - 1 orange slice, 1 grapefruit slice, 1 cube watermelon
1:30pm Lunch - 1 avocado, 1 tomato, 1 red pepper, 1/3 english cucumber, 1 TB chopped cilantro, 1 dash cayenne pepper, 1 dash salt, 1 tsp lime juice. (diced everything and combined)
3:30pm Snack - 1/3 frozen banana, 4 strawberries, handful of raspberries with some water blended into a smoothie.
4:30pm Snack - 2 clementines
6:30pm Dinner - grilled eggplant, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and yellow bell peppers with sliced fresh tomato and a little basil, 1 clementine
8:00pm Snack (planned) - strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries with some unsweetened coconut flakes

I also wanted to share the recipe used for dinner, in case any fellow 40 Days participants are looking for creative ideas for meals.

Eggplant Zucchini Tomato Sandwiches
serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1 medium eggplant
• 1 medium zucchini
• 10 cherry tomatoes (I used some organic heirloom ones from Trader Joe's that were so pretty and yummy)
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 fresh tomato, sliced thin (I used an organic tomato on the vine, also from Trader Joe's)
• 4 leaves fresh basil
• Herbamare Organic Herb Seasoning Salt,
• olive oil spray  
• fine sea salt

Directions:

1. Slice eggplant into 1/2 inch slices. Lay out flat on a piece of waxed paper. Sprinkle salt liberally on each piece. Let sit for 30 minutes. Then with a paper towel, wipe off all the salt and the liquid that has come up, what this does is helps take the bitterness out of the eggplant.
2. Slice zucchini into 1/2 inch slices on the diagonal.
3. Thread cherry tomatoes onto a skewer
4. Core and cut yellow bell pepper into 3 sections.
5. Spray all veggies with olive oil spray lightly on both sides. Sprinkle lightly with Herbamare.
6. On pre-heated grill, grill all veggies on both sides. You could also use a grill pan on the stovetop or roast on a baking sheet in the oven as well.
7. Slice fresh tomato into thin 'sandwich' slices.
8. Tear fresh basil into small pieces.
9. Make your own veggie sandwiches! I layered eggplant and fresh tomato with a bit of basil for one that you see here. I also make one with the yellow pepper, zucchini and more eggplant, with the roasted cherry tomatoes smashed in between. Delicious!