Yesterday, I ate…

• Yogurt, granola, blackberries, and almonds
• A Luna bar
• Small bowl of raw trail mix
• Kale salad
• 1 polenta tower with veggies
• A handful of chocolate almonds (I wanted something sweet, lay off)

I met Jill, Robi, and Rob at dinner and felt a little out of it. We got wine and I had a few sips. I started feeling tired, crampy, burp-ey, fart-ey, etc. The nice waitress who was really milking the “nice restaurant-take your time deal” came back about 30 minutes after we got our wine. I looked at her and said (in an almost help me/desperate sort of way) “Can I please have some bread, I feel really sick right now”.

The bread arrives and so does Jill and I’s 2 pieces of eggplant (I feel like really nice restaurants do that to you - small and pricey). I had a piece of eggplant. I went to the bathroom and thought that would do the trick. I get back to the table and felt like my insides were cramping and pulling apart. It felt completely cramped from the bottom of my stomach to my throat, especially around my ribs.

Our pastas arrived - Jill got spinach gnocchi with truffle oil and I got whole wheat pasta with mushrooms and truffle slices. I had one gnocchi and one bite of whole wheat pasta. I was done for. I had Jill drive me home and park my car. You know when you are so sick that you just need to get home, you don’t care what you have to do? That was me.

I left my keys with Jill and used my credit card to get in my apartment. I hardly made it to the bathroom. 8 times to the bathroom later, I fell asleep around midnight, completely miserable.

This morning came soon. I’m leaving for Florida today so Stacey picked me up at 6:30 am so I could get my 8 hours of work in before leaving. 5 hours of sleep on a crampy stomach isn’t fun.

I got to work and drank a liter of coconut water. A few hours later I had a banana with almond butter, raw trail mix, and an herbal tea. My stomach hurts right now. If someone pushed between my ribs on the soft part of my stomach, it wouldn’t be pretty.

I’m planning on getting a piece of fruit or a Bolthouse Farms smoothie before I leave at 3 p.m. for the train. (Thank you to Stacey again for driving me to the train station. He is amazing and the coffee and donut that I got him this morning doesn’t do him justice).

My stomach is still kind of cranky. I’m kind of cranky because of the half sleep I got last night. I’m sleeping on the plane this afternoon. I need sun. I can’t wait to see my sister. I need vacation…that makes us tick.

In closure, if you choose to do the Master Cleanse, BEWARE of a very good possibility of having “food poisoning” a few days after completion. I’ve done the cleanse 3 times. 2 out of 3 times have been hell on earth a few days after it was done. Good luck with that and as Rick from Lakeview said “this goes to show you to never turn your back on food.” Well said, Rick. Well said.

I woke up today, still full from what I ate yesterday. I had myself yogurt, granola, blackberries, and almonds with an herbal tea. Then I had raw trail mix with pistachios. Then I had a Luna Bar. I feel like I’m trying to get as much food in me as I can - I’m not sure if this is because I can actually eat now or if my body is craving it. Maybe a little of both…

I’m going back to Bikram tonight and going to dinner with my dear friends Jill and Robi and our friend Rob who is in town from Nashville. We’re going to Merlo on Maple. I haven’t gone out to eat in about 2 weeks - it’s time.

Kale salad is on sale! Let’s talk about good timing. 25% off in our Prepared Foods department. I’m going to get in on that. Eat your kale and get your ANDI score of 1000.

I’m leaving for sunny (hopefully) Florida tomorrow night. I’m getting tan and getting my Vitamin D in.

I’m a happy girl. I’m going to eat salad and tofu for lunch, which I’ve missed so much. My life is beginning again, without salt water in the morning.

The cleanse is a wonderful thing, but personally, I do NOT recommend doing it every month. I recommend taking a break so you don’t want to throw a bottle of uniodized sea salt at your neighbor.

As I always say, eat clean, eat green, eat your colors, lay off the boozing, and enjoy your nutrient dense foods. Moderation is key, so enjoy.

After serving 3 double sheet cakes that our yummy bakery made yesterday, I went to my friend Robi and Jill’s house to watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I walk in and the condo smells amazingly. Jill made stuffed eggplant, and was eating an artichoke. I was drooling and literally chugging my soldier serum.

I left Robi and Jill’s and was driving home. I have to pass Blommer Chocolate on my way home. I could literally smell the chocolate in my car for a few blocks. I felt like Johnny Depp was about to pop out as Willy Wonka. It was miserable (the chocolate smell and no Johnny Depp).

I want food. Lots of it. I’m thinking about caving today. I’m going to hold off until tomorrow and see how I feel (or try to). This is what I want to eat…

• Oatmeal
• Omeletes
• Cereal
• Salad
• TOFU - lots of it
• Sushi
• Yogurt, granola, and fruit
• Our bulk department’s raw trail mix
• Smoothies
• Freaking anything

One interesting and great thing about the cleanse is that a lot of my friends and co-workers are wanting to try it out. Jessica gave me a call today and was so excited to start it. I can’t wait for her - she’s doing the cleanse the smart way - she has totally checked her schedule out and is planning accordingly. Jessica is also going to eat as healthy as possible for the next 2 weeks in preparation for the cleanse. Smart girl = Successful girl.

Stacey and Nicole are both going to try the cleanse after Easter (ie the first Monday of April). When they do the Master Cleanse, I’m going to try a green juicing cleanse. More details to come on this. Hey, at least I can “chew” something other than lemon bits.

I want food. Help me. Round 2 needs to be dunzo.

1. My sister and I are leaving for Florida to see my dad on Thursday. I plan on cooking half the time I’m there and enjoying going out to eat the other half. I went through about 12 issues of Real Simple magazine (which I love), tearing out recipes that looked delicious to me. I tore out about 40 pages and proceeded to stare at the recipes for an hour (each day).
2. I babysat last night and found myself opening a container of dried cranberries and smelling them
3. I have made a list of places I want to eat after this nightmare round 2 is over. This is what I came up with…

• Chicago Raw (I saw this new place listed in a local magazine)
• Cousin’s Incredible Vitality (I’ve heard great things)
• Karyn’s
• Tweet (Bridget swears by it and I trust her with my life when it comes to food)

…and last, but certainly not least, I have made a list of things that I want to eat really bad…

• Sushi
• Guacamole
• Enchiladas
• Breakfast anything (granola, omeletes, fruit, eggs, etc etc etc)
• Carrot cake (thanks to having to order this for Tiffany’s shower, now I can’t get it out of my head)
• Fish, especially crab from Joe’s Stone Crab
• Soup of any kind
• A sandwich (just ask Rick from Lakeview)
• Kale salad
• Anything and everything

Oh, I forgot to mention…I’m also over laxative tea. I opted for the Smooth Move Chocolate flavor (which tastes like heaven). I use 2 teabags to get the “desired” effect and let me tell you…I’m really sick of waking up at 5 am with a terrible stomach ache. I want to be able to sleep and not start my bleeping day off with a crampy and mad stomach that hates me. Ok, I’m stopping my tangent now.

They say to come off the cleanse very slowly (ie day 1 off the cleanse (or day 11) eat oranges and drink fresh squeezed orange juice, day 2 eat oranges, pineapple, papaya, mangos, day 3 eat fruit throughout the day and salad later in the day). No thanks. I’m having my orange juice, mangos, papaya, and pineapple on day 1 off the cleanse (or day 11). I’m over round 2.

It’s Whole Foods Market Sauganash’s 3rd birthday today! I’m going to sample delicious cake from our bakery for the next 4 hours. Stop by, eat some cake, watch me drool, and enjoy the last 4 days of this nonsense.

I went back to bed for awhile. They say Bikram makes you sleep like a baby and they say the cleanse makes you have crazy dreams. Try putting these two things together. I woke up this morning after a crazy dream pertaining to work. I thought it was real for a second and thought to myself, “my boss is going to kill me for putting an event like that on”. I took a few breaths, looked at the sunshine outside, and realized I was dreaming. Thankfully.

Day 2 has moved right along. I would like to eat food (obviously), but I’m not craving anything yet. After 48 hours of not eating, this isn’t too bad. As I mentioned in my previous blogs from my first Master Cleanse this year, typically day 3 is the hardest for most people. Usually my day 4’s are the hardest. We’ll see how tomorrow pans out.

I have to be to work at 6 am tomorrow to change over signs with my boy, Stacey. This means I’ll have to wake up at a dark and early (hence, the sun isn’t close to being up at 3 am) to drink my salt water and go back to bed. I can’t stand waking up that early (to do anything) - I always feel like I’m doing something wrong.

“Someone” told me yesterday “Renee, it’s time to take some time out for you”. Guess what? I’m cleansing, I’m taking a break from a lot of things in life, and I’m going to sunny Florida with my amazing sister next week. I’m taking some time out and getting the toxins out at the same time. Test me.

After dating a few very good looking yet unavailable men, I’m taking a break. It gets to a point where you stop and ask yourself, “Really?” I love spending time by myself so I’m at a place where I’m good with that. It’s just not really worth it right now.

March Madness isn’t just for basketball because starting in March, this is my lineup and it just rubs in the single factor a bit more…

March 6 - Tiffany and Rick’s co-ed wedding shower

March 13 - Jill’s baby shower

Weekend of April 9 - Tiffany’s bachelorette party in Austin

May 29 - Tiffany and Rick’s wedding

June 27 - Jackie’s wedding shower

Weekend of July 22 - Jackie’s bachelorette party in Vegas

August 28 - Jackie’s wedding

Now. If that doesn’t explain it, I don’t know what does. This is where I landed on my epiphany…I NEED TO DO ANOTHER CLEANSE (and it started today (Monday, February 15), the day after VDay). I love you, too.

You might think, “Ok, Renee, you just finished the 10 day Master Cleanse on January 20″. Yes, you are correct and yes, I’m doing it again. I’m excited for this time around because of the following reasons:

• I need to clear my head
• I’ve been eating so stinking healthy and ANDI friendly that this should be a piece of cake (that I won’t be eating)
• I’m leaving for Florida on the 11th day of the cleanse (ie when I’m done with the cleanse) and I will be feeling wonderful on my little vacay
• The cleanse isn’t intolerable to me, it’s actually nice

“But Renee, you can’t do a cleanse so soon after one that you just finished”. Au contraire, my friend. According to Tom Woloshyn, as he notes in his book, The Complete Master Cleanse, “How long you stay on the cleanse is entirely up to you. The desired duration is determined by what you have done t yourself in the past, your age, your general health and sense of well-being, and how willing you are to let go of your “stuff”. We have many layers of stuff, like an onion, and during a cleanse we peel them away at their own pace. Some layers come off one at a time, and sometimes two or three layers will be stripped away. A few people like to do 40 days at a time, with three or four intervals of rest in between. Some people like to do 10 days at a time every month, for several months. ”

…you might think that this is psycho, but how about this one…according to Tom, “The longest time I have known to be done in a row is 372 days”. Now, what were you saying is crazy?

So today is Day 1. I had to be to work at 7 am today as I have an appointment at 4:15 pm. In this case, I had to wake up at 4 am to drink my salt water and make my soldier serum (that you girl at Latizia’s for coming up with this brilliant and hilarious name).

I ate collard green salad and veggie chili last night before bed. Almost immediately after drinking my salt water (I mean, salty vegetable broth as I like to think about it when getting it down), I went to the bathroom. A lot. It was like magic!

It is now 9:15 am and I’m enjoying some herbal tea in my Intelligentsia mug (for all your coffee drinkers…this is a great, local to Chicago coffee -and the mug isn’t just cute, it’s lowering my carbon footprint…see…it’s all connected). I’ve taken a few swigs of my soldier serum and am on my way to detox…again!

For those of you that read and commented on my first Master Cleanse of 2010, stop just reading…join in on the fun! Let me know if you have any questions, if you want to complain, if you want to talk about food, etc. I’m your Master Cleanse go-to girl and will stick by you in your days of uncomfortable, unhappy hunger. It gets better, I promise.

Happy Cleansing! Day 2 is not so far away…this is me being optimistic. Love and cleansing, apparentely they go hand-in-hand. Just saying…

First off, THANK YOU to everyone that has read this blog, asked questions, made comments, etc. I love hearing from you and reading your opinions every day. Unfortunately, one of the weird things about making postings is I can’t directly respond to you. In this case, please shoot me an email at renee.ascione@wholefoods.com and I will answer any questions you have and we can chat further.

Sorry for the inconvenience - can’t wait to talk one-on-one.

Happy Vday - I’m wrapping flowers today, but will blog tomorrow. <3

Yesterday morning, as I was stuffing my blender with goodness, I thought to myself “if someone asked me what my favorite food was, what would I say?” The answer I came up with was “smoothies”. Smoothies are just so much fun because…

• You get all of your greens (a ton of them because they break down so much in the blender)
• You can pick and choose what you feel like for the day
• You can be super creative
• You know that what you’re drinking is just PACKED with nutrients
• You can experiment with so many combinations of fruits/veggies
• You can be really full for hours after because of the mass amounts of fruits/veggies that you are ingesting
• You can be green, clean, and fabulous

I started off my smoothie obsession through Amanda’s Spinach Strawberry Smoothie. It was then that I realized how much I love green in my smoothies (yes, even for breakfast). Let’s revisit how much I love kale and collard greens. Yes, I use these items in my breakfast smoothies. No, I am not insane. Yes, it tastes delicious because, as with most things in life, it’s all about what you are pairing with it.

Something to think about: If you wear a great dress with tennis shoes, it’s going to look heinous. If you pair a great dress with cute tights and peep toes, it’s going to look hot. Same thing with using spinach and kale in your morning smoothies. If you only put spinach and kale in a blender, it’s going to taste like spinach and kale. If you add a banana, kiwi, and a cup of blueberries, it’s going to taste like heaven. Got me?

So every morning I look forward to my green, clean, nutrient packed smoothie. The ANDI score has to be out of control on this. Let’s take today for example…

Wednesday’s Breakfast Smoothie

• 2 cups of spinach- ANDI score of 739
• 3 leafs of kale (ends and all) - ANDI score of 1000
• 1 cup of coconut water
• 1 cup of blueberries - ANDI score of 130
• 1 kiwi - ANDI score of 97
• 1 small banana
• 1 tablespoon of almond butter - almonds have an ANDI score of 38 and because this almond butter is only ground up roasted almonds (no oil, etc. added), we’ll reference the almond ANDI score and give it a score of 38
• 2 tablespoons of flax seed

*Keep in mind, when I reference ANDI scores, I’m only referencing the TOP 10 ANDI foods - meaning the numbers listed above are on the TOP 10 list (which is huge).

…that is nutrient packed, healthy, and so clean, your insides will be shining. Let me tell you, when your insides are shining, your outsides are, too. Everyone needs to make smoothies at home. Hold off on the packaged stuff and eat raw, clean fruits and vegetables. Your body will love you forever (like it’s Valentine’s Day everyday!)

It’s weird. When I eat my nutrient packed smoothie in the morning, I always have a small bowl of raw trail mix (new at Whole Foods Market Sauganash’s bulk department, no salt added, and DELICIOUS) in the late morning and am really full until 1 p.m. or so. This is because I’m not eating processed foods that are making me crave more and more. When you eat foods that are processed and chemically enhanced, the foods have a way of telling your mind that you are still hungry and want more, when in reality, you’re not hungry. This also is due to the fact that your nutrient intake is slim to none when you’re eating this garbage. This is why so many fast food restaurants are booming. Gross, right? They’re tricking you and making you that chubby girl at the bar (that nobody wants to be).

So I’ve been sticking to my greens, fruits, dried fruits (no sugar added, just fruits), kombucha, veggies, nuts, seeds, and raw almond butter. I drink lots of water and coconut water. I don’t do caffeine at all anymore, only herbal teas. I sleep like a baby. I do Bikram (my 30 day trial is almost up so I need to join for real). I feel good. You should, too.

Join Social Workout, eat like you should, and do what you do. Everyone is different, but that’s why smoothies are great - you can pick and choose as to what works for you (just be sure you’re keeping it clean and green). Someone once told me, “Renee, it’s all subjective” and when it comes to smoothies, it really is. Start stuffing your blender with greens and do your thing…

Our biometrics screening happened yesterday and I rocked its world. I decided to fast prior to the test (to help with the blood pressure and cholesterol test), so by 1:45 p.m., I was pretty hungry. I took all of the tests, grabbed my massive kale salad with goji berries, lemon, raw pine nuts, and tomatoes and waited to hear my name be called while scarfing a lot of greens.

Hello new 30% discount…I’ve been waiting for you all of my life. Somebody reminded me to get my nicotine test done (I’m not a smoker; however, I used to love chai lattes and cigarettes in high school and after breakfast cigarettes at the Gandy Dander in college with Liz). Gross, yes, but back in 2000 that was hot. The woman handed me a small vile and told me to keep spitting in it until the vile was halfway full. I handed the vile back to her and the spit was bright green. “Yeah, I just ate kale”. She looked at me like I was an alien and processed the test. 0 for nicotine.

So after my kale salad at 2 p.m., it went something like this…

• Herbal tea
• Small bowl of raw trail mix
• Handful of pistachios
• Coconut water
• Spinach strawberry smoothie

I went to yoga last night, went to the grocery store to stock up on produce (a man on the way out said ‘wow, you have some serious greens in your bags’ - compliment? Sure, I’ll take it), went home, and fell asleep.

I woke up this morning, ran 3.5 miles, and made myself another smoothie. I decided to change it up so I did 2 cups spinach, 1 leaf kale, peach, kiwi, banana, flax seed, almond butter, coconut water. It was green. It was delicious. It was filling. I just had a handful of almonds and a handful of pistachios (both are great for you, but I’ve been incorporating pistachios into my life as well because of their highER ANDI score).

I’m all about this smoothie thing. The great benefit of smoothies is that they’re easy to go down, you can be super creative with them (think produce and frozen at Whole Foods Market), you get the most nutrients out of the produce because you’re not heating and cooking the good stuff out, and they’re quick to make.

I know a lot of people reading this might just be getting into nutrition or are just doing some research before going for it so this next statement might sound a bit crazy to you…

Possible Crazy Statement to Most Readers: If you think about it, you really don’t need a stove, oven, or microwave.

Since my cleanse (started on January 11), I haven’t used my stove or oven once. I’ve been eating very raw. Lots of salads, lots of fruit, lots of juicing. Lots of fun. I feel good, light, and clean. I know it’s the winter time and people love their comfort foods, they like the warm thing, but try it for a day. The 24 hours and few meals won’t hurt you and it will open you up to new possibilities and lots of colors. Colors are key.

Tonight I’m going to the “For the Love of Chocolate” event at The French Pastry School. Chocolate isn’t very colorful and it’s definitely not green, so I’m going to limit myself to 2 (I promise this time) glasses of red wine and a FEW pieces of chocolate. I’m going to have to use some strategery here as there are going to be lots to choose from. Girl’s gotta be picky, right?

Join Social Workout, get your colors going, start researching juicers with me (that’s happening next week), and eat something (or everything) raw today. It’s not a big deal, it’s healthy.

I’m experimenting with different smoothie recipes this weekend. Stay tuned and make some of your own. I want your recipes, so please share! Smoothie recipe swap coming through…