21 Day Sugar Detox: Week 1

Week one went really well... until the weekend. So I'll be adding an extra week to the 3 I planned on doing to even it out. I made the choice so its all on me, no excuses. Anywho, the sugar wasn't particularly difficult for me to cut out but I do miss the flavors... maple syrup would've been really tasty in a smoothie I made for instance and my morning tea with a touch of honey was missed. Other than that there weren't too many issues with the sweets for me... cheese was another issue. I ended up letting last week start at a lower level than I originally wanted so that I could take a week to finish up some of the cheese in my house. I somehow missed that I wasn't allowed to have cheese when I did my shopping for the week (ditzy moment much?) and I really didn't want to push the detox back a week so I moved down a level but stuck to the rules of level 3 for everything other than the cheese. This week the cheese is gone and its time for strict level 3.
Since this was my first week off soda, which I got hooked on during the stressful time of moving cross country with the divorce, I stuck with unsweetened black tea so that I would only have to detox off of one thing at a time. I missed my daily soda, that's for sure, but I think that it was easier to kick on the detox than it was the last time I kicked soda cold turkey soda a few years ago. Soda is super bad for you, as we are all aware, but it is really bad for me with my health issues as the chemicals, artificial dye and sweeteners as well as the caffeine can really cause issues with my system. And yet I did it anyways... I know, I know, not my brightest moment that's for sure. The soda is officially gone and I have moved to green tea this week to lessen the caffeine load on my body. This should help my autonomic system a bit but also my sleep cycle. Luckily, I have tons of tea (I LOVE tea) in my cupboard of all types so I will have a varied tea experience this week even eliminating the highly caffeinated black and red teas in my collection 'o loose leaf teas. Today I am drinking a tea my dad brought back from from China for me the last time he was abroad. It is light and pretty tasty even sans sweeten. A lot of people would add a bit of citrus to their tea in lieu of the sweetener but I've never been a huge citrus+tea fan so I personally have not done so yet. I may in the future though, we'll see. 
On to prepping for week 2...
I decided to try out several of the recipes in the book for the next few weeks so that I could truly give a well informed review of the book(s) at the end of the process. This week I made: Italian Spice Blend (pg. 208), Mustard-Glazed Chicken Thighs (pg. 114), Apple Streusel Egg Muffins (pg. 102), CoCo-Monkey Smoothie (pg. 92), and Green Apple Breakfast Sausage (pg. 94). I also did my own version of the No-Miso Soup on page 164 since I didn't have all of the ingredients to make her version in the house (I somehow managed to forget to pick up baby bok choy and green onions at the store... I tell you, my brain these days!). I wrote a post about the soup, which turned out pretty awesome and will be my lunch today along with part of the huge salad I made for the week, titled "Asian Inspired Shrimp and Zucchini Soup." Additionally I prepped an extra-large salad, tons of sliced veggies and some sugar free salad dressing as well as iced tea. I will need to rotate some of the meals out of the freezer mid-week and make an additional batch of iced tea but I'm pretty much done cooking for the week. Hurray! I haven't eaten all of the recipes yet but I'll let you know about the ones that I have eaten already.

Apple Streusel Egg Muffins: Took a bit of getting used to as they smelled like they would be sweet but the certainly are not. Day 2 of eating them for breakfast though I really enjoyed it. I will likely add a touch more cinnamon to my next batch and maybe a bit of sweetener once I am off the 21DSD but I can only see myself learning to like these more over the rest of the week.

CoCo-Monkey Smoothie: I did not like this. I'm not sure why I didn't like it though. It was quite bitter of course so maybe I'll lessen the cocoa powder and make sure to ensure that the banana I use is the correct size? I'll let you know next week if I find a fix but for now this is not a recipe I am a fan of.

Green Apple Breakfast Sausage: This one was pretty tasty. I am not a huge fennel fan apparently but I still enjoyed a patty of this sausage with my egg muffin for breakfast this morning.

Italian Spice Blend: You use this in the breakfast sausage so yes, I have tried it. I'm not a huge fennel fan like I mentioned before but it smells just like what I imagine when I think Italian sausage which is what she was going for so I'll say thumbs up.

I am having the Mustard-Glazed Chicken Thighs for dinner (they smelled pretty awesome coming out of the oven!) so I'll let you know about those next week. 


All the recipes this week were from the original 21DSD book but I have purchased the 21DSD Cookbook as well and will be trying recipes from it over the course of the next month or so as well. Links to both books should you be interested are below: