Yesterday I had an apple and about a cup of dried dates for breakfast. I felt pretty hungry and had a few cherries right before I went on my noon walk; that helped a lot.

Lunch was a raw-er version of a favorite recipe of ours, "gunsmoke slaw." It's a spicy, smoky slaw that contains oil instead of mayo. I used red cabbage instead of green because it occurred to me the color might indicate more nutrients than pale green cabbage. It also had corn, scallions, an orange, shredded carrot, and a dressing of oil, apple cider vinegar, mustard powder, red pepper flakes, Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning, salt, agave nectar and garlic. Dee-lish!

For dinner, NT made fresh pasta (I'm continually impressed by this feat) and a sauce of sundried tomatoes, canned tomatoes, white beans, fresh spinach, onion, garlic and spices. Oh yeah, and sprinkled with fresh basil from our garden! He also made us a grape-blueberry-mango smoothie for dessert.

I'm champing at the bit to be done with this cleanse! I feel like I've learned what I'm going to from it and I'm ready to get back on the path of regular, albeit much healthier, eating. But at the same time I want to finish it out, just to show we've got the determination. Plus, NT and AS lost another pound and I lost another half pound! AS is at 9.5 lbs. lost, NT's I think at 7 or 8, and I'm at 5. They've both gotten to slip into another set of numbers weightwise. Another half-pound and I can say I'm in my 130s instead of my 140s, so that's a big incentive to stay on it the rest of the time.

Today is my annual review at work, which is a lunch date with my boss. But we're going to Panera, which she says has really good salads, so hopefully I'll be able to stick to the plan somewhat.