Veggie dogs..... are for the dogs!

Yesterday marked the 5th day that Ross and I have been doing the cleanse that we set out to do, and it's funny the things that we are learning. The first day, we wondered what the heck we were even going to eat.  I didn't each much more than fruit and hard boiled eggs, and I was miserable.  Things have changed in the past few days for us.  We are noticing the combination between the cleanse, eating well, and working out.  We are feeling better, and our stomachs seem to be shrinking back to the size God intended.  You know how it goes.  After you stuff your face with everything in sight over the holidays, your stomach just isn't right, and you feel hungry even when you shouldn't. (It just isn't fair!)
So the few things we've learned:  We like some foods/drinks that we never thought we would give a try.

The first things is natural peanut butter.  It's so much better for you, and although it sticks a wee bit more to the roof of your mouth, it actually tastes really good.  The roof sticking just helps me to eat the same amount, but enjoy it in smaller bites.  The best part is when you look on the ingredients list... it says peanuts, and it has a wee bit of salt.... that's it!  This is probably my favorite food item I'll take away from this experience.

The next new food item we've tried is fake cheese.  I'm not sure how they make this stuff, but it tastes pretty good.  We have gotten three kinds - Cheddar flavor (tastes more like American), Mozzarella, and a Italian blend (my least favorite).  Because I love cheese so much, I was dieing for some cheese flavor, so I was thrilled when we found this "healthy" alternative.  I have to say, that it's been great while we're going dairy free, but nothing beats a good old (well not old) piece of cheese!  These substitutes work for now -  I've melted them with turkey on whole grain piece of bread, I've melted them in scrambled eggs and omlets, and melted it in spaghetti squash "pasta."  The key is, it melted.... And did you know?  That up until pretty recently, the makers of fake cheese couldn't figure out how to get the fake stuff to melt?  I have a coworker that is vegan, and he said the whole world of fake cheese changed after that.  I can imagine so!  Anyway, it will do for now, but I don't think it's a future purchase we'll be making very often, unless it's on manager's special or something.

So, speaking of manager's special, Ross and recently picked up some veggie dogs because they were in that section of the isle.  We go into the health food isle at Kroger and try new things, especially when they are on manager's special.  Sometimes health food is so darn expensive, so it feels better to try things when they are a little cheaper.  That way, if they completely stink (sometimes literally), you won't feel so bad having given it a chance at a lower price.  We'll, for me, trying those "manager's special" veggie dogs was completely NOT worth it!  In my opinion, they were nasty crap, that I'm not even sure I'll give to our dogs as dog treats.  Maybe some like them, but for me, the taste was all wrong, and the texture was even worse!  So we can add that to the "do not buy again" list.

Another thing that we did try on manager's special (this was even before our cleanse) and liked, was soy milk.  Ross came home randomly one day ( before the holidays)  with soy egg nog.   It was actually pretty good!  It wasn't quite as thick, but had the same great taste.  It was actually better than the real stuff, in my opinion, because I'm not a fan of thick drinks.  So, since the taste wasn't half bad, we've tried other flavors since then - pumpkin spice (my personal favorite - SO good warmed up, it tastes like chai tea), chocolate, and the light version of vanilla.  This is an item that we will continue to drink, although I don't think we'll be getting the original stuff anytime soon.  Also, I've heard that women are not supposed to drink too much soy, so I'll have to watch out for that. (Plus, sometimes, nothing beats a good glass of real milk!)

So, I think that's about all the new/newish things that we have tried recently!  I never even thought about giving some of these health food items a chance, until 1) Ross took a random trip down that isle in December, and 2) We had no other choice when we were trying to align with all the things we're supposed to eat for this cleanse.  All I know, is that Ross and I are feeling so much better than we have in a long time.