Here’s the thing you can’t possibly plan for when deciding to start the reset 3 days before Thanksgiving: not having sugar. Period.
In week 1, I followed the reset to a T. Every meal, snacks when needed, 100+ ounces of water a day, Kombucha, ginger tea — you name it, I ate it. In the prep, though, I couldn’t find coconut butter for snacks. Plus, I never quite got around to making the coconut yogurt. So, all in all, I was cutting nearly all of my sugar intake without replacing it with much craving-curbing sweetness.
That was a bad idea.
Days 1 & 2
Nothing too nuts here. I made lunch and took it to work. That was really big news for everyone in the office.
I did recap Day 1 in the moment though.
Day 3
By day 3, I found a great rhythm. Even with some chaos at work, I wasn’t stressing over what to eat because everything was already prepped and decided for me. This completely eliminated my typical work-until-I-could-die-of-hunger madness as well as my I-can’t-decide-so-I’ll-just-eat-this-chocolate binging. Win-win-win.
Day 4
Day 4 was Thanksgiving.
Walking into my grandma’s kitchen, you could smell all the awesomeness of a typical holiday: roasting turkey, baking pies, fresh rolls. I narrowly dodged carving the turkey only to be recruited to mash the potatoes instead. Those goddamn potatoes are the most amazing things in the world. Year after year, I have absolutely no reservation eating them cold. Warm, covered in gravy, they’re something your little homestyle heart only dreams of.
So there I am – mashing – and grandma walks by with two sticks of butter. Real butter. She drops them in. More mashing. Just as the last of the butter melts into the mush, she sweeps in with a full can of chicken broth and swaps the entire pot of potatoes. More mashing. In no time, the broth blended into fluffy clouds and my job was done. So I just looked at them for a bit. Just looking.
Lunch was easy. I dropped my fresh salad and veggies out of its container and onto a plate then gobbled it along with everyone else. I was full when they were stuffed and sipped my Kombucha as they sipped wine.
Dessert was harder. Much harder. From the half dozen pies in the kitchen, giant slices paraded through the dining room — some even doubled up to fully enjoy the holiday. As everyone grumbled about how full they were but kept eating, I kept sipping Kombucha. It was not pie.
Dinner was much of the same — but this time more people and more questions and much more “you’re doing what on Thanksgiving?!” I got through it. The buffet, though, included much more cheese-based sides, large casseroles and even more enormous pies. Not to mention, the nieces made white-chocolate covered xmas treats. So damn. The temptation was there.
As everyone’s grumbles set in, I started to realize that I felt fine. I had eaten my meals. I was full from them. But I didn’t feel tired and certainly wasn’t uncomfortable. I still really wanted some pie, but it was a nice feeling to have.
Day 5
On Black Friday, my mom, aunt, cousin and I all get together to do some shopping. It’s something of a tradition, even if we don’t buy much — we gather and spend time laughing with each other. About 12 hours of time, actually.
So there I am at 5 a.m. — not in a miserable food coma, but sure as hell not excited to be awake without coffee.
This day was the hardest. I packed my food, chugged my water, ate my snacks, but nothing seemed to fight off the incredible energy drain that comes with waking up at 3 a.m. and wandering around in the dark through the obnoxious hours of the morning.
Around 10 a.m., it really hit me. No coffee and no sugar. I couldn’t even snarf a Snickers to save me.
Lunch was much needed. I drowned myself in water and salad while everyone else sipped cocktails and enjoyed gorgeous buttery croissants. As we walked out of the restaurant, I was proud to be revived. I laughed along with the tipsy jokes and we were off to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
Day 6
I love eggs in a real weird way. I even mentioned to Tandy that while shopping for the reset, I was near tears when I realized that I didn’t get to buy eggs for the first 5 days. That was a real thing. Coffee, I can live without. Sugar, I want to cut. Carbs, I don’t always crave. Dairy, I actually don’t like. But eggs. Eggs are my jam.
Every holiday season, Gena and my dad rent a party bus — now lovingly dubbed the Sloppy Santa Bus — for our family xmas party. We load up and hop around to dive bars in rural Kansas. Drinking all the way.
Needless to say, I couldn’t drink either. For that, I devised a plan.
I’m a social drinker: 1000%. I drink as much as you drink. Hand me a drink, I keep drinking. It’s not that I want them. It’s not even that I typically like them. I just really love beverages and humans. The trick here was that I saved my day’s Kombucha “snack” for the bus. While everyone else had their first round, I sipped Kombucha from a glass bottle. In a weird way, it’s wine-like to me — so I felt right at home and involved in the party. Once the bottle ran dry, I grabbed waterbottles from the coolers and tucked them into my ugly sweater bottle koozie. The koozie felt drinking-ish while the water was what my body needed. Blended with the instability of the bus and my general clumsiness, it was just like getting drunk without actually getting drunk.
In a possibly unhealthy turn of events, I actually ended up drinking about 180 ounces of water that day. I definitely peed at least 6 times while we bar hopped.
I survived 6 hours on a party bus between 6 bars. Drink-free. In my first week of the reset.
And, I woke up the next day feeling like a damn champion.
At the end of the week, I’m proud. I’m really, really proud to have made it through and not caved. I’ve wrestled with “that was shockingly easy” balanced with “that was the fucking worst.” Haven’t really decided where I sit on that yet. The cravings were tough solely because so much was sitting right in front of me through the holidays. Saying “no” here and there is one thing. Saying “no” non-stop for three days straight is something else entirely.
I did go through a few headaches – typically in the mornings before I chug some water. I’m guessing that’s mostly caffeine-related. We’ll just see how it goes next week!