Aroma heaven or torture?

My sense of smell has heightened since I started this cleanse. Mostly for the food items that I have deprived myself of; for example, chocolate. I walked into Urban Fare in Yaletown today at lunch to buy more yams and I kid you not, the second I walked in I smelled dark chocolate. It was not being given out by the sample lady and was not on display – it was halfway across the store in the gourmet section. Later or I smelled the wonderful smell of the hot dog vendor cart at Granville and Georgia before I even got halfway up the station escalator to the street. Sigh.

Today is day 2 of nothing but veggies (excluding potatoes, tomatoes and corn); the root of my aromatic sensitivity, I’m sure. Also the root of both Sean and I still feeling hungry despite copious amount of yams, cucumber, veggie laden lentil soup and chickpeas (which I made last night without the olive oil and they were still delicious!), and various other veggies. We both have high metabolisms, which doesn’t really help things and we’re both active people. So when I got home from Pilates feeling famished and ready to fall over, we decided that would activate the stated “if feeling lightheaded, white fish is permitted” clause of the cleanse. We need protein and no amount of chickpeas or lentils will be able to provide it. (Nicola, a friend from work, does a MONTH long cleanse with just veggies but she adds fish, which I think is very wise.)

So I bought some basa fish filets from Urban Fare – they were on sale and I’ve never tried or heard of basa before, I think. (After some googling by the fish counter I can tell you that it is a white fish (catfish to be precise) of Vietnamese and sometimes US origin.) We are banned from olive oil and lemon but with some dried herbs and fresh rosemary and 20 min in the oven, we had tasty catfish. Mashed yams and a spinach salad rounded it all out, if not as fillingly (new word) as we would have liked.

If you ever decide to be crazy and do this cleanse, yams are a lifesaver and are fantastic morning meal with some cinnamon mixed in. (Thank you, Claire!)

So now I sit here, catching up on my “Castle” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, with what is at least my tenth glass of water for the day. I’m wondering why there are ten (TEN?!?) movies nominated for Best Picture this year and I really, really want a glass of wine and that chocolate that I smelled in Urban Fare. Maybe some yoga will take my mind off that lovely smell.