Day DONE
Sun Jan 30
My cleanse is over. It fizzled out earlier this week, but not until I drank a smoothie made out of a beet, a carrot, and an apple and another smoothie made out of kale and a pear. That beet smoothie was a gorgeous red, but the taste was disgusting. It took me two hours to drink it and I still wasn't finished with it when I threw it out. The kale smoothie was surprisingly good. I drank one the next day too, call me crazy.
My cleanse fizzled out little by little as I snacked with the boys. My meals still, for the most part, followed the rules, but the illegal snacking ingredients did me in. I'm sure I'll do this cleanse again next year or in a few months and I'll try to be more diligent in only eating from the "good" list, because I did feel good when I was doing it right. I felt light and my skin felt smooth (still does, hope it lasts) and I felt proud of myself for eating so many vegetables and whole grains.
I did some things right. One was making a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week and using it the following days. That way lunch was easy - I just sauteed some veggies and added black beans, and I was done. I loved the lunches on the days that I followed a recipe (with spices, almond-chicken, etc.), but when I didn't have time to cook the rice was great to have. Another thing that worked out well was making a big batch of soup at the beginning of the week. The cleanse actually made dinner at our house easier, because all I had to do was heat up the soup and dinner was served. (Well, I still had to microwave the boys' crap). We had some tasty soups, particularly the chicken soup. Another thing I did right was drinking a ton of water. I'm guess that that alone really helped me feel good.
I did a lot of things wrong. I got tired of snacking on nuts and I didn't take the time to figure out what else I could snack on, so I ended up cheating. I didn't make one smoothie that the boys liked, which I found disappointing. When I was out at night with friends, or out for dinner, I didn't even try to stick to the plan. I found out that when I go on a long car ride I need to drink Coke to help avoid getting car sick. This has always been the case, but I thought I could beat it with this cleanse, but I couldn't. (I know that sounds ridiculous, that Coke could have some medicinal qualities. I don't know how to explain it, I just can't deny it).
But I still reaped some benefits. My skin is smoother and I lost about 3 pounds. I learned how to cook quinoa and I picked up some really good, healthy recipes. I really enjoyed planning and preparing meals in advance and I loved feeling so healthy.
Since coming off the cleanse this week, I've noticed some things. I haven't felt as good as when I was on the cleanse. I had a stomach ache and headache and I've been thirsty (which I should be able to solve...). I've felt that my stomach is heavy with food after eating. I've also noticed that some of my food cravings have changed. Except for bites of the boys' sandwiches, I haven't eaten any bread yet, and I don't miss it. Before the cleanse I ate cereal for breakfast every morning, usually Life cereal. Life cereal doesn't taste that good to me anymore and I haven't wanted any cereal at all yet. However, I did enjoy the waffles I made for breakfast yesterday morning. Finally I got to eat something warm and sweet for breakfast. I haven't enjoyed drinking cold smoothies on such cold mornings. (But I did enjoy warming up the Cinnamon Roll in a Glass smoothie before I drank it last week. Yum). I haven't missed caffeine, and I'm starting to really enjoy tea. I want to try a ginger flavor like Megan mentioned. I don't miss milk or dairy (that doesn't mean I don't eat cheese when I see it). I haven't missed pasta at all, and it actually sounds unappealing, although I'm sure this will change. I've really missed chocolate.
Going forward, I'm hoping to make some changes. I think I might like to try eating less dairy, but I'm not sure how to get enough calcium in my diet, so I have to figure that out. I'd like to continue to rely on whole grains, like the brown rice and quinoa, instead of bread for that part of the food pyramid. I'm going to add nuts to my list of snack foods and maybe they will slowly replace chips and pretzels and granola bars. I've really enjoyed eating a light dinner, so I'm going to try to keep making soup for dinner fairly often, and watch my portion sizes when we eat heavier dinners. I don't know what I'm going to do about breakfast since cereal isn't appealing to me. Maybe I'll try oatmeal. I'm going to try keep eating lots of vegetables (who knew sauteed red cabbage could taste so good?). I've also thought about doing a juice (smoothie) fast one day a week. I think the book mentioned that. I felt good while doing the cleanse and it'd be great to maintain that feeling. Hopefully these changes in my diet, or some combination of them, will help keep me feeling clean.
Good luck to those of you still cleaning!
(I have heard that Coke syrup is good for settling an upset stomach, so there is something to your Coke needs. As for snacks, carrots and hummus and hummus on rice cakes w/ avocado slices have become favorites of mine during the cleanse. Can you pass on any other soup recipes that you've liked, because I've really hit a wall with soup. ~Sabrina)
Day 10
Tues Jan 18
Breakfast: smoothie = avocado, mango, coconut water. Not bad, but next time will drop the avocado. There's something unappealing about drinking a green smoothie.....
Lunch: seared vegetables ( red cabbage, red pepper, asparagus, carrots) and walnuts
Snack: nuts. I wanted something savory or sweet so I stirred the nuts with some olive oil and sprinkled garlic powder on them, then roasted them in the toaster oven for a few minutes. They turned out too oily.
Dinner: planning on making pea soup.
I cheated over the weekend. We were at the bar! For a birthday party! It was really fun! Snacked on the provided food - cheese quesadillas (delish) sliders (heavenly) bruschetta (devine). Had a beer. Then started to feel kind of guilty so I drank a few glasses of water and made sure that my next (and last) drink had both pineapple juice and coconut in it so at least half of that drink qualified : )
On Monday I visited my friend who is an au pair from Sweden. She made me swedish pancakes with real whipped cream and crushed raspberries. I ate two of them and then finished Jett's. I was only being polite!
I made the brown rice bowl this weekend, but omitted the chicken because I forgot to thaw it. It was nice and spicy. I highly recommend it (in pdf doc of recipes that Jenny emailed). I think it would be even better with chicken on top.
Yesterday Charlie and I had the Cinnamon Rolls in a Glass smoothie for breakfast again. It's a good one.
Happy feasting, y'all!
Day 6
Fri Jan 14
Breakfast: smoothie I made up - blueberries (frozen), pineapple (frozen), almonds, coconut water
Lunch: baked chicken, Butternut Squash and Apple Bake
Dinner: home made chicken soup.
Snacks: pecans, almonds, couple of bites of chocolate, a bite of chicken nugget (omg tasted heavenly!) and two bites of ice-cream.
I don't know if having chicken soup for dinner really meets the rules of the program, since I put celery, carrots, onion and chicken (of course) in the soup, and those aren't liquid. But I diced them all up nice and small and sauteed the veggies before adding them to the broth, so they were very tender when I ate the soup. But if that's breaking the rules I'm ok with it. It was so warm and flavorful. It was nice to look forward to and delicious to eat.
Tonight (Saturday) we are going out to a bar for a birthday party. I'll be breaking the rules in moderation, like I did at book club on Wednesday.
All in all, this program is working out ok. I haven't eaten any processed food (save for small bites here and there) in a week, which feels like an accomplishment. I like the cooking so far. Lots of hand washing dishes though, with the blender, food processor, etc. I could do with out all of the extra time in the kitchen. I must be "cheating" just enough to get me by because I don't spend the day feeling deprived of anything (yet). I would like a PB&J and a Coke every now and then though. And a coffee with cream. But not crabby about it so far!
Day 4
Wed Jan 12
Breakfast: smoothie I made up - peaches (frozen), almond milk, flax meal. So-so.
Lunch: left over brown rice and veggies with almond butter sauce. Pretty good.
Dinner: Have no idea. Leftover carrot soup and veggies and almond milk perhaps. Very busy yesterday and today with no time to plan a proper, delicious meal.
Snacks: almonds and pecans and then some cheating: 3 nilla wafers and 4 bites of an orange chocolate bar. I still feel pretty clean though.
Tonight is book club where there is sure to be blocks of cheese and crackers and i don't know what i am going to do. Bringing my own almonds and pecans seems kind of obnoxious.
I do think I will be making rice pudding this weekend with brown rice/almond milk/agave. For the topping I will stir frozen fruit and water together on the stove to make a little syrup. Will add agave to the syrup if necessary. I need a warm gooey dessert and while this might not be recommended on the program, it isn't using any "off-list" ingredients so I think it's a good compromise.
Biggest benefit I've noticed so far is that I'm not very hungry and I have no idea why. It must be those filling lunches. I don't know, but I don't care. I'll take it.
(Amy- how was the 'pudding'? sounds delicious! I love something sweet before bed- let us know how it tasted.- Megan)
Day 2
Mon Jan 10
Breakfast: avocado/apple/ginger/almond milk smoothie
Lunch: almond-crusted chicken w/ spinach, rice, and veggies
Dinner: am stuffed. may not eat dinner, but if I do it will be the soup from last night and brown rice smothered in almond dressing that I made for lunch.
Snacks: almonds, pecans, pear slices, lots of water
Cheating: nilla wafers, 1/2 banana
Day 1
Sun Jan 9
Cinnamon Rolls in a Glass. (smoothie breakfast)
Almonds. (snack)
Brown rice, black beans, store-bought guacamole. (95% avocado, 5% probably cheating) (lunch)
A few chips and salsa. Completely off the list, but I was hosting the au pair meeting.....
Left-over chicken in curry sauce. Probably also off-list, but no use wasting yesterday's dinner. (snack)
Carrot & ginger soup, brown rice and black beans. (dinner)
water, herbal tea
Tonight I cooked the chicken for tomorrow's lunch: Almond Crusted Chicken Breast with Spinach, Rice, and Thai Dressing. It looks awesome. Also prepped for tomorrow's breakfast smoothie: Avocado Lime and Ginger Smoothie. Not excited about drinking an avocado for breakfast, but the lime/ginger sounds appealing and it also sounds filling.
I realized tonight that by splitting a smoothie this morning, Charlie and I each only got half a serving. Looking forward to a bigger breakfast tomorrow. I'm hungry now, but trying to stick to tea. However, we have peppermint and hot-chocolate flavored ice cream in our fridge and it will be amazing if I go to bed without eating it. Maybe I'll just drink almond milk.....
Over all, fairly happy with my meals today. Happy feasting!
Sat Jan 8
Did not start the cleanse today. First reason is because I didn't get the Magic Bullet figured out last night so it wasn't ready for smoothie-making this morning. Second reason is because Jett was up all night with a fever and ear ache, we took him to the doctor this morning, and it just threw our whole day out of whack. We were out and about well past lunch time so we had to stop at Potbelly's and eat. Hopefully with a little more planning we can stick to the cleanse even when our daily schedule is disrupted. If I can get all of the Magic Bullet parts pulled out from under the sink tonight, and then washed, we will start tomorrow. Wish us luck!
Fri Jan 7
Starting tomorrow and am crabby just thinking about it, although don't tell Charlie, I'm still trying to talk it up to him. Went to the grocery store today to buy ingredients for meals for just the next two days and realized that I don't know what I want from this cleanse. Mostly I just have a lot of complaining to do. Here we go.
1. I'm not willing to spend more on groceries than we already do, which may make buying organic impossible. This seems counter-productive to the cleanse. I wonder why I should even do the cleanse if I am putting in my body exactly what the cleanse is trying to rid me of. Can I not get healthy without spending more money? I feel particularly stubborn about this, which is ridiculous, because the cleanse is about this. But please. We gave up organic 2 years ago and aside from Charlie's third nipple we're fine. Additionally, if our grocery bill goes up Charlie isn't going to want to do this (he already doesn't want to do this). He doesn't say this out loud, he says it with his eyes.
2. I don't have the book yet (am waiting for it from the library), so I've been getting my information from the website. I suspect that the book is more informative than the website. For example, at the grocery store I stood in front of the agave nectar for 10 minutes trying to decide if I really needed to buy it. Can't I just use honey as a sweetener? I don't know. Not knowing made me crabby. I bought the agave nectar for $4 and that made me crabby, because we have a big jar of honey at home. But I bought the agave because the bottle said it has a low-glycemic index which means, it went on to explain, that you are less likely to have a spike in blood sugar. Does this mean that I won't get hyper and then exhausted after eating it? The honey bottles don't say that anywhere. Maybe I can get my boys to start eating agave nectar instead of honey with their chicken nuggets. But maybe honey has a low-glycemic index too. I don't know! I need to git educated.
4. Also, I hear that the soups are blah so I'm not looking forward to that.
5. Why does everyone say they get exhausted during this cleanse? If I get any more exhausted I'm going to be dead.
6. I don't know how I'm going to have time to cook such nice lunches. Tomorrow is ca-ra-zay and I don't know when I'm going to eat lunch, much less cook it.
7. Yesterday I ate 5 cookies while I was cooking dinner.
8. Then I ate a huge dinner.
9. I'm worried that I won't have anything satisfying to snack on.
10. There are some people involved in the website community and they are sharing way too much personal information. It makes me feel like they are kind of nutty and if those nuts recommend this cleanse, I'm not sure it's the one I want to be doing. One guy (and this pops up on the homepage, I didn't go searching for this or clicking on anyone's profile to read it) is publishing how many bowel movements he has a day, and the time of day they happen. He also let the whole world know that his urine is now pink. I'm saying for the record that if my urine turns pink I will be stopping the cleanse and calling a doctor. Also, I don't plan on talking about my urine or bowel movements at all. I think that might disqualify me from membership.
In the end, I think what I want from this cleanse is a new menu of healthy food that I've learned how to cook. A new routine. Some rules to follow.
Oh who am I kidding. Here is the honest truth: I just want to be part of the team.
Aw shucks. Group hug?
(A - I think the best thing to do is to figure out exactly what you want from the cleanse and tailor it so you can reach those goals. I don't want to lose weight, don't want to spend a ton of money, but I want to try something that pushes my sense of discipline and hopefully get the great skin and extra energy that the author of the Outside magazine article talked about. Read the article again, and some reviews, it seemed like most people complained about exhaustion the first week but by week two were feeling great. I'm going to add a vegan protein powder to my plan so I won't lose weight. It's not in the cleanse, but it will suit my needs. I don't believe that organic is the only way to keep our bodies clean. The fact that we won't be filling up on processed foods and other harmful items fulfills the 'clean' idea in my mind. I've personally hated the organic movement because it's prohibitive to people of lower socioeconomic statuses. My parents raised me eating healthy, without being organic, and it's crazy to make people think otherwise. I may try a week all organic just to see if it's really that different, but I don't think it will be. And I think being part of the group isn't that bad of a reason to do this...group hug right back to all of you. -Sabrina)
Earlier.
Nice work getting this started, Jenny! Can't wait to read all about your experience with this. I'm glad you are going first!
I just looked at your "interesting tidbit" on the homepage of the blog. A $200 grocery bill? Say wha?! Ack.
Anyway, what is all of this green stuff that you bought? Why is nothing in your freezer? (Was it previously filled with ice cream, like mine)? I'd love to see your grocery list for the first week.
(Sista--I don't know, it all added up. Some of it will be things we won't need to buy every week, like the spices and the agave nectar, but some of it was just plain expensive, like the organic meats and nuts. We decided to buy the spevia, which is a really expensive but great sweetener and I think it was 10 dollars for a tiny little bottle. Now that I think of it, we also bought a new Sigg bottle, and we know those are expensive. I saved my shopping list but it's long. If I have time I'll forward it to you. Yes, sadly our freezer is often filled with frozen pizza, frozen burritos, Bertolli pre-made pasta meals, chix nuggets, ice cream, etc., etc. Now it is full of frozen berries/mangoes/passion fruits. Love, love!)
