So I mentioned yesterday that I started doing a detox. In the past when I have thought about detoxes, I imagined drinking lemonade with cayenne pepper and honey or something equally as disgusting (and I’m sorry, if you’ve done them, you MUST know how disgusting they are). And I wondered, how do they work? HOW do they promote healthy eating habits?
A cleanse is, after all, only good if you’re going to continue to eat healthy afterwards, right? I mean, the whole point of a detox isn’t to finish, then binge on every bad carb-loaded/sweet/fat-filled things you can find (oh wait, that was me the last time I did this detox. Granted, IT WAS THANKSGIVING.). At least that’s what I think when I think of detoxes. My goal with this detox is to become healthier; a kick-start if you will of healthier eating habits.
This detox was recommended to me by my old roommate Michele, a physical therapist who shares this gem with her patients. If she’s a licensed practitioner (which she is) and she’s risking her career to advise her patients to do this, then it has to be good for you. So therefore I will then recommend it for all of you.
I did this detox over a year ago, the week before Thanksgiving. I had been drinking a lot and mass consuming cupcakes as if they were going out of style and I wanted a change. I saw how great Michele looked, heard how well she felt and decided to give it a try. It was hell–for the first day. Around the third day I started seeing spikes in my energy level–natural ones! And I was happier, feeling great, my skin was amazing and I started losing pesky unwanted water weight (which was an added bonus.)
See what you do is this: you only eat leafy green vegetables for a week. VEGETABLES. That’s healthy, good stuff! No weird concoctions. Ok maybe one weird concoction, made out of vegetables. I’m basically going to now steal the detailed description from my other blog because really, the thought of writing it all out AGAIN just doesn’t seem that fun….
So for 7 days you eat those veggies, preferably leafy greens but you can also eat peppers, cucumbers, carrots, celery, peas, corn, basically anything veggie, that isn’t pre-processed, canned, pickled or dried (frozen fresh veggies is ok!). For salads you can put dressing like oil and vinegar but preferably lemon juice and olive oil for taste (I actually usually do this anyway, its a great light summer dressing). For breakfast my roommate suggests making a shake out of vegetables. If you have access to a juicer this makes it really easy. (I’m actually unable to do this this time, I’m substituting lowfat yogurt which is a no no but I have no other option outside of eating spinach for breakfast.)
I suggest doing one big batch of it (about half a gallon lasts 4-5 days) because its messy to make and annoying as hell to do often. I used kale, spinach, collard greens, celery, 5 apples and 2 beets. You can also use carrots too. Or substitute out the beets if you don’t like them, i happen to like them so it wasn’t a problem. (You will want to boil the beets until tender, I’d never worked with them and attempting to cut them raw? IS NOT FUN)
This is breakfast and is awful tasting at first but you get used to it. (even by the second day I wasn’t hating it AS much).
So basically all I am eating is salads with a lot of veggies on it and snacking a lot on celery and carrots. The first day or two is bad, you’ll be hungry (no, scratch that-STARVING), you’ll probably get bad headaches and be really tired (for me, just the first day) because all the toxins are leaving the body but after that you arent as hungry and you get full more easily and it won’t bother you as much. Oh, and drink a lot of water!!! and i mean a lot. You dehydrate really easily.
You can’t drink any alcohol or coffee but I’ve been having herbal tea with no sugar or anything added to it so I figure that is ok. I also have been having a banana as a mid morning snack, I figure I can use the potassium and its fruit so it can’t be that bad!!
So there you have it. THE DETOX. It’s not that scary, it certainly isn’t a fast–considering you can eat as much veggies as you want if you’re hungry, you just can’t eat anything else! Just a warning: it does mess up your digestion for the first couple days so you could, um, smell weird.
Just warning you.
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Detox…Take 2 | Life in Pink
[...] various detoxes; a number of yoga studios I frequent (2) sell juice cleanses, and one of my favorite bloggers ...
I’m not doing a detox per se, but as the running season kicks into full gear, my diet has really changed for the better. Now, if only my bowels get use to all this extra fiber.
I used to work with a lady who went on the master cleanse for FOURTY days. She lost 30 pounds. That can’t be healthy…
The detox your on now sounds like it’s not too bad. I’ll be interested to hear how it goes!
FORTY DAYS??? FORTY?! And thirty pounds? Wow. That cannot be healthy. Although I did lose 9 lbs the first time I did this (in a week). But still…
Ok I was totally gung-ho about trying this, not even the weird breakfast smoothie weirdness sacred me…until…I got to the smelly part. UM? Not sure I can do it now. I mean how smelly is smelly?
I think I’d prefer to have spinach for breakfast than the shake thing… That’s an option, right?
Oh you definitely can do that! As long as it’s a vegetable
I don’t know if I could do the detox. But holy cow, that is crazy. I’m glad you’re doing it and have survived so far. Keep us posted!
Smell weird? I don’t understand.
Soooo I think I’m going to try this because I need a jump-start to the spring and eating healthy and I want to be glowing at my engagement party in a few weeks. Why not give it a go now?
Expect an e-mail from me when I kick this off this weekend. (:
How’s it going today?
Thanks for posting this on your other blog, because I tried it last year! The toughest by far was the morning shakes, it was more like slop since I used a food processor. Still I would totally recommend it and even do it again. It’s not that bad and I didn’t notice any weird smells. Good luck again
I’ve been contemplating a detox lately. Not sure I could do it for more than a day considering I’m ALWAYS hungry. ALWAYS. and a detox would just make me even hungrier since all I could eat are vegetables.
But I may try a detox-ish type diet – load up on more veggies and fruits and less carbs/wheat/grains/crap.