spring "Clean"-ing

dinner tonight:

breakfast this morning:

green smoothies!  (frozen kale, blueberries, and mango, salba seeds, almond milk, Greens+ powder)

I am on Day 17 of a 21 Day cleanse.  It's called Clean- I heard about it from Goop (okay, I admit it- I read Gwyneth's newsletter- AND i even take her advice!  well, this time anyway) a few months ago and I was intrigued.  I bought the book (Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself) and was convinced it was something that would be good for me.

basically it comes down to this:

liquid breakfast, liquid dinner.  at least a 12 hour window at night between dinner and breakfast, no snacking!-

lunch- anything you want that is considered "Clean": NO soy, red meat, dairy, eggs, sugar/sweet things, alcohol, caffeine, corn, gluten (wheat or other glutinous grains), citrus, nightshade vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers) or bananas.  whole grains, unprocessed, raw, lightly cooked is encouraged.  the idea is that the 'NO' stuff is hard to digest or allegenic- and if you make digestion really easy, your body can use the extra energy to clean itself out.  I haven't noticed any crazy 'detox' symptoms, but I am pretty sure it still must be happening.

various supplements outlined in the book, lots of water.

it hasn't been too bad.  the one thing I am cheating on is that i didn't give up caffeine- although I have cut down from 3 cups of tea a day to just 1.  I knew I would never do it if I had to give up that first cup in the morning.  It's what gets me out of bed.  the hardest thing is making food for everyone else.  Pizza! Quesadillas! Eggs!  But I tell myself it's only 3 weeks and I manage.

Positive effects so far: I have been sleeping better, my skin feels softer, i have lost a bit of weight (I call it baby weight, but more realistically it's i-usually-eat-whatever-i-want-and-i'm-getting-older weight).  I've realized I don't need to eat nearly as much as I usually do.  I was really hungry the first couple of days but then my body adjusted.  I realized how often i eat because it's there or because it tastes really good- not that that's bad necessarily, but just not good to do all the time.  I'm also eating (well, drinking) WAY more green things- spinach, kale- in my smoothie.  I plan on keeping up with the smoothies (and if I burn out the motor on my current blender, I'm going to save up for this baby: the Vita-Mix 1300 TurboBlend 4500)  I'm thinking about doing this program 1 day a week, or 1 week a month- something like that.  I'd like to continue with eating healthier in general.

here's a little movie from The Clean People: