I did the cleanse for a total of 12 days and decided it was time to wrap it up. I could have gone the full three weeks, but I feel like I did what I set out to do which wasn't so much the actual cleanse than the proving to myself that I could cut all these things out of my diet, especially coffee and sugar, and get past the physical discomfort of the cleanse without quitting. This past week was actually...good. I was done with any physical effects of the cleanse, wasn't living in a fog, and was enjoying my meals. I think I just got bored with it when the challenge of it was gone. Is that lame?
People have asked me if I feel like I have a lot of energy or renewed energy. Honestly, I haven't noticed any differences in how I feel with the exception of the withdrawal stuff last week. I feel good. Scratch that, I woke up with a pain in my neck today. Also, my skin is a lot worse than it normally is. But otherwise, I feel like myself.
This past week I found that I had to veer off the magazine menu and just start doing my own thing with the given allowances for the week. Here are a few things I had:
Monday almost broke me. Things were stressful at work, and I had more meals I didn't enjoy including quinoa for breakfast and this quinoa (with kale, cabbage and carrots) salad for lunch. I decided to just approach the cleanse on a day by day basis. Having salmon for dinner that night saved me and kept me going.
On Tuesday I had black bean and brown rice patties for dinner. I was skeptical as I pulsed this mess in the blender and expected the worst. But this turned into this:
And they were actually really good! I would definitely make these again.
I made a lot of salmon on Monday, and I ate it for lunch or dinner the rest of the week. Yes, that is five days of salmon, people! This is my salmon, roasted veggies (butternut squash and brussel sprouts) and brown rice dinner from Wednesday.
Banana oat pancakes for breakfast on Wednesday and Thursday. These were made with oat flour, banana, coconut oil, unsweetened coconut flakes, a little flaxseed meal, and cinnamon. Tasty!
I ate them with apple sauce.
My daily snack (in addition to an orange and an apple) included Madjool dates, dried apricots and unsalted cashews. Yes, everything I ate this week had the looks of a turd pretty much.
On Friday I gave the breakfast quinoa another shot. This time I simply cooked it and added banana slices. I enjoyed it a lot more than I had on Monday.
My first non-cleanse meal was wild mushroom risotto from Uncommon Ground (and then a frozen custard concoction). I thought my stomach might explode from shock. Nothing happened. This morning I had a couple of chocolate chip pancakes and a fried egg with orange juice. And green tea. I haven't had coffee yet!
I think by the second week my taste buds had adjusted to the absence of everything I hadn't eaten in more than a week. It was great to be able to enjoy meals and not feel like I was thinking too much about what to eat. I made bigger batches of things in advance and didn't have to put too much thought into what I was packing for lunch or what I would have for dinner. Another perk is that I didn't spend any money on coffee or lunch or eating out for dinner for two weeks. I feel a little bummed that it's over, and part of me thinks I should have just gone the full three weeks since I'd gotten to a point where I wasn't really thinking about the fact that I was missing all this stuff in my diet anymore. The magazine cleanse just kind of ends at three weeks. There's no additional information about post-cleanse so it's kind of hard to know what the next step is. I think I've discovered a few things I enjoy and will continue to eat, and I feel like I can go without even in stressful times when I resort to coffee and sugar more so than usual.
I feel privileged to have the opportunity to do something like this--to pick and choose what I eat, to be able to easily eat this way without it being impossible to find all the ridiculous ingredients in my recipes like flaxseed meal and oat flour. I've been think about how much food is part of identity for some people. For me, it's been weird to acknowledge that not only have a I not missed drinking coffee, but that I could easily not drink it anymore if I chose not to. It's the one thing that has been a constant in my daily life (with the exception of during my pregnancy) probably since about the age of four. I don't drink it because it makes me more awake or energetic because it doesn't. I drink it because it provides a sense of comfort for me. I am not giving up coffee because I like it, but it's funny to think that I could suddenly be me, tea drinker, instead of who I've always been.
The cleanse is probably one of the least fun things on this list (next to buying underwear), but I might try this again sometime in the future.
