As the starting date got closer and we did more research, we realized that it was really supposed to be a 30-day "cleanse" with a 10-day "reintroduction" phase. 40 days seemed a *little* too long so we modified it to be a 22 day cleanse with the 10 day reintroduction phase. A-n-d we made it!
Jake lost quite a few pounds. He says he is down to his weight when he ran the NYC marathon back on 2008. He's also been sleeping better. I don't really feel any different - but I think that means that generally I'm already a pretty healthy eater and I'm not a big snacker. I did lose a few pounds but that wasn't the main goal for me. I was hoping to feel more energetic but sadly, not a big difference there.
So what is this cleanse? We took all dairy, legumes, added sugar, alcohol, soy, grains and gluten out of our diet. We could eat veggies, fruits, eggs, nuts and meat (chicken, seafood, pork and beef). The only oils we could use are olive oil, coconut oil and ghee (clarified butter). I learned that when I cook with coconut oil that it makes our house smell like the beach!
I cut sugar out of my coffee and since I couldn't put milk in it, found a coconut milk/ raw egg "creamer" recipe. It's quite tasty. Jake started drinking his coffee black since it was too difficult for him to get this magic creamer to work consistently. I ate a ton of veggies and we ate a lot of nuts, too. I think overall the diet was a little too meat-heavy for me (I ate more meat than I usually do so I'm glad to go back to having beans and dairy instead of meat so much).
Here are a few fun things we ate: Breakfast: a nut/ shaved coconut/ seed "granola" with berries (Jake would pour coconut milk over it but I just put a lot of berries in). The can of coconut milk with two raw eggs in the blender to make a frothy and creamy "creamer" for my coffee was a huge hit for me (lasts for several days). Jake would roast nuts with spices to get a bit more flavor since any spiced nuts from the store weren't compliant with our cleanse. Hard boiled eggs (for me - Jake wouldn't touch them). On pasta night, Jake and I would eat spaghetti squash with homemade tomato sauce on top (it would have been better with Parmesan on top!). I also made a lot of soups for lunches - sausage/ swiss chard was a big hit as was Thai green curry chicken soup. We ate tacos in lettuce wraps with no cheese or beans (lots of avocado on top for flavor and compliant salsa).
A few "fails:" I made cauliflower "hummus" since regular hummus was off limits. It was awful and the tahini made it taste like peanut butter (I think it would have been better with 1/2 the amount the recipe called for). I tried a "pancake" recipe out of mashed bananas and eggs but that didn't work out so well either. Our first week on the cleanse was tough - we felt funny and hungry since it was hard to find things to snack on but we were definitely in a rhythm by the second week.
Our reintroductions were fun since we were supposed to eat the specific food for all three meals of the day. On dairy day, we ate greek yogurt for breakfast with a mid-morning Starbucks run, Gruyere cheese with lunch and a tomato and fresh mozzarella cheese salad with dinner. Yum! On gluten day, our nanny went to a pasta cooking class so we had lots of carb-loading from her treats she brought home.
Overall - glad we did it. I am most impressed that I manage to pull it off without cheating (I don't have the same discipline level Jake does so that was an outstanding question for me when we started). But... I don't feel the need to do it again.
Off to toast ourselves with a congratulatory glass of wine!
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| Me on dairy reintroduction day - my only Starbucks in 32 days! |
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