The cleanse also gives you the opportunity

[muskanislam25]

It was extremely hard at first. I kept thinking about the long list of what I couldn’t eat, my smoothies didn’t taste good, and I was hungry. I received a lot of negative comments too, and was slightly embaressed to write about it (well not this year!). I quickly found though that the way I felt outweighed any comments I was receiving. I focused on foods that were allowed like chicken, brocolli, apples, turkey, brown rice and pineapple. Making a delicious smoothies became easy when I discovered that unsweetened vanilla almond milk, frozen fruit, and a dash of cinnamon made the perfect base. I adjusted my portion sizes to fit my lifestyle, started bringing healthy snacks, and planned my meals. I started spending a lot of time in the produce section focusing on foods that were high in nutrients, not processed, and tasty. I tried things I never had before- finding a rice based protein powder for my smoothies, adding magnesium (natural way to ward off headaches among other things) and Vitamin D to my daily routine, and making cookie bites out of dates, nuts, and cocoa powder as a sweet treat.

To find out if you have any food allergies. At the end of 21 days, you test email data you want to add back into your diet and see if there’s any reaction. I quickly added back in several things and missed out on this, but I continued to still include several aspects of Clean into my life. This included eating unprocessed foods, having a smoothie for breakfast, and leaving a 12 hour gap between lunch and dinner (as often as possible). This cleanse helped me kick start a healthier lifestyle, one that I’ve been benefiting from for the past year. Until the holidays.

I ate lots and lots of cookies, wonderful butter filled food, and drank lots of wine. yum yum in my tummy! The food was amazing! I started feeling pretty icky though and found my diet returning back to it’s old ways (not as bad, but not as good as before). I decided to set a goal for the year of two short 10-day cleanses as a reminder to eat healthy.

A couple of days ago I started Clean again. It was a rocky start as usually with catered lunches (yum Chinese food!), social events, and a friend’s birthday party cupcakes (chocolate on chocolate always gets me!). The stigma followed me around too. Not as bad as the first time (maybe it’s all those cleanses being advertised on magazines this January), but still ever present. I’m working past it and hoping for a Clean next 10 days. That’s a week and a half- I can surely go without sugar that long.