I've never done a "cleanse" before. I'm not sure how much I believe in them. But I found myself needing a real reset button dietetically and thought it might not be a bad thing to try out.
I ate what I wanted through the last few days leading up to Christmas. And I've never felt worse! Lots of restaurant food, lots of carbs, lots of sugars, and just things I don't regularly eat in general. I felt sickly, my stomach felt on the verge of upset, I was moody and I felt FAT. Bluh.
I'm embarking on a four and a half month contest prep (the initial phase is just a general lean down prior to the real leaning phase).
I researched cleanses online. There are all kinds of them. I don't really feel like drinking a peppered lemonade wonder juice as that doesn't seem quite right. I settled on a juice cleanse. One laden with fruit/vegetable juices. This is the guideline I am using, which explains a lot about cleansing.
http://naturalhc.com/docs/juicecleanseoutline.pdf
To find juices, I'm using the book "Total Juicing" by Elaine LaLanne. I selected five juices to get me through each of my five meals for three days. My selections:
The Green Drink
2 green apples, 4 stalks celery, 8 stalks bok choy, 1/4 pound spinach, 1 bunch parsley
Sunrise
2 sweet apples, 4 large carrots, 1 red bell pepper, 4 jicama spears
Broccoli Bush
4 medium carrots, 1/2 medium green pepper, 2 stalks broccoli
The Pepper-Upper
1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 sweet apple, 2 large carrots
Carrot-Fruit Juice
4 large carrots, 2 sweet apples
Notes from Day 1 -
I decided to juice in my Ninja blender and consume the pulp too. It's been said that you lose nutrients by not
ingesting the pulp. But what that does is make a very large, very filling juice. So my Sunrise I ended up
splitting over 3 cups. The Green Drink ended up fitting perfectly into a tall glass. I had to add water to all
of them to create a juicy consistency. I was surprised how much I liked the Green Drink.
I didn't have enough energy to get through my 3rd weight training circuit without feeling very low energy.
But I made it. I stayed pretty satisfied until about 3:00. Then hunger started to creep in. About 5:00, a dull
headache set in and it's been there ever since. Rounding out day 1 feeling de-bloated, happy to feel hungry
and interested to see how I feel at the end of day 3.
