The Gory Details

Day 3... it was pretty tough to get out of bed this morning.  But it's hard to tell if that's related to the cleanse or not, because it's pretty tough to get out of bed EVERY morning.  But at least on a normal day I have a creamy cup of English breakfast tea and carbs luring me downstairs.  Apple juice just does not equate.

So, the cleanse deets.  I wish I could tell you the name of it, but I do not know.  I got the instructions from a friend who did it with her neighbor after she completed it and luuuuurved it.  Then another friend tried it and haaaaaated it.  So, I went into this with pretty realistic expectations about the potential benefits and the drawbacks.  Sometimes it feels much harder than I expected, sometimes it's easy.  It truly depends on the moment.

Here is the basic breakdown of what I'm taking in every day:

Breakfast:
1 1/4 C apple juice
1 glass room temperature water with lemon
1 cup of herbal, caffeine free tea
Suck on some slices of lemon
1 tsp honey 

Lunch:
Vegetable broth (2 lb bag of carrots, large onion, bag of celery, garlic, seasonings (I used a poultry blend of herbs), 8 cups of water.  Bring to a boil, simmer for a few hours until vegetables are softs, drain and smoosh liquid out of the veggies.)

Dinner:
1 1/4 C apple juice
1 cup of tea
1 tsp honey
Vegetable broth

Throughout the day:
Drink at least 12 cups of water or tea (combination), when I feel like I'm about to chew my arm off or feel super run down, I have another small spoonful of honey.

Every other day, you have to drink an epsom salt concoction to help flush all of the waste out of your body since you aren't taking in any fiber.  Holy shit.  That stuff is nasty.  It's not the least bit salty and tastes a bit like what I imagine a nice glass of gasoline would taste like.  BLEEEEEEEECH.

As you may remember from my 30B30 list, I was originally thinking about the Blueprint Cleanse.  It appealed to lazy me because everything is provided for you, it is dummyproof as all you have to do is drink the numbered bottles in the order indicated, and there are a variety of flavors to all of the juices.  The major drawback is that the three day cleanse would run me $255 including delivery.  In my opinion, that is an awful lot of money for three days of not eating.  

Furthermore, you don't know where the ingredients come from and they aren't labeled organic.  To me, if the point of doing a cleanse is to clean out your body, I want to know that my ingredients are as clean and high quality as possible.  I doubt that BPC doesn't use high quality ingredients, but preparing and selecting your own ingredients you know exactly what you are putting in your body.

I bought all of my ingredients at Whole Foods, all of my vegetables and lemons are organic, I got the Whole Foods brand Honeycrisp organic apple juice, my honey is locally produced in a field that is uncultivated and uses no fertilizers or pesticides (and is DELICIOUS), the only thing that isn't certified organic is my tea.  Because all of the organic herbal teas sounded disgusting, heh.  I forgot to keep the receipt to tally up the total cost, but looking at my online bank account, the receipt came to $90 and probably about $20 of that was groceries outside of the cleanse ingredients.  I'd probably need to restock on vegetables, and maybe another jar of apple juice, so maybe add on another $10.  So about $80 for a 6-7 day cleanse--quite a savings over BPC.

And how am I feeling?  Well, as I've been moaning to my Twitter followers, I am not loving this experience.  I'm still waiting for the spiritual, zen, reflective part to set in--mostly I just feel like going to sleep.  Maybe that is when I'm supposed to be meditating or something?  However, I have yet to feel faint or dizzy, and other than the first day, no headaches.

I worked out again yesterday--I managed to do 30 minutes of a Jackie Warner DVD and I felt fine after--definitely a bit more tired and I wasn't always able to do the full minute of each move.  Tonight I'm going to a self-defense class, so I think I'll bring some honey to have a spoonful before and after.

Bottom line, unless I have some amazing breakthrough today, I think Wednesday will be the last day of the cleanse.  That will have been four full days, which I feel is perfectly adequate for cleaning out my system.  Beyond that, I worry about muscle breakdown and truly entering starvation mode.  To ease back into the eating world, I'll subsist on salads on Thursday, then Greek yogurt and soup on Friday.  By Saturday, hopefully I'll be back to normal, which will be perfect since Colby will be getting home from a conference then.

I do feel that this has changed how I look at eating--when you feel like you're absolutely "starving" you really aren't, I promise.  But I'll talk more about that when I'm able to reflect back on this from the other side, back amongst the land of the eaters.  For now, I'm going to go drink my apple juice and pretend it's a perfectly adequate breakfast.  Yum!

Comments

[Lynndaue]

Oh, yuck. Better you than me ... but good on you for sticking with it! Are you feeling flushed out?

[Melissa B]

Besides the Epsom solution all the liquids sound tasty, at least :) These cleanses have intrigued me for a while. I'm interested to hear your summary once you've completed this cleansing experience.

[Kathy]

It sounds like you're preparing yourself to become stock for soup?
I think that with health insurance it would be easier, and maybe cost the same as a colonoscopy! AND it would all be done in one day! (can't believe I'd consider a colonoscopy preferable to what you're doing!)

[Angela Noelle]

Oh yeah, I definitely feel pretty well flushed, ha!

[Angela Noelle]

Yeah, the broth is really very good! I can see it with some chicken and noodles added in ;)

[Angela Noelle]

Soup stock! Yes! That is exactly what I feel like ;)

[Thoughts Appear]

I think I'm going to try this out...and soon (before I move in with Kiefer at the end of the month).

Is there something I can drink besides tea? I hate tea. And what's the epsom salt mixture?

[Kate P]

Drink an epsom salts concoction? Yuck! I'd rather drink my aloe juice straight.

I applaud you for your courage (and not fainting from low blood sugar).

[Molly]

Four days is very, very impressive, girly! Glad to see you still have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Here's to a moment of zen before you return to the land of the eating.

[Old Warrior]

My "Happy 65th Birthday" colonoscopy is Friday. I start the "purge" tomorrow. We can compare notes on the effectiveness but I know I've got you beat on the "menu" cost - 1 gallon jug of Colonblow plus Magic Pills / $5.42.