Today is day 12 of my 21-day cleanse, which means I’m more than halfway complete! Yay! So in the past two days, my coworkers have been asking me how I feel and if I see/feel any changes. To be honest, I have to say that during Week 2, I feel like I’ve plateaued a bit.
I mean, I’m clearly a bit lighter as clothes that felt tight on me are now feeling a bit more loose. Also, I don’t feel tired, but I also don’t feel an extra surge of energy. The only thing I feel is that sometimes I get cravings a bit more. For bread. For cheese. For dairy. For some of the basic things in life, not even necessarily chips or other junk food!
So I’m looking to reevaluate how I want to finish off these last 9 days. In the words of Leo in one of my favorite movies, Inception…
We Must Dig Deeper.
As a personal pat on the back, I’ve been keeping on top of my goal to practice yoga more during the cleanse. Yoga is actually a highly recommended form of exercise during this cleanse because it’s not too intense, but still helps your mind, energy and spirit’s circulation. I even went to a 90-minute yoga class at Crunch today! My first time going to a class that long!
However, the rest goes downhill from there. One culprit that I attribute my plateau-ing to is my huge solid lunches.
Even though I eat from the elimination diet “Yes” list, I am definitely still eating huge portions and I feel like I should turn it down a notch. Here’s what I had for lunch on Monday and Tuesday.
The lunches look a bit ridiculous right? Haha, Even though I try to fill up a majority of my plates with greens, I am still eating a lot of it. I kind of justify it to myself that I can eat these portions because I’ve also been working out so much. In between spin and kickboxing, I’ve managed to squeeze in some at-home workouts as well as yoga. According to the book, you’re actually supposed to take it easy on the exercise. So perhaps it’s time for me to focus on my practice instead of doing crazy cardio in my other workouts.
And for those of you who are wondering, all of these foods ARE accepted in the cleanse, including chicken, duck, most vegetables, quinoa and brown rice. Not bad at all!
Confession time: I’ve been “cheating” on the cleanse
So in addition to my huge lunches, I’ve sometimes been “cheating” on the cleanse. Instead of only a liquid dinner, sometimes I’ve been snacking on solids, such as my Soy-Sesame Cucumber Salad – except instead of soy sauce, I use tamari, and instead of sugar, I use agave syrup.
I know, when you’re cheating on something this healthy, you’re not doing half bad. BUT, we must dig deeper. After all, it’s only 9 more days right?
Another meal I made, which I didn’t take a picture of, is Chicken Adobo, which I once again, substituted soy for tamari, and agave syrup for sugar. Notice a trend here? I really love flavorful foods with a bite. However, I feel like consuming that much sodium is still not TOO cleanse friendly, so I have to try to tone it down a notch, even if the ingredients align with the elimination food list itself.
Time for internal cleansing with Supplements
The last time I did the cleanse, I didn’t really look too much into the other supplements that can be taken with the cleanse. However, this time around, I did some more research and have decided to dig deeper into my cleanse and put a bigger effort into internal cleansing. How am I going to achieve this? With an additional set of supplements to add to my current list:
As I mentioned in Supplements for a DIY Clean Program, I noticed a lot of cleanse kits being sold in the health aisles of the store. These kits really intrigued me as it mentions a lot of the same things as the Clean book and also aligns pretty well with some ideas of the Clean Kit.
A few things includes adding additional cleansing fiber into your body, so that once the toxins in your body eliminations, the fiber soaks it up and prevents it from being resorbed into your body. Another benefit is that it adds an extra layer of liver support, another thing that is highly recommended as you cleanse.
The Complete Body Cleanse from Whole Foods is a 2-week plan, which ties in pretty well with the end of my cleanse. I wish I started this earlier so I could have aligned getting on this kit during my last 2 weeks. To have a jumpstart since I am a few days late already, I took 8 – YES, EIGHT! – cleansing fiber pills tonight since the package’s instructions says it’s okay.
I’ll post a full review on this cleanse kit as I continue my journey to be CLEAN. After all, if we must dig deeper, we might as well go all the way right?
