Cleanse: Day 14 -- The last day!

Day 14:

• Breakfast: Cleanse friendly pancakes, banana and pure maple syrup
• Lunch: Amy's lentil soup and WW crackers
• Dinner: the LAST of the leftover soup and a chicken sausage. For dessert I had a piece of my no sugar banana bread and a drizzle of honey.

The cleanse is over! It really wasn't that hard this time as the eating isn't that much different from what I eat normally. Other than a piece of dark chocolate after dinner and going back to eating that yummy grass fed beef I have in the freezer, we'll probably keep up a very similar way of eating going forward. I think I lost about 3 pounds during these 2 weeks, which is good but a little frustrating when others lost between 7-9 lbs doing the same thing. I guess I'll look at it as a good thing meaning that I'm not regularly putting many toxins or unhealthy things into my body that need to be removed by cleansing. Yeah, I'll look at it that way. :)

Cleanse: Day 13

Day 13:

• Breakfast: Guess!
• Lunch: WW wrap with sundried tomato hummus, baby spinach and pico de gallo, leftover chicken leg from last night
• Dinner: Sushi and green tea

Cleanse: Day 12

Day 12:

• Breakfast: same old, same old
• Lunch: WW wrap with hummus, baby spinach and pico de gallo, dessert of dehydrated bananas and cherries, chamomile tea
• Dinner: Will probably be grilled chicken, corn on the cob, salad and maybe brown rice

Cleanse: Day 11

Day 11:

• Breakfast: Cheerios, rice milk and banana
• Rode stationary bike 30 minutes
• Lunch: Jamba juice all fruit smoothie and chicken veggie wrap (this came with a mango sauce that contained sugar, so I just didn't use it)
• Dinner: Leftover chicken veggie soup with brown rice crackers and pears

Cleanse: Day 10

Day 10:

• Breakfast: cheerios, rice milk and banana
• 1 hour of yoga class and 1/2 hour of stationary bike
• lunch: peanuts and raisins, dried veggie chips, peach green tea
• 1/2 hour swimming with the kids
• Dinner: leftover chicken veggie soup from sunday

Cleanse: Day 9

Day 9

• Breakfast: Cheerios, rice milk and banana
• Lunch: Amy's Lentil soup and a few whole grain crackers, Pseudo Banana Pudding
• Dinner: Will probably be salmon, some garden veggies sauteed in olive oil with garlic and salt and some whole wheat or brown rice pasta.
• I'm also planning to take a walk with the kiddos in this nice weather!

Cleanse: Day 8

Day 8:

• Breakfast: Cheerios, rice milk and banana
• 1 hour of Yoga
• Lunch: leftover steel cut oats with some veggie soup poured on top, pseudo banana pudding
• Dinner: leftover veggie soup from a few days ago
  

Banana "pudding" ?

I had a sweet craving today and made this spur of the moment banana "pudding" that turned out really good. Thought I'd share.








Banana "pudding"
Ingredients:
1 banana
2 hand fulls of raw almonds (or other nuts)
1/2 C water
1/2 C dried plums (prunes)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients in a blender until smooth, adding more water if necessary to blend.

Cleanse friendly pancakes

Cleanse Friendly Pancakes
Makes 8 small pancakes

INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup whole grain flour (WW, whole spelt or other whole grain flour should be fine)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup rice milk or other milk alternative
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Make a well in the center, and pour in the vanilla, water, egg and rice milk. Mix until all of the dry ingredients have been absorbed, then stir in the nuts.
2. Heat a large skillet or griddle iron over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour about 1/3 cup of batter onto the hot surface, and spread out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface, then flip and brown on the other side. Serve warm with 100% maple syrup. I like to top mine with sliced banana or strawberries.

Cleanse: Day 7

Day 7:

• Breakfast: cleanse friendly pancakes with banana and 100% maple syrup and took fiber pills


• Lunch: Had the last of the corn and bean salad and the last of the rotisserie chicken leftovers from Friday


• Dinner: Made soup from the chicken carcass, cabbage, green beans, scallions, squash and broccoli from the garden. This made enough soup to put into the fridge for dinner a few nights this upcoming week. So I won't have to cook then!

Entering the last week of the cleanse I don't know that I've really paid much as much attention to what I ate this time as I have in the past. I think I've incorporate a lot of this way of eating into my regular diet. The main think I find it hard to give up during a cleanse is sugar. I love chocolate and like to have some after dinner most days. But I guess by doing these cleanses every so often, I can "make up" for eating chocolate the rest of the time. And although I find eating dried fruit a good way to take care of a sweet craving, a prune is not chocolate!

Cleanse: Day 6

Day 6:

• Breakfast: steel cut oats with rice milk, raisins and banana and fiber pills
• Lunch: 2 boiled eggs, corn and bean salad with chicken, and a couple of mini muffins with a drizzle of maple syrup
• Dinner @ Red Robin: Ordered the Simply delicious chicken sandwich, which is a grilled chicken breast on whole grain bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. It came with fries but I substituted a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette. I had hot mint tea to drink.

Cleanse: Day 5

Day 5:

• Breakfast: cheerios with rice milk and banana and fiber pills
• Walked all around the zoo today with the kids who had the day off school
• Lunch: 2 boiled eggs, corn and bean salad, an apple and a couple of mini muffins
• Snack: several hand fulls of peanuts and raisins
• Dinner: All bought at PCC on the way home from the zoo. Leg and thigh of a rotisserie chicken, several pieces of brown rice and veggie sushi, bottle of Cha-Dao Japanese green tea

Cleanse: Day 4

Day 4:

• Breakfast: cheerios with rice milk and banana and fiber pills
• 30 minutes on stationary bike
• Lunch: 2 mini muffins, 1 boiled egg and several handfulls of peanuts and raisins
• Dinner will probably be bean salsa burritos on whole wheat tortilla with some chicken and a couple of mini muffins for dessert

I made some muffins last night using zucchini, carrot, apple, banana, dried plum puree mixed into a no-sugar whole wheat banana bread recipe. The muffins didn't have any added sweetener and they still turned out ok. I think when I make them again I'll add some maple syrup for sweetener or add more dried plums to the puree.

Cleanse: Day 3

Day 3:

• Had the usual for breakfast, cheerios with banana and rice milk
• took fiber pills
• Did an hour on the stationary bike and rode about 10 miles
• For lunch I had some noodles with veggies and sesame soy dressing and a Jamba juice all fruit and juice smoothie
• For a snack I had a boiled egg
• Dinner will probably be corn and bean salad and some grilled chicken

So far the cleanse isn't leaving me feeling deprived of anything. I guess my method is to specifically NOT deprive myself of, say, dessert but to find something that can fill that spot that fits the guidelines of the cleanse. So I'll sometimes make my no sugar banana bread or have apples and natural peanut butter or some dried plums to feed the sweet tooth. If I'm in the mood for comfort food like spaghetti and meatballs, I'll use whole wheat spaghetti, a great sauce and turkey or chicken meatballs. So I eat what I like, but find alternatives that are healthy to replace the not so healthy versions.

Cleanse: Day 2

Day 2 of my Detox Cleanse:

• Breakfast:Ate plain cheerios with a banana and rice milk and took fiber pills
• Did a 1 hour Body Sculpt Class and 1/2 hour on the stationary bike
• Lunch: Ate a toasted WW tortilla with hummus and pico de gallo, 1 boiled egg, homemade pickled beets, apple slices, smoothie made with frozen berry mix, banana, peaches, carrot, spinach and apple juice
• Dinner: Plan to make a soup from my crock veggies from Sunday along with some lentils, soybeans, onions, and maybe chicken.
• Will take the rest of the cleanse pills (8 total at bed time)

Cleanse: Day 1

Toxins come from food, hair and skin products, polluted air, cleaning products and a variety of other places. Over time they build up in your body and make it harder for your body to function at it's best. By eliminating some of those foods like sugar, caffeine and alcohol, using natural hair, skin and cleaning products, drinking plenty of water and doing exercise you can help your body's natural detoxifying organs to eliminate the toxins from your body.

Today is day 1 of my 2 week cleanse. My intent is to document my cleanse in order to keep myself honest and possibly motivate others to give it a try. Along with eliminating some foods I'm also using a Cleanse kit to aid in the cleansing process. The one I'm using this time is called Whole Body Cleanse. In the past I've used the Advocare Cleanse kit and liked that one as well.

So here goes the documentation!

Day 1:

• Had plain cheerios with banana and rice milk for breakfast and took the fiber pills from my kit.
• Went to yoga class.
• I have a cold and the cough drops I used to get through yoga probably have some form of sugar in them, but I didn’t have a lot of choice. Hopefully tomorrow will be cough drop free.
• Planning to have a 2 egg, cabbage and sundried tomato omelet for lunch with some peaches. (The eggs and cabbage came from my garden.)
• Dinner is yet to be decided but will include some carrots, cabbage and rutabaga I cooked in the crock pot yesterday added to some chicken or fish probably. May make some whole wheat or brown rice pasta to go with it, too.