Day 2 of the 7-day cleanse

This post is going to describe how I endured Day 1 and what is coming on Day 2.

First, I drank two teas instead of two half cup coffees that I usually down. The tea didn’t really help keeping my concentration going, but it did help me stay awake. The downside: a terrible headache from 6 pm until I went to sleep. Second problem was that, I had dinner around 8:30pm, so I had to wait 12 hours before my morning smoothie, which worsened the headache. I was hungry, on and off but kept going strong. On the other hand, the energy balls were delicious!

Workout

I tried a new fitness studio near work today. It was no crazy workout but I popped one energy ball at 5 and it kept me going until 6:30 pm. I ran 7 minutes on the treadmill, 5 on the crossfit machine and did 3 sets each of legs, arms, back and thigh exercises. My muscles hurt like crazy yesterday but I’m feeling great today! I’m going back to the gym today and I’m going to try spending more time on the cardio. Let’s see how that works out!

Breakfast

Today’s smoothie consisted of greens, avocado, banana and berries. I totally forgot to add chia and the protein powder. Surprisingly, it wasn’t disgusting but not that great either. I bought more mixed berries to try to make better smoothies from tomorrow onwards.

Snack

Two more energy balls today, before the work out and sunflower seeds for the mid-morning snack.

Lunch

I heated up some canned lentil soup yesterday for dinner and brought some to work for lunch. I added some salt, pepper and cilantro to make it tastier.

Dinner

Tonight I plan to make soup out of carrots and broccoli. This one isn’t canned, so I have to make it from scratch.

Weight Loss

Since Saturday, I lost 0.4 pounds and my weight is now 139.6lbs. 

Day 1 of the 7-day cleanse

I picked Tuesday as Day 1 because I had leftover food from the weekend to eat on Monday. And I do NOT want to postpone to NEXT Monday. Trust me, I have done this in the past. At the moment, there are three problems – the first one is the voice inside my head. It reminds me of the taste of fries and fried stuff with ketchup. I need some way to tune it out. Secondly, I share an office with a coworker who lunches at the desk, which means I can smell delicious things, but I can’t eat them. I’ve decided to take a walk during his lunch break. Let’s see how that works out. The third and the most difficult problem to face is caffeine. It is NOT allowed on the clean diet. I’m an engineer who has to think and work for 9 hours a day. Without my morning cup of coffee, I’m not sure how much my work is going to be affected. I will find out today and if I cannot avoid, I will go buy some mate tea, which is a caffeine substitute.

Tweaks: I made some minor tweaks to the list of allowed foods – so it is not extreme. I’m allowing bananas and peanut butter, both foods on the “exclude list”. I assumed, in small quantities these foods are ok and I definitely need that sugar from bananas to begin my day.

Breakfast

Bananas, Berries, Chia and Arugula shake – It was disgusting. First mouthful was bearable but half glass down, it was downright terrible. I’m considering switching to baby spinach, which is comparatively tasteless. I added 5 mg of vanilla flavored protein powder, so I skipped the stevia and the smoothie was still sweet.

Snack

I made some energy balls in the morning that consist of 1 cup each of almonds, cashews, raisins, dates and 1 tbsp. of peanut butter. I put all the ingredients (except the peanut butter) in the food processor to get a chunky nut mixture, into which I later incorporated 1 tbsp of peanut butter. It is delicious. But whether it is filling, is to be found.

I have a bag of sunflower seeds at my desk – my second snack. They are the backup for days I forget to make a snack or wake up late.

Lunch

Lunch is a salad with stir fried broccoli, carrots, feta cheese and mykoprotein. They are tossed together with olive oil, salt and oregano.

Dinner

For dinner I was planning a lentil soup, with onions, leeks and carrots.

The Clean Journey

Hey, look – a blog entry after so long (Pausing for the applause to die down). I’m just here to document what could be a detox journey to weight loss, a positive body image and a healthy mind. Since most of us have a body image complex (including yours truly) and it’s a life long struggle to keep living up to our own expectations – meanwhile battering our body for no fault of its own. It’s not easy but I’ve decided to shelve away some anger and sorrow resulting from thinking about my body and try being positive and do something good for a while. I hence decided this year to try Dr. Alejandro Junger’s Clean Program. It is always an inertia that is stopping us from achieving our weight goals – it is “Tomorrow I will eat healthy”, “I’m too tired for a workout today” or “Just a last piece of pizza”. And the clean program is just a precursor to my underlying problems – kicking some bad habits.  

What is Clean?

I heard about clean from tp, who sent me the eBook and encouraged me to start thinking about a serious detox. It is basically a 21 day cleanse that helps detox the body and help with natural healing process. In the book, Dr. Junger talks about how western medicine does not treat the cause of a diseases, it just strives to make the symptoms go away. Not blaming medicine, but that is exactly what people want – they just want their pain gone. Nobody is interested in a detailed analysis of their disease, nor interest in finding out the cause. All the food we eat is directly affecting our physical and mental health. Physically, the more we eat processed foods, the more work for the gut to break down substances and digest. Basically, I am now giving my gut a well-deserved timeout.

Why now?

I’m beginning my 7 day pre-cleanse as a test of will power. I don’t want to commit to a 21 day cleanse without experiencing a trial and knowing what to expect. Also, now would be the worst time to detox, because a trip to india is coming up next month. A trip to home means LOTS of spicy home food and LOTS of spicy junk and spicy street food. Everything with spice. Throw in a festival and a wedding in the mix, it’s a crazy amount of bad, spicy, bad-for-the-gut food. That’s just like cleaning your house to make it dirty right after. Moreover, Tp was also interested in doing the 21 day cleanse, so it’s better doing it together, so we can support and motivate each other. I have decided to track my clean diet – recipes, workouts and cheats (I hope to keep that minimal), so it will help me motivate myself.

Weight Loss

One week of clean is not for weight loss, it is too short and I want to keep it easy for the first time. I’m still just documenting my weight for documentation sake. I now weight 140 lbs (I’m 1.64m), measured one day before starting the clean program.