Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Detox

As much as I love having people over and hostessing this also entails consuming more alcohol than I normally would, mindlessly eating countless snacks, and needing more caffeine the next day just to keep me awake. This seems to have been my normal pattern so far this summer as I have been entertaining almost every night. Rather than continue on w/ my bad self, I have decided to do a detox before my next get together this Friday. In the past when I have done detoxes I have usually turned to the Master Cleanse. While this detox has had great results, I've lost excess pounds and felt great at the end, it is literally hell for the first few days. Subsisting on lemon juice (11 days was my max) makes you feel loopy, and leaves you w/ little energy, plus I have heard that it is bad for your liver
This time around I decided to do something less extreme and turn to a variation of a detox I found off of Gwyneth Paltrow's website, Goop. If you have not been to this site before I would highly suggest it- not only does she have great recipes and restaurant recommendations, but she also shares information about places to travel, fashion tips, and other miscellaneous bits of knowledge. The detox that I am trying is based off of Dr. Alejandro Junger's book Clean which I have tried to purchase, but it has been sold out at every Barnes & Noble I have visited. The detox can be found here but the main point is to cut out products that interfere w/ the detox process and to consume mostly juices and shakes so that the digestive system doesn't have to do as much work. Plus drink LOTS of aqua.
So here are the no no's...
No: dairy, grains with gluten, meat, shellfish, anything processed (including all soy products),fatty nuts, nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant), condiments, sugar and obviously no alcohol, caffeine or soda.

DAY 1:
Breakfast- smoothie ½ cup almond milk, ½ banana, ½ tablespoon almond butter w/ roasted flax seeds, ice .Oops i broke the fatty nut rule already, way to start out the first meal of the first day of the detox.
Lunch- 2 cups of miso soup broth
Snack-8 oz carrot & apple juice from Juice it Up

Dinner (7PM)- Pea & asparagus soup.Variation of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Broccoli and Arugula Soup

Ingredients- 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 cloves garlic thinly sliced, 10 frozen asparagus spears (fresh would probably be even better), 1 cup frozen peas, 2 ½ cups water, ¼ teaspoon each coarse salts and freshly ground pepper, 1 cup arugula, ½ lemon

Directions: Heat the olive oil in a medium nonstick saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for just a minute. Add the asparagus and peas and cook for a minute. Add the water, salt and pepper, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cover. Cook for five minutes or so. Pour the soup into a blender and puree with the arugula until quite smooth. Be very careful when blending hot liquids; start slowly and work in batches if necessary (you don’t want the steam to blow the lid off). Serve the soup with a bit of fresh lemon- Makes 2 servings.

This soup was a bit meh, it lacked flavor but was refreshing none the less.

DAY 2:
Glass of lemon water first thing in the morning, which I have been starting off w/ everyday. This does not compare to coffee, but surprisingly my headaches stopped the second day. The caffeine withdrawals are not as bad as I thought they would be.

Breakfast PM- Banana & Blackberry Smoothie- ½ banana, ½ cup blackberries, 1 cup almond milk, ice

(post mixage)

Snack/Lunch- sunflower seeds...
and pineapples slices

Dinner- Green smoothie. Here is the recipe. This thing is supposed to work miracles. I was a little worried though at this point when my blender was overflowing w/ cilantro...
Despite the crazy amount of veggies in this smoothie the apple and banana made it sweet. This is now my new favorite.

Day 3:
*Sorry for the lack of pics, not sure what happened here.
10:30 AM- water w/ lemon
Breakfast- Green smoothie made the day before
Lunch- Pomegranate kombucha & more sunflower seeds
Dinner- Strawberry & Banana smoothie- 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, 1 cup almond milk, 1/2 banana, 1 TBS hemp protein, & ice.
I was proud of myself because even though I had girlfriends over in the evening and I supplied chardonnay, chips, and hummus I resisted! Truth be told it was not even that hard because I slurped down the above yummy smoothie instead.

Day 4:
10 AM- water w/ lemon
Breakfast (11AM)- Green smoothie
Lunch- Vita Coco...

and salted Pepitas! I'm a first timer to these and bought them today at Cost Plus World Market because I was starving. They are way delish.
Dinner- Salad w/ Carrot and Ginger dressing. I adopted this from the detox on goop, but let me just tell you now that this dressing is insane!! I also got to use my mom's magic bullet which is the most amazingly clever device ever, I need one next year in my house. Here is the recipe I used for the dressing-
Ingredients: 2 medium sized organic carrots roughly chopped, 1 clove of garlic chopped, 2 TBS roughly chopped fresh ginger, 1 TBS miso paste, 1 TBS balsamic vinaigrette, 1 TBS olive oil, 3 TBS water
- Put in a blender or bullet and blend away. The consistency is a bit thick- if you wanted it thinner you could add more olive oil or water.
I put the dressing on a large handful of arugula and 1/2 of an avocado. This tasted like heaven, it is very similar to the ginger dressing that they serve at sushi restaurants.
All in all this detox has not been too painful. I have been enjoying the smoothies, and have not felt like I have been out of it or lacking energy. On top of the above eats I have also been drinking lots of water w/ lemon throughout the day and having decaf herbal tea at night. The only day that has been difficult was today, but the pepitas saved me. Plus I got some new bikinis this week which are a great inspiration ; )

5 comments:

  1. hehe love the bikinis for thinspiration! i totally feel you on the after-math of too many get-togethers... detoxes are in need after a while. good for you! xx.

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  2. i want a smoothie now! yumyumyum!

    XOXO, BECCA
    http://fashion-train.blogspot.com

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  3. how much weight did you lose through the master cleanse? i've always been curious about that one.

    your smoothies look so good! lately i've been doing skim milk, banana, a TON of spinach, flax seeds & a scoop of natural peanut butter. so delicious.

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  4. cool canda your blog is blowin up!! go YOU! xoxo

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  5. Hey Kelly I lost about 11 pounds w/ the Master Cleanse, and despite people saying that you usually put the weight on immediately afterwards I kept most of the weight off for awhile.

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