Accidental Liquid Diet

So I made it through Week 1 of my cleansing process! I feel great! Not only because I accomplished a goal that was a seriously lofty challenge but also physically, I can’t remember the last time I felt this good. The headaches went away all together a couple of days ago.

I did a pretty good job of sticking to the plan of following some of the Whole Living recipes and making up my own recipes with the list of Cleanse-Friendly foods. My favorite new thing is to make smoothies. I don’t have a blender at my house, but I’ve been visiting my parents and I could make a smoothie everyday.

Some Favorite Smoothie Concoctions:

• 1/2 Banana
• 2 Oranges
• 2 cups frozen berries (Whole Foods & the local chain both had an organic blend)

Berry-Citrus

• 2 cups frozen berries
• 1 Orange
• 1 Lemon
• 1/2 Mango
• 1/2 Banana

Tropical Fruit & Strawberry

• Half a pineapple (& the juice)
• Juice from 2 Clementines
• 1 Mango
• 1 1/2 Bananas
• 1 package frozen strawberries (approx 2-2 1/2 cups)

Yellow Smoothie

• 2 Bananas
• 1/2 a pineapple (& the juice)
• 1 Mango
• Juice from 2-3 Clementines

Green Smoothie

• 1 cup Pineapple (chopped)
• 1 1/2 cups Mango (chopped)
• 1 cup Kale
• 1 cup Spinach
• 1 inch Ginger (chopped)
• 1 Stalk Celery
• 1/2 cup Pineapple juice (or however much is available)
• Water as needed (maybe 1 cup?)

I was telling a friend about these smoothies and she asked how I got them to the consistency I wanted without adding juice, yogurt, ice or water (usually). Really, it’s trial and error. And, really I do add some fresh squeezed OJ to it, and in the veggie one there is some water. But seriously it’s just a matter of knowing what fruit serves what purpose. Bananas will help give it a creamier effect. Pineapple adds juice (and some sweetness). Mango adds sweetness (and some juice). The berries thicken it, I think, and since they’re cold they add to that sort of frozen treat experience people are looking for in a smoothie. So yep. I guess maybe I am a scientist after all because that’s chemistry folks!

All of these recipes make more than 1 serving, but for instance I was being in decisive about dinner one night and so I just made a big batch of smoothie and had probably 3 servings as my evening meal. I realize this is not an ideal technique for all dieters, but on a cleanse, where you want to get a lot of fruit, especially berries and citrus, I thought it would be okay. I haven’t noticed any adverse effects, anyway. And it was definitely filling.

I also am still into making regular juice. I’ve been making a lot of grapefruit juice, which should be considered its own superfood since it is delicious and has a variety of health benefits. I mean, just look how enticing:

I generally use a manual juicer to squeeze 3 grapefruits. The sweeter ones taste better but so far I can’t figure out how to tell which ones will be sweeter. Maybe the softer ones? I don’t know. I’m not a scientist, ok? Anyway, here’s a fun tip! I like to save the leftover pulp to eat as a snack later on. It looks kind of weird but tastes good and is pretty filling.

So at this point I was going to also write about all the awesome soups I have made as a part of this cleanse but I think I’ll save that. I’m really happy with the way it’s going though. Week 2 incorporates legumes and fish back into the diet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to jump right into eating fish again, so for today I mostly stuck with a Week 1 diet, but incorporated some lentils. I’ve said this before, and it’s probably obvious based on the subject of this post, but I definitely want to continue incorporating juice, smoothies and other liquids into the diet because it is easy and healthy.

Week 1 was such a success, I’m excited to see what Week 2 has in store!