Deep Cleansing

And So the Journey Begins


I will not lie, the first 3 days were hard. I found myself near weeping over the delicious foods, candy, and caffeine drinks that I wasn't ingesting. How sad is that? I just really love good food, and the first days of my cleanse were boring in the food department. I also tried to minimize my caloric intake to 1200 calories per day, eating 4 small 300 calorie meals throughout the day. So I felt hungry for junk food.

The first night I tried to make a large batch of oatmeal treat for the whole week. I boiled some chopped apples in a pot with some cinnamon until they were soft and then added the quick oats and dried cranberries. It turned out ok, but as it was my first day on the cleanse, I was bummed about not having butter or brown sugar on it. If I ever make this again, I'll be sure to add a lot more liquid, because this got a little to thick.

For lunch I had to get creative because bacon bits and cheese were out of the question for salad toppings. I cut oils as well, so balsamic vinaigrette was out, but I could still use balsamic, so that was the base of most of my dressings for the week. Two dressings that I made up (neither of which were very good without oil added) are listed below. Apparently Dijon mustard is totally vegan and healthy, so if you like mustard you're in luck. Too bad I really don't.

Lemon Balsamic Mustard Dressing
Balsamic
Lemon Juice
Dijon mustard (w/o honey as I had cut sugar)
Pepper

Balsamic Applesauce Dressing
Organic Natural Applesauce
Balsamic Vinegar

The applesauce dressing turned out to be great on the spinach salad with a couple of chopped nuts. I needed something sweet to cut the bitter and luckily that worked! I think it'd be good on a salad with chicken and orange slices. Nice little spring salad.

I also purchased some all natural peanut butter, which I had tried before, but buddy, without sugar or honey, that stuff will make your mouth dry like you ate sawdust. Trying to be a bit creative, I took some of the frozen strawberries and bananas I had and added them to my natural peanut butter whole wheat sandwich that I made for my lunch the night before. When I took out my lunch at work the next day, the fruit had melted into the bread and peanut butter and made an almost-jelly! Surprise! Didn't plan that, but the sandwich was great.