Monday, August 4, 2014

Surviving the "cleanse"

My sister called a couple of weeks ago to tell me she was doing the "Dr. Oz 3 Day Cleanse."  Having worked in health care for many years (many years ago), my family still regards me as the unlicensed, untrained family physician.  She called to ask me what I thought she should expect from this "cleanse."  As she started telling me all the ingredients, my first reaction was *Wow* that's not gonna be pretty.  The funniest thing of all is that the lunch drink contains 4 (count 'em FOUR) stalks of celery.  Katherine and I are lifelong HATERS of celery.  And I mean hate, seething loathing, vile contempt.  As she recounted her struggles with drinking celery, all I could do was wipe away the hysterical tears.

Not so funny now.  After this conversation, I realized I'd put on a couple lbs over the summer.  I started thinking about it, getting myself back on my regular diet and then it hit me: maybe I should do the "cleanse" to jumpstart things and get my motivation going?  So, I went online and found it.  Now, let me say that generally speaking, I don't give Dr. Oz much credence at all.  I guess he practiced medicine once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, but since he became an inhabitant of Planet Oprah, I think much of that practical knowledge has gotten lost in the backseat of his Bentley. But, I read the plan and it made sense to me, so here I am...doing it. 

As you can see from the plan, it's a series of smoothies, or drinks, whatever you want to call them.  The breakfast one is pretty darn good.  It's hard to go wrong with raspberry, banana and almond. However, lunch and dinner are different stories...

Lunch is when we have to tackle the celery issue.  But, I committed, and I remain committed.  Let me tell you this, a blender full of celery, cucumber, apple, pineapple and kale can make one THICK smoothie.  On Day 1, I really would have been better off using a spoon. On Day 2, I was really disheartened but I recommitted and hit the puree button and let her fly.  Better.  The flavor, I must admit it pretty good but it still is a thick drink o' water and you end of kind of slurping and chewing your way through it.  

That's a lot of stuff in there!

        (How you give it a spin and turn it into a "drink")

This cup is 6" high and 4" across y'all
Dinner is certainly interesting.  Mango, blueberry, kale, cayenne.  I know the cayenne is important in combination with some of the other vitamins/nutrients involved in this equation.  On Day 1, I made it exactly as written.  Now I am a spice girl, but this 1/4 tsp of cayenne almost blew my head off.  I think it took me about 45 minutes to get all of this drink down. Therefore, on Day 2, I reduced it to 1/8 tsp and it was still hot as hell.  

The main thing about these drinks is that they are HUGE. Seriously, think about it.  You're consuming an entire cucumber, 4 stalks of celery, a cup of kale, half an apple, almond milk and a cup of pineapple all in one very, very large cup.  That's a lot of food.  And, when you finally make your way to the bottom of that cup, you feel full.  Really full, almost fat. But, once it's all gone, you feel like you've accomplished something. I will also disclose that I did not make additional drinks for snacks, because I simply couldn't have "eaten" that much.

So, here I am on Day 3.  I admit upon waking this morning, I was questioning whether I could make it to the end.  But, I just struggled through my last Dr. Oz lunch drink (at least for quite a while) and I feel good knowing I have just one more cayenne caliente dinner to go and then I can actually chew something up!  Of course whenever you mention the word "cleanse" people automatically either think or even ask about what goes on in the bathroom.  Yeah, that's not me.  I'm not a bathroom talker, but I will say that in the last 2 days, I've dropped 6lbs.  I'm sure that's water weight, which always happens anytime you start any dietary change.  But, hey, I don't care.  I'm pumped, motivated to get my butt back in gear and my pants are fitting better!  

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