Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Weekend Fun and Another Cleanse

We had a nice Mother’s Day weekend.

On Saturday, the older kid came to visit, and we had a good time going out to lunch at a Korean restaurant, playing basketball, and hanging out at home.


On Sunday, I started the day with an early morning barre class, and then we headed to Happy Hollow.


More Cleansing

I decided to sign up for another Conscious Cleanse. The Conscious Cleanse I did in January was a very positive experience, and I continued many of the positive habits I developed during the cleanse.

Here are some of the things I continued after the cleanse:
  • No coffee. I know coffee has numerous health benefits and many people are able to drink one or two cups a day without problems. However, my coffee consumption gets easily out of hand, and I don’t want to go back to that place. Giving up caffeine was by far the hardest thing during the last cleanse, and I am looking forward to not having to go through withdrawal this time around!
  • Start the day with 32 ounces of warm lemon water. Since the cleanse in January, I missed only one day of warm lemon water. I truly look forward to my warm lemon water every morning.
  • Start the day with a green smoothie most days. I really enjoy my green smoothies. On days I don’t have a green smoothie in the morning, I usually have one later in the day.
  • Eat quite a few Conscious Cleanse meals. I still make vegetables the center of my meals. Most days, I have a very green smoothie and also eat a big salad with some protein. I also frequently make recipes from the Conscious Cleanse book.
  • Still don’t eat the foods I discovered I’m sensitive to: eggs, wheat, and yeast, and I feel so much better because of it. Cutting out these foods truly changed my life and the “issues” I had attributed to my gallstones are gone.
So why did I decide to do another cleanse? And why am I not doing it on my own?

Ever since the last cleanse ended, I wanted to do another one because I felt really good eating only the best foods for my body and leaving out the “extras.” While I still eat very similarly to the way I ate during the cleanse, there are some things that snuck back into my diet that I would like to limit again (and cut out during the cleanse): ketchup and other condiments (mainly sriracha and Korean hot pepper paste – all of them contain quite a bit of sugar and other “not-so-good” ingredients), dairy, and rice-based snack foods.

One of the reasons I decided to do another group cleanse is because the time to do a cleanse is never “perfect.” Signing up for the group cleanse (which starts on June 3, with five transition days before that) “forces” me to do it.

After reading the book and doing the Conscious Cleanse once, I know I have enough knowledge to do the cleanse on my own. However, I was really surprised last time by how much I appreciated and looked forward to the support the group cleanse provided: the daily emails (which focus not only on food and drink choices but also on general well being), the Facebook group, and the teleseminars. It really made the whole experience effortless, and doing the cleanse felt very self-indulgent and almost like a mini vacation (even though I was not on vacation!).

This time hubby is going to do the cleanse with me (well he said he’d “try”), and I am looking forward to doing it together! I am also looking forward to juicing more. In January, I mainly made smoothies and didn’t juice much. Now that it’s warm and more affordable produce is available, I look forward to lots of juice during the cleanse.

Questions: What was the highlight of your weekend? What have you recently cleaned up? Are you changing what you are eating now that the weather is getting warmer? What’s your favorite juice combo?
 
Be well,
Andrea

[Full Disclosure: I paid for the June Conscious Cleanse with my own money (at a reduced rate that is available to all repeat cleansers). The above links are affiliate links, so if you sign up for the cleanse using one of the links, I will earn a commission.]