Hello Everyone!! Happy Spring Equinox. How happy are you that for us in the Northern Hemisphere we are celebrating saying “Goodbye” to Winter and we can now say “Hello” to Spring!!!
I DID IT!! I completed my 7-Day Spring Cleanse and I wanted to take a quick moment to follow-up with you guys after finishing, to let you know how I am feeling and where I plan to go from here.
The first 2 days on the cleanse were pretty rough, day 1 was more mental and emotional, dealing with the idea of how terrible I have been eating, how terrible I was feeling and maybe I was mourning all of the things I had chosen to give up eating for the next 7 days. Day 2 was ALL physical. I felt pretty awful, pounding headache, stomach ache, even a little nausea at the end of the day. My skin was looking rough as I was detoxifying my body from all the toxins and excess yuckiness. By day 3, I was still feeling tired and sluggish, but the headache was gone and I was starting to feel a bit more energized. Day 4 was MAGICAL. I felt free, I felt lighter and I had so much more energy, more than I have had in months. Those feelings all just got better and better on days 5, 6 and 7. Each day I found myself with even more energy than the last. Oh and check this out ladies – for the first 6 days of this cleanse I was technically premenstrual, so if I can make it through a cleanse and PMS without all of those foods (especially some dark chocolate) anyone can!
For me, although I wasn’t eating terrible, the last few months had been so crazy, transitional and a bit messy. A lot of days, with everything we had going on from packing up our home and a moving truck to living with my parent’s, I was just eating what was there and in front of me. Sugar, processed foods, alcohol, etc. I may have been lying to myself about just how bad it was, until I started this cleanse and my body was detoxing from all of it.
In three months, moving your life, your family and your business from where you have lived together for 10 years, into someone else’s home for 2 months, then across the country to somewhere completely new – is definitely a LOT of change in a short amount of time. By cleansing just after we arrived here and at the start of the new season, I am excited to say I feel like I am a new person and I am ready to embrace all of this newness and change. Besides all of this amazingness, my skin has significantly cleared up, I no longer feel bloated and sluggish and I am FULL of energy. Plus the extra bonus to all of this, is dropping several unwanted winter/stress pounds. I HATE weighing myself, so I am not sure just how much, but after being weighed this morning for our life insurance physicals, I believe it to be at least 5 lbs. My clothes are all fitting me so much nicer!! Love that.
So, where will I go from here? I plan to continue eating as great as I possibly can, with a continued focus on TONS of fresh, local, organic fruits and vegetables. I really want to get back to making ABSOLUTELY everything I eat completely from scratch. I am really enjoying eating less (gluten-free) grains and I notice a huge difference when cutting them out. I will never go totally grain-free, but I do want to be more mindful and aware of how often I am consuming them. I plan to allow some meat and eggs back into my diet, as I do notice a big difference in my health, energy and vitality when consuming animal protein. But as always, I will only eat it if I know where it comes from, can be 100% sure it was raised humanely on a pasture diet, without hormones and antibiotics, even better if I can buy directly from the farmer. Obviously, I will continue to eat gluten-free, processed food free, dairy-free (minus some goat milk dairy products) and refined sugar free.
How are you feeling? Did you complete the cleanse, start your own or are you planning one soon? What is your favorite part of doing a cleanse?
7 Responses
Congratulations! I followed you and I think it takes strength to do this. You’re ready for the summer.
Thanks so much, I definitely feel ready for almost anything!
I’m glad this worked out so well for you!
I started the cleanse on Monday and you’re right, the first two days were very difficult! I too have cut out all grains and most heavy starches (i.e. sweet potatoes) as well and cutting those out aren’t easy. I was coming off a week where I was traveling for work and they provided most of the food, so it was very processed and terrible for you, definitely making this harder.
The first two days I found myself eating a lot of fruit (a bit too much in my opinion, but I’m cutting back for the rest of the cleanse) to compensate for my lack of starches. The first day I was exhausted, had a terrible headache, and didn’t have a lot of energy. The second day I had significantly more energy but I got really emotional for no reason (which I think is partially the detox and partially the beginnings of PMS). Today is my third day and I’m feeling significantly better than the first two days but I don’t know if I’ve reached my “magical” day yet. I hope it comes soon!
Thanks Jo! Yes coming off a period of bad / out of the ordinary eating makes a cleanse like this even more difficult. That is kinda where I was at, myself.
Yeh, I try to keep my fruit to a minimum myself, even though it isn’t refined sugar, it still contains sugar which can affect how your body cleanses and can slow the process down a bit. I definitely think tomorrow will be the first day you will really see a difference in how you feel, at least that is how it’s always been for me. Day 4 is usually the upswing moment. And yes, the emotional detox and cleansing is as much a part of it all as the physical. It all goes hand in hand. I hope tomorrow is “magical” for you – I would love if you came back and updated us 🙂
Take care and be proud of yourself for doing something so important for your body. You will be so happy when you complete it and are feeling amazing!
Hi Beth,
Is there any way you could put up a post with all the recipes from the 7 cleanse days? I’m not lazy, but it would be great if I had one place from which to link to all the recipes instead of scrolling through the individual posts. Also, since I am completely grain- and legume- free (except for white rice), would this cleanse work with those modifications? Thanks for all the great work you do here; it’s an inspiration!
~Megan
P.S. I live in SoCal too; welcome to the neighborhood! =)
Hi Megan please read through the entire initial post http://tasty-yummies.com/2013/03/11/my-spring-cleanse-the-basics/ – where I talk about why I wouldnt be sharing each and every recipe and all of the links from the cleanse are all organized at the bottom of that post including any of the recipes I did share, plus to the album on Facebook where I shared basically every single meal that I consumed while on the cleanse. Each post on Facebook includes all of the ingredients and a quick description of how I made it. I couldn’t commit to posting every single recipe for every single thing I ate during this cleanse beacuse 1) it would keep me from getting the rest and cleansing I needed while doing this cleanse and 2) most of the meals were quickly made with what I had and what is in season here, I did very little measuring, etc.
Hope that helps a little. Thanks for following along.
Sounds great. Thanks Beth! =)