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Post 7-Day Spring Cleanse Follow-Up
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?
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Sunrise Spring Cleansing Juice
Today is Day 2 of my 7-Day Spring Cleanse. So far I feel pretty good, energized and well-rested. I have been getting to bed by 10:30pm each night and I begin waking up at 6:00 am. I give myself a little time to wake up, I drink some warm lemon water and then I practice yoga. The last two days I have taken classes on YogaGlo, an amazing online community that is perfect for a home practice. Since I much prefer the essence and energy of a class at a studio this has been perfect for me, now that my budget doesn’t exactly allow me to keep up with the 5-6 days a week at the studio, that I was doing in Buffalo. I plan to go to 1-2 classes a week at local studios but for the rest of the days practicing at home is going to be what works best for me and YogaGlo will definitely be a part of that practice many of the days. YogaGlo is a membership based site that offers classes taught by some of the very best yoga teachers. HD videos of the classes are cataloged on the site for you to search through by style, level, length, teacher, body part, and more! You get unlimited classes!! Anyhow, this isn’t a PSA or a sponsored post, I just love their website and their services, especially now more than ever. My favorite teachers on there are Kathryn Budig and Tiffany Cruikshank. I love their Vinyasa Flow classes, they remind me so much of the yoga I practiced at East Meets West in Buffalo.
So in addition to my warm lemon water each morning and 60-90 minutes of yoga, I have been trying to start my day with a simple cleansing juice. Yesterday since I hadn’t yet stocked up on my organic produce, I went to local juice bar here in Long Beach, Revive. The lovely young lady working the counter, Faith, turned out to be a very knowledgable health coach and she and I got to chatting about cleansing and juicing etc and she told me about their “Master Shot” which is made up of ginger, lemon and cayenne. She mentioned she suggests this to all of her clients, as the perfect way to start the day when cleansing. From the Revive menu “Ginger: contains anti-inflammatory properties making it helpful for pain relief, it reduces nausea and neutralizes stomach acids, is great for motion sickness, helps balance out the equilibrium and improves digestion. Lemons: beneficial for the liver, are a natural diuretic, anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-diarrheal.” From what I have read elsewhere, supposedly cayenne pepper stimulates your metabolism and helps to break-up mucus and other other stored toxins in your body. Cayenne also aids in proper digestion and delivers powerful B and C vitamins to the system during it’s cleanse. Faith also told me when cleansing it is best to consume your fruits in the morning and your vegetables in the afternoon/evening. Better for digestion. I definitely will be back to Revive Juice Bar. Any place that has someone that knowledgable about their job and what they are serving, plus who is that excited by what food can do for our health, is a place I will love to support.
This morning after I drank my warm lemon water first thing and then I practiced 60 minutes of detoxifying yoga, I made a quick shot of the lemon ginger cayenne concoction by just juicing 1 lemon with 1 two-inch nub of peeled ginger and then I added about 1/4 teaspoon of ground organic cayenne pepper and mixed it well and drank it down. After the shot I made this beautiful and tasty juice as my breakfast. A Pink Grapefruit, celery, fennel and strawberry sunrise cleansing juice, also slightly inspired by my trip to Revive yesterday.
Grapefruit is great for stimulating digestive enzymes, increasing your metabolic rate, lowering your insulin levels and making you feel fuller. Strawberries are wonderful for the nervous system and keep your glands happy. Celery helps fight off infections, it lowers bad cholesterol, cools the body and reduces cravings for sweets. Fennel is great for easing intestinal cramps and reducing inflammation.
[print_this]Sunrise Spring Cleansing Juice
Makes 1 large serving
Always juice organic vegetables when juicing, especially when cleansing- 1 large pink grapefruit
- 2 stalks of celery
- large handful of strawberries
- 1 bunch of fennel stems (Though the entire plant can be juice, I was saved the fennel bulb for another recipe, and used just
- the tops in this juice)
Juice all of the ingredients. Serve immediately with ice, if you wish.[/print_this]
I have been posting what I am eating at every meal over on my Facebook page. Most don’t require recipes or measuring, which is why I am not posting recipes over here very much. Have you been keeping up with me? Anyone else cleansing right now?
