Cleansing, not just for skin!

Craig (the mister) and I took part in a cleanse when we got back from Florida. Mainly because he wanted to lose weight and I am, well a bit of a health nut when it comes to eating. (not to say I don’t enjoy a few fries and ketchup, i am human!)

I have done some pretty radical cleanses for health purposes and they really do help. You just can’t cheat, and sometimes having a partner is the best way to help not to cheat and it helps to have someone share the dishes with you. You will use the cutting board and a good knife constantly and the dishwasher just won’t clean fast enough!

So basically for 5 days (until we had to be out for a dinner) we ate only raw veggies, quinoa, and the only fruit we had was lemon juice and 1 granny smith apply for a snack. Most fruits are pretty high in natural sugars and you want to leave out all sugar on these cleanses to really let the fiber do it’s job. (no sugar, no caffeine, no tobacco, no meat, no fish, no cheese or dairy at all!)

Besides this we had what we call our shakes. no, not a tasty shake. These are pretty icky. Take 2 heaping tablespoons of Bentonite Clay ( you can buy this at Living Clay.com) 1 tablespoon of Psylium Husks, and 2 heaping tablespoons of ground Flax seed ( flaxmatters.com) Mix this all together, and unless you get the flax from Flax Matters, refridgerate.
Take about 1 cup of water add 2 heaping tablespoons of colon cleanser and drink 4 times a day.

The only tricky part is that you want to drink this in between meals. So at least 1 hour before and/or after any meals. So one as soon as you wake, one before and after lunch and one right before bed. but keep in mind no eating after and no eating before! AND if you are on any medical prescriptions you need to take those 2 hours before or 2 hours after. The bentonite clay would absorb too much and you wouldn’t get enough of the medication. If you get too constipated on this you cut back the shakes until your normal again.

So mornings at our house went like this:
Shake
1hour later, avocado and tomato with EVOO and some lemon juice or i would make a pureed veggie cocktail
about an hour later I would make some cocktail of fresh veggie juice
an hour later, Shake, no sooner then an hour>
lunch: salad full of mixed greens (mustard, kale, romaine, etc) with tons of veggies. Radishes, asparagus, beets, red and yellow peppers and avocado. with only the dressing I listed above. you can place a few ground or sliced almonds on top but you have to find uncooked 100% raw almonds, no smoked or salted here! =)
1 juice cocktail
shake
dinner: usually a nice big salad like the one earlier but always keep in mind the more veggies and the bigger the variety the better!
One night we added Quinoa to our salad, it has a great nutty flavor to liven things up. but i like it better on the side.
granny smith apple for a snack
shake

I also made my awesome Asparagus and Cherry tomato salad but I used regular tomatoes and I added Parsley. (http://www.prissygreen.com/2009/04/make-it-monday-asparagus-tomato-salad.html)

Parsley should be on every meal you eat and in every juice! it has fantastic detoxing properties. As well as lemon juice. you should also take in no less then 2 1/2 quarts of water a day.

There are a few other salads we are going to test this week, one is a beet salad another is a carrot salad.

One of my FAVORITE meals and Craig’s LEAST favorite was this semi-warm soup. I mean I had mine ate with in minutes, Craig never finishes his. i think his was all in his head.
1 cup veg stock
1 1/2 cups of broccoli (chopped)
1/2 yellow onion (chopped)
1 red of yellow pepper (chopped)
2 stalks of celery (chopped)
1 avocado peeled and sliced
sea salt
Cumin or grated ginger
Lemon juice

Warm Veggie stock to 118 degrees, no warmer!! add broccoli and onions, and let set and warm for 5 minutes. Then turn off heat, add bell pepper and celery and let sit (stir it) for 5 minutes. I used a lid but kept my temp at or below 118 degrees. then add all that to the blender and puree, add the avocado and salt and cumin or ginger and blend until smooth. A few drops of lemon juice if warranted.
I am telling you this was delish!

The reasoning behind the temp of 118 is that the enzymes in fresh veggies start to break down if heated over that temp. (I know some of you must know raw foodies?)

I have several more recipes some i have found online and some (most) I use from the book Juicing, Fasting and Detoxing for Life by Cherie Calbom.

The juicing I would do would mainly consist of 1 cucumber, peeled, about 1 inch of ginger ( i dont like ginger but I dealt with it!) 1 cup of spinach, 1-2 handfulls of parsley, 1 beet, 2 radishes, sprouts any, 1-2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery. juice it all.
To juice you really must have a quality juicer but you can always play around with puree on your blender and finely chopping veggies before you put in.

Okay, some of you are probably enthralled and some of you might be like, who the heck is this chick? but I promise give this a week and you will feel better. I do really suggest getting the book, Juicing, Fasting and Detoxing for Life by Cherie Calbom so you have a variety of soups (mostly cold) and cocktails but if you really can’t do that right now, eating raw for a week and doing the shakes could really help out a sluggish system.

oh yea did I forget to mention we are doing it again? yes, this time I hope for a full week. You don’t have to go hungry on this, it truly isn’t a diet, although you may lose weight since you won’t be eating much fat or any animal proteins.

So is anyone interested in more of this process? Would you like me to try and detail this from the start this week? i would be happy to share what we are eating but I wanted to make sure someone cares before I do!

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