On Monday, I wanted to start this Three-Day Detox Cleanse I found on skinnyms. I wanted to do a cleanse rather than just 'watch what I ate' because I wanted to stomp the cravings I've been having. I thought by eating super clean, I'd push the restart [00:00:00] on my body's crave clock, and then after the three days just eat consciously and in moderation.
I chose the Three-Day Detox Cleanse from skinnyms. because it wasn't just juice. It wasn't just lemon water. It was jam-packed with three meals + snacks, incorporated beans, quinoa, avocado, and food you chew (important for me) and I felt that I wouldn't feel hungry completing it.
I woke up Monday morning at 6am, and got to work cutting and chopping for the assigned wake-up drink, breakfast smoothie, veggie+nuts mid-morning snack, and lunch garden salad. I naively thought, "I'll just wake up and chop some veggies, no big deal." OVER TWO HOURS LATER, the chopping was done and the meals were in place. I had shopped ($$$) the day before, and made the Fat Flushing Soup assigned for dinner the night before, so my day was set and ready for the cleanse.
I followed the plan nicely, and for the first few hours of my day, felt good. Awake, even though I hadn't had coffee, and light. All good things. Around 10:20am, when I had planned to have my mid-morning snack of veggies+nuts (see image above) I was hungry for it. I was craving a slice of bread with peanut butter or something, but knew I had this big bag o'veggies in place, and filled myself with that instead. So far, so good. I focused my attention on work, and got to around 1:30pm when I sat outside for lunch.
On the menu for lunch was a Garden Salad with Lemon & Oil, and not a dinky one. It was full, hearty, and contained a whole half of an avocado and almonds. It was something I'd eat for lunch NOT on a cleanse, which was a major deciding factor for trying this particular one. Again, when it came time to eat this salad, I was hungry for it. I ate the whole thing, and finished around 2.
I got back to work, and at around 2:30pm it hit me. The biggest, most massive, explosive headache of ever. I worked for another two hours, but at around 4:30pm, had to stop. The headache got worse with each passing 15 minutes, and as I lay horizontal on the couch, looking up side-effects of detoxing, here's what I found out: expect headaches and fatigue. Something about your body working overtime to rid of the 'toxins' (<--a word I don't exactly understand) that it causes all of these weirdo reactions.
My mom - who also wanted to try this cleanse with me - came home from work around 5, walked through the door, and said "Ugh, I'm so exhausted." She said she was drowsy all day, couldn't concentrate, and felt like she was getting a cold. We were both miserable. My nutritionist-sister assumed my headaches were from food deprivation and malnutrition -- which was NOT true. I was no where near hungry. She told me to eat a slice of bread, and if I thought that a piece of bread would help, I would have eaten it at this point, but I felt so nauseous. The thought of one more veggie/cracker/anything in my mouth...VOM.
Fast forward a couple of hours: I'm bent over, hacking up my mid-morning snack and lunch garden salad into the toilet. Yeah. I got so sick. The next morning my sister said it was probably too much fiber and roughage all at once, and my body rejected it.
My three-day cleanse detox lasted a day. Two-thirds of a day, I guess, because I never made it to dinner. For the next two days of the 'cleanse' I just kept easy on my body: eating grilled chicken and hard boiled eggs and bowls of the Fat Flushing soup (really good, actually). In essence I feel like I cleansed, but not as hard core as I thought I was going to.
I wouldn't say I don't recommend this particular detox cleanse, because - like I said at the start - it's not based on deprivation, which is good. However, I'd recommend incorporating only 70 or 80% of it into your normal three-day diet routine. I think incorporating TOO MUCH clean eating TOO FAST was the problem for me.
I might try it again using my advice above, or I might not. I hope this account was informative in some way. The road to health in the society we live in today will always be a bumpy one filled trial-and-error. This situation was no different.
Have a happy day, and make good choices. Thanks, as always, for reading. ♥
