Unintentional Pre-Juice Cleanse

After having a bout with the stomach bug this weekend, I’m gearing up for my 3-day juice cleanse /fasting / diet.    I think I’ve done one before but somehow I can’t remember the details of it.  The reason I think I have done one is because I read people saying how afterwards they don’t feel the need to run out and eat a burger, or anything for that matter and somehow I recall that feeling and I continued to juice for a few days after.  Weird that I can’t recall doing a juice fast.  Perhaps it was so good for me that I just regarded it as a typical day. 

I just told my husband I was gearing up for the juice-fast and his remark was “oh-oh”

Is it because he’s afraid I’ll be grumpy and lethargic?  He’s not doing it, why should he care.  I come to find out it’s because he worried about what he’s going to eat.  This is even before I told him the meal plan.  That makes me chuckle.  He’s right, the meals will be minimal—hot dogs,  frozen pot pie, breakfast for dinner and homemade macaroni and cheese.  These are food I don’t have a great desire to eat and won’t miss it while everyone else eats it in front of me while I sip my red juice (primary beet juice).

Right now, I consider myself doing a pre-juice-cleanse.  Mostly because my tummy cannot tolerate much.  I’m doing what we parents know as the BRAT diet—bananas, rice (white), applesauce and toast.  These are the foods given to sick children with gastrointestinal distress (during and post-illness), so it is appropriate for me too.  This is not the normal pre-juice-cleanse diet.  Pre-cleanse usually suggest minimizing processed foods, meats and dairy.  In my case, it works.

Golden Elixir

Currently, I’m making a game plan for the 3-days, which I will start on Tuesday or Wednesday and it will end on Friday, this will allow for weekend indulgency?

Here’s the game plan:

The MarthaStewart Golden Elixir each morning.  Something to warm me and start my morning.  I typically don’t drink coffee, I’ve been OFF of caffeine for 12-years now.  I do enjoy a cup of decaf with sweets (think cakes and cookies) and when I’m having a lazy morning, but I don’t need it to function.  I often wonder if I would be more functional if I reintroduced caffeine in my life.  Oh, I still indulge in chocolates, so I do have it in my life.

Turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties so the Golden Elixir is good for my workouts.  Because it has lemon, honey and hot water, I associate it with a drink when I’m sick.  For me it has a medicinal quality about it but it’s not a bad taste.  It’s my own taste-sensory-memory that’s affecting my judgment.

There will be green juice in the morning, fruit juice for lunch, another green juice pre-dinner, red juice (that’s just something with beets) for dinner.  Night-cap will be a nut-milk based drink along with an nice warm relaxing salt bath (based on Dr. Oz’s 3-Day DetoxCleanse)

produce for my juicing

I will take my usual multi-vitamin, calcium-magnesium supplement and get my daily 112-ounces of water, and 2-oz of liquid probiotics.  I’m thinking I might need to throw in a smoothie—something like strawberry, kiwi, banana with coconut water.  I haven’t even started I’m already thinking what I need to add.  It’s good to have strategies and to be flexible.   I need to remember to add chia seeds to at least one of my juices.  I think that will help sustain me too.  I have to admit, I don’t care of the gel-coating of hydrated chia seeds.  I typically throw a tablespoon full into my yogurt and eat it quickly before it can hydrate.  There are always seeds stuck in my teeth and I can’t get them out because they already have the gel on it. 

Funny, how chia seeds have become this new health rage.  It reminds me of kale.  Kale use to be the stuff adorning salad bars (covering the ice below) when I was a child and now it’s a super food.  Chia seeds use to be use to create chia pets, now it’s a super food.