If you had asked me a year ago if I’d be willing to do a cleanse, I would have said no. My thinking was that cleanses were either a rapid weight loss gimmick or a liquid/starvation diet. This was a case of me not doing research on cleanses and immediately writing them off. At some point during this past year, my mind began to change.
I suggested a cleanse to a client who was having trouble losing weight after a few weeks of recording what she was eating. I figured I better do it with her so I could learn what it’s like! So, here are the 5 lessons I learned from doing a cleanse.
1) You Must Be Prepared
You absolutely must have a meal plan prepared in advance. You must have junk food out of the house and lots of fresh fruits and vegetable in stock. One of the rules of the ten-day cleanse was to not eat crackers, chips, and sweets. You know…”carbage” (garbage carbs.) So, if you’re used to snacking on graham crackers, goldfish, pretzels, or potato chips of any kind, you better have other options ready. For me, apples with peanut butter, hard-boiled eggs, cashews, and green smoothies became my go to snacks.
2) It Wasn’t As Restrictive As I Expected
There are so many different cleanses you can choose from. The one I did was food-based. So, I could have complex carbs like oatmeal, brown rice, beans and hummus. Dairy was to be avoided, though, and I must confess that my “cheats” were having some cheese.
3) I Wasn’t Hungry
It’s true, I really wasn’t all that hungry. And when I was, it was more like, “hmmm, maybe I could eat something” rather than an all out sprint for the pantry, gorging everything in sight kind of feeling. It’s eating every 3 hours or so before you get hungry that prevents that junk food fest.
4) It Was Easy to Give Up Sweets
My weakness in life is sweets. I’ll eat almost any dessert, candy, cake, ice cream that’s within reach. And, while I don’t have dessert every night, I feared that I would have major cravings during the cleanse. But, I didn’t. I guess I wasn’t quite as addicted as I thought!
5) The Easiest 5 Pounds I Ever Lost
After the 10 days, I had lost 5 pounds. I didn’t have to eat a salad every day, nor did I have to track my food or count calories. I basically, just ate clean, nutritious food and bam: weight loss resulted.
The biggest lesson I learned however is that I can eat this way forever. I didn’t give up too much. It’s more about healthy eating. When I went to the grocery store after finishing the cleanse, I didn’t pick up the baked cheetos I normally would. Just a word of caution though — alcohol, coffee and soda were on the avoid list. That wasn’t a concern for me. But, we all have our vices though, right? Give it a try and let me know how you feel!
Have you tried a cleanse before? What was your experience? Please share below.
