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Today marks day 14 of my vegan Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse! It's crazy{sextdiet} {heyoo!} to think 2 weeks are already down and I've only got one week left. I've been flying through these first 2 weeks pretty much without even giving it a second thought. It's interesting to me how when I was first contemplating the cleanse through the holidays, I would run through the holiday parties/social events I'd have and it seemed so intimidating. I've had about 5 Holiday parties/friend dinners + 1 Broncos game + co-hosting a girlfriend Christmas party this evening and secretly, I haven't missed the cocktails, cookies or cheese platters at all. Crazy, right? I KNOW what I'm about to say doesn't make sense, but this thought came to me last Sunday after Sara and I had 6 people over to the house to watch Sunday night football. After everyone left I thought "Man. I like my friends more when I'm sober." What does that even mean?! I have no idea. I think I was referring to how I remember so many more one-liners and you catch the little things people do, or don't say when you just sit back with warm cider and watch every one else enjoy their brandy + warm cider and let loose. It's entertaining to say the least.
It was important for me to do this cleanse for a number of reasons. { first } It seemed impossible not to drink or over-indulge in food over the holidays. I wanted to prove that little voice wrong. Also, I was sick of the excuses I was telling myself. "I'll cleanse the first week in January! Wait for the holidays to be over! Detox then!" I was beyond ready to jump into it and leave the excuses be. { second } I've been eating out and indulging in an adult beverage or 7 way.too.much. since we've been back from Washington. I would eat and drink to my hearts content simply because I SO excited to be back around my friends and family. I wouldn't even realize I'd almost put back an entire bottle of wine in a few hours. All moderation was thrown out the window and that really bothered me. { third } A few years ago, my dear friend Tim showed up at all our events; Christmas Tree decorating, Fakesgiving and various dinners in between and didn't drink a drop of alcohol at any of them. Of course at the time I was like TIM. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. YOU ARE PREGNANT AREN'T YOU. And he replied so simply by saying "Beth. My entire life, whenever someone has offered me a drink I've taken it. I'll survive a holiday season without any alcohol." That quote of his has been hanging out in a little corner of my brain for a few years now and it hugely stuck out to me when I was debating starting this cleanse between Thanksgiving and Christmas. { fourth } There is a reason the vegan lifestyle is so appealing to me. Not just because eating meat (sa-eriously) grosses me out, but also because my body just doesn't react well to dairy. I wouldn't go as far to say it's an intolerance, but I just doesn't process it well. When we lived in Bremerton, we were rockstars at meat + dairy in moderation. We never ever (everever) brought it into the house (unless we had guests) and when we went out to dinner, if we felt like a meat entree, we got a meat entree! But those times were pretty few and far between. Here however, it seemed like each and every time I'd meet friends for drinks + brunch + lunch + dinner I was eating either meat or diary saying "Oh whatever, it's just this one meal." But one meal a day for a few weeks in a row really added up and I just didn't like how much of it I had been eating and most importantly how I'd been feeling. { fifth } I had gotten pre-e-e-e-e-ty dependent on coffee. Raging headaches if I hadn't had a cup by 11:30a, huge mood swings, feeling just all around lethargic. One of the most liberating things to come from this cleanse so far has been freeing myself of the coffee dependancy. The direct hand off of that has been I've been drinking herbal teas like a BOSS. I bet I go through about 3-5 different bags of tea each day, and I can usually get between 2-3 cups of tea from each bag. Do the math. I will go back to enjoying a cup of coffee when this is over, but maybe just a cup a day? A cup every few days? Every few weeks? We'll see, but I will put fourth so much effort not to go back to a cup or 3/day.
Kris Carr recommends that every 7 days on the cleanse, you do an all juice + smoothie + tea detox day. I got pretty {un?}lucky with my first detox day because I had a really gnarly stomach flu. I didn't even have time to miss regular food, because even a juice that I'd usually take down in 4 minutes I would have to force myself to drink over like 2 hours. Yesterday was my 2nd juice + smoothie detox day, and I felt like it went really well! I had a slight upset stomach during the evening, but after reading more about it late last night, turns out it was likely just toxins being released, whichhhhh was the whole point of the detox day. They aren't the easiest days to get through, but isn't that really the point? To go outside your box and push yourself to do something you know you are fully capable of doing?
Wow. I feel like I've been going on { and on and on } about this when all I had set out to do was say weeeee I'm on week 2 and 1 week to go!
The cleanse is up on Christmas Eve, which couldn't be more perfect timing. We always go to my uncle Joel's for Christmas Eve dinner in California, and I'm already looking forward to a bowl of his noodle soup and a glass of what I know will be a lovely and local glass of wine.
