Prepare Prepare Prepare:

This marks the first blog entry where I begin discussing the journey that is “my cleanse”. It is Tuesday morning and I woke up to an email from my juicy friends over at BluePrint. Apparently…giving up solid food to drink nothing but fresh pressed juice everyday isn’t something you just wake up and do. What I am told today is that I need to start preparing my body for the experience it is about to encounter. This being, my digestive system catching a break from having to break down solid foods, toxins being flushed out, and getting a major overdose of vitamins and minerals through these 6 different juices I will be drinking each day. This can be a lot for a body to handle all at once, which is why it makes sense I suppose to start prepping your stomach, as well as your small and large intestines. Luckily for me, I know exactly how our digestive system works. I understand the changes that would take place should someone decide to not eat solid foods. I understand the pros, and cons, to cleansing and fasting. All of this knowledge I have acquired has made me very (very) selective on what cleanse I would select, and how long I would do it for.
But why am I cleansing in the first place? And what are some reasons you may or may not want to do the same? I will start with the most popular myth. If you want to cleanse because you want to lose weight, don’t waste your time, or your emotional investment in a cleanse. Cleansing is not (I repeat: not) a permanent weight loss solution. Sure, giving up solid food will definitely make you appear thinner, at least for a short while. Once you return to food however, its game on. Especially for those who cleanse for a week, and then feel that they’ve put in the work to earn back their frequent meals at applebees. But lets think practical here; we also can’t spend the rest of our lives living off nothing but juiced kale and coconut water. It is not only unrealistic, but horrific for our digestive system. Our esophagus (you know…that tube our food goes down to reach our stomach) is a muscle. And just like any other muscles in our body, if it is not worked…it becomes weak, lazy, flabby, however you want to picture it. Our esophagus pushes our food down after we swallow with a one way movement called “peristalsis”. This wavelike motion wouldn’t need to do half the work when we swallow nothing but liquids, nor would our stomach need to do as much churning. Overtime, no solid foods lead to a deteriorating digestive system, which can affect how our bodies eventually absorb nutrients. If we cannot absorb nutrients, we are not benefitting from eating any food at all. Long term affects: Wasting away of muscles, malabsorption, higher risk for illness, and eventual starvation. So, just like any other muscles in our bodies…lets keep our digestive system at work, by giving it a variety of wholesome food that it needs to break down, churn, mix, and push through our intestines. Bottom line: cleansing with a hope that you will lose tremendous amount of weight, and keep it off, even if it means cutting back on solid foods permanently, is not how I want your brain thinking.
I am cleansing, because I am reaching a point where my body, and the decisions I have recently made for it, is catching up to me. I am very much in tune with my body, which is excellent because I know when things are going wrong almost immediately. My schedule these days has contributed to a combination of symptoms including lack of sleep, increase in caffeine intake, increased likelihood to accept a glass of red wine after work, and more lunches then id care to admit being purchased “on the go”. My skin is dry (dehydration), I am tired, feeling sluggish, and bloated. I am cleansing to give my digestive system a break, put nothing but fruit and vegetables into my body, and allow myself the opportunity to rid my system of caffeine and alcohol. When I return to eating solids, I will return with a “clean slate,” and that is exactly what I feel I need. While this may help me drop a few pounds, I view those pounds as the toxins being flushed out of my system (goodbye bloat!) and know that I will need to keep healthy once I eat my first real breakfast again next week.
Back to my welcoming email I received this morning though. I have one issue with it. They are telling me to start preparing, by weaning off my coffee now. As I sit in my bedroom, reading through my morning emails, holding a giant cup of coffee…I looked down at my cup after reading this particular sentence, almost as if to say “im sorry” to it, as it stared back at me. What would I do? Is this my last cup? I mean, I wasn’t exactly prepared to hit this bump until Friday. And believe me, I knew when signing up for this that it would mean no coffee…I think I was lying to myself by ignoring that fact when sharing with my friends what I was about to do. I have two midterms this week (both of which really are requiring more commitment from me), so am I not to have caffeine on the days of these exams? If there is a God, now would be the time Id need to call on his help. If I really had my last cup of coffee this morning for the next week…I may go postal before this cleanse is over.
The rest seemed simple though. No meat (check! For the last 3 years), wean off dairy (not too difficult for me since the only dairy I really eat is yogurt, and cheese) and cut back on those added sugars (I only add sugar to my coffee, so again, I can deal). I am also given a sample menu of the foods I should stick to the day before I begin my cleanse. It’s what I would refer to as a “starve yourself” diet…but it’s only for one day, and I understand it will help prep my stomach for the pure juiced goodness it will need to rely on for the upcoming days. The menu tells me to stick to fruit for breakfast, cucumber, avocados, lettuce, and maybe some olive oil drizzled on top for lunch…and (ready for this?) vegetable broth (low sodium) for dinner. Good god. Are they kidding? Granted, I feel my stomach is already slightly better prepared then someone who eats fast food and is about to do this. I drink fresh squeezed juices frequently as a supplement to my lunches. However, without the support of the cleanse juices, I will be consuming less than 800 calories on this day if I follow their menu, and I fear that I will be left, well…clawing at the glass windows of my neighborhood bakery by 7pm.
So here it goes. I think I just drank my last cup of coffee. I am about to snack on my last stoneyfield yogurt cup for a while, and I will be carefully monitoring everything I eat for the next 3 days until my juices get delivered Friday morning. By the way, did I mention they are getting delivered to my office? This excites me. Friday morning I will come into work for my 9am meeting, and my juices will be there, in our refrigerator, waiting for me to start the day. One can only hope that no one else enters the meeting this Friday eating a buttered croissant, or an egg and cheese McMuffin.