Clean: It Begins

Tim and I are embarking on a nutritional cleanse.

What, you ask, is that? And, why?

Ok, maybe you're not asking that, but you're getting the answers anyway.

Ask yourself this, would I ever follow advice from Gwyneth Paltrow? 

Me neither. Not usually. Not least of all because her advice is generally really expensive. It's for things like eight-star hotels in Hong Kong and face cream made out of solid gold.

However, this time she recommended something called the Clean program.

It's a cleanse, which is also something I normally smirk at. It seems fairly obvious that most popular cleanses are a TERRIBLE idea. The idea of the "Master Cleanse" (i.e. nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup and chili pepper for a week) just makes me completely crazy.

This is me (looking a little sleepy)
Day 1, 142 lbs.

Anyway, Clean is a nutritional cleanse, and it was designed by a cardiologist from Uruguay, so I'm already biased.

Long story short, the cleanse involves cutting out packaged and processed foods, and foods that contain potential irritants and toxins, for 21 days. That means no red meat, dairy, sugar, wheat, caffein, alcohol, tomatoes, eggs, potatoes, soy, corn, etc. for three weeks. It seems like a long list, but what I like about this cleanse is what you can eat.

We just finished the week-long pre-cleanse. This includes three solid meals a day from the "yes" list which is pretty much any fruit and vegetable you want, quinoa and brown rice, organic chicken, lamb and fish, etc.

Last night for dinner we had amazing fish tacos with pineapple salsa and avocado for dinner.

The night before we had lamb-stuffed mushrooms and fresh veggies and homemade hummus.

Fresh juice! And vitamins!

So, for the next 21 days we have to the a liquid meal for breakfast (fresh juice or a smoothie), a real lunch of clean food, and a liquid dinner. All of this is backed up with probiotics and supplements. You're still encouraged to get at least 1200 calories or more each day so that your system doesn't go into "famine" mode and stop detoxing.

There's an entire 336 page book that goes along with the cleanse and I read every word. I'm pretty pleased with everything it has to say. And I feel solidly educated.

I'm not in this to lose weight, I just want to feel generally better and have more energy. Tim is in it because I would be awful to live with for three weeks (technically four weeks, with the pre-clease) otherwise. But really, I'm pretty pumped for both of us. Stay tuned.