Yesterday I said goodbye to all my favorite things (Starbucks, cupcakes, gluten, oh my!) and today I began a journey to better health and functioning. Last year was a year of great change and a lot of it was positive, but oh my so stressful. I am most definitely a stress eater.
Sugar and other bad food choices have overrun my diet. A few years ago I was introduced to the Clean Program by Dr. Alejandro Junger. I thought that it was one of the most difficult things I had ever done diet wise. It feels like you are cutting out all the fun foods. Really what you are doing is living on mostly whole foods and letting your gut restore itself.
I’ve wanted to do the program again, but I just couldn’t bring myself to start, was waiting for the right time, excuse after excuse. This week I decided that time wasn’t just going to magically appear and I needed to commit to it. So here it is. Day 1.
They do sell a kit to get started with, but I have found that to be completely unnecessary. I ordered the Clean book from Amazon, picked out an acceptable protein powder, did some supplement and grocery shopping and I was good to go. And that is what I am planning on doing this time around.
My protein powder of choice for my daily smoothies is by Sun Warrior. Their Warrior Blend is a raw vegan protein that is a combination of pea, cranberry, and hemp seed protein. It is “sweetened” with stevia and I like mine in the vanilla flavor. It works well with all of the smoothies that I make.
Today I started off with a smoothie made from water, almond milk, almond butter, flax seeds, frozen mangos, spinach, and protein powder. Delicious. It does take some getting used to drinking a smoothie for breakfast rather than having eggs, potatoes, oatmeal, or cereal, but now I really prefer to starting the day off that way.
Lunch was one of my favorite clean recipes Chickpea Salad Wraps from Oh She Glows. I have a serious love affair with this meal. It is so easy to make and it is just absolutely delicious. Expect to see this one many times coming up in the next few weeks. I use a brown rice tortilla from Food for Life. I usually get them from Whole Foods, but have also seen them carried at the grocery store in the freezer section. You have to heat them up a bit before they will wrap (otherwise they break into pieces). Also I use stoneground mustard as that is clean approved.
Dinner will probably be another smoothie or I may make a pesto white bean soup. That recipe comes from the Clean forums which is an awesome place to get support and recipes. In fact if you need a plan to follow they have a 21 day Clean meal plan with recipes that make it super easy.
So far today I feel fine, but I am sure that tomorrow will be another story. I am ready for a sugar withdrawal headache, but it usually doesn’t last too long.
This time around I am also planning on adding in a daily meditation practice (which I have never done before) and hopefully adding in daily green juices as well. Thanks for visiting and I am looking forward to sharing this journey with you. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or just want to offer some support.
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