Cleanse summary

So day 6 was... meh. About the same as day 5. I ate a banana, an orange, some almonds and some greens right before my Bikram class and felt pretty much fine during the class.

Day 7 I was surprised at how hungry I wasn't. I drank about 600 calories' worth of juice before dinner and wasn't really that hungry. I learned that if you make your own juice, you should peel your citrus before putting it in the juicer. My mom said I could just put it in with the peel, so that's what I did at first, but it imparted a disagreeable bitter taste and made my stomach feel not so good.

I was actually a little worried my metabolism might slow down due to the low calories all week and the fact that I was getting suspiciously not-hungry, but I kept exercising all week and have eaten two quite-large meals now, so I hope any slowing will quickly reverse itself.

I doubt I will do something quite like this again. The individual components (liver support herbs, laxatives, various diet restrictions) might be useful, but the salt restriction in particular (which my mom said was the most important part) really didn't do much for me. I felt crappy when I stopped eating salt, and yeah I got used to it, but I felt weaker than usual the whole week and now that I've reintroduced it, I feel much more robust and am experiencing no ill effects at all adapting the other direction. If I do the raw thing again, I'll have to prepare ahead of time, looking up raw recipes and making sure we have a food processor and maybe a dehydrator and sprouting some beans and such. People who live a raw lifestyle have those additional tools to help them get good nutrition, especially protein, which was very much lacking in our raw phase.

For the sake of interest, here was my diet during the cleanse. The last dinner on Saturday was obviously breaking the fast, and the Saturday before, not shown here, we had a psyllium shake as well as our Cascara sagrada after dinner:

---END CLEANSE---

Saturday 12/11

12 oz apple-lemon-ginger juice (180)
12 oz carrot-orange juice (235)
6 oz unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
8 oz apple-tangerine-lime juice (120)
Tofurky, yams, greens, and chocolate (500+150+20+105+40=815)

180+235+60+120+815=1410

-BEGIN JUICE FAST-

Friday 12/10

Banana, soaked almonds, and 1/2 small apple (100+200+40=340)
Banana and unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (100+60=160)
Banana, orange, almonds, and greens (100+100+200+10=410)
Greens under avocado, dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds (20+150+130+50=350)
Psyllium shake in water

340+160+410+350=1260

Thursday 12/9

1/2 green pummelo, 1/2 pear, and sunflower seeds (30+50+210=290)
Unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
Peppered large tomato (60)
Baby carrots (35)
Dates with coconut butter and grapes (130+140+75=345)
Tangerine (40)
Psyllium shake in water
Spinach and tomato salad with avocado, apple, and sunflower seeds (60+100+40+50=250)
Dried cranberries (130)

290+60+60+35+345+40+250+130=1210

--BEGIN RAW PHASE--

Wednesday 12/8

Apple with unsalted peanut butter and 1/2 grapefruit (100+180+30=310)
Salad with nuts, raisins, avocado, and a rice cake (30+65+100+100+70=365)
2 tangerines and a rice cake (80+70=150)
Psyllium shake with grapefruit juice (90)
Nutritional yeast (25)
Rice, sweet potatoes, and broccoli (320+150+50=520)

310+365+150+90+25+520=1460

Tuesday 12/7

1/2 grapefruit, 1/2 apple with unsalted peanut butter, and unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (30+50+90+60=230)
2 tangerines (80)

Rice and beans (160+115=275)

Dried cranberries and walnuts (200+130=330)
Psyllium shake with dilute apple juice (60)
1/2 tangerine (20)
Rice cake (70)
1/2 acorn squash filled with rice, raisins, and almonds (85+120+30+50=285)

230+80+275+330+60+20+70+285=1350

Monday 12/6

Oatmeal with unsalted peanut butter and raisins (150+90+65=305)
Apple (100)
2 rice cakes, walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, and date pieces (140+200+130=470)
Psyllium shake with grapefruit juice (90)
Baby carrots (35)

Rice and beans and broccoli (160+115+50=325)

305+100+470+90+35+325=1325

Sunday 12/5

Rice cake with unsalted peanut butter and dried cranberries (70+180+65=315)

Date pieces (130)

Vegetables and chopped nuts over rice and dried cranberries (150+200+130=480)

Unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
Psyllium shake with dilute apple juice (60)
Rice noodles and tofu in seaweed broth (200+200=400)
Grapes (100)

315+130+480+60+60+400+100=1545

--- BEGIN CLEANSE ---