In case you hadn’t been following my Twitter account last month, I did indeed finish Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet Adventure Cleanse on Jan. 31. Wooo! No one was more impressed about the fact that I completed it than myself.
Never enough green juice.
The third week of the cleanse was a breeze. My body had already been humming from consuming so much raw produce, juices, smoothies, salads and soups that it wasn’t that hard to get through the last week. My body had adjusted to consuming less and eating healthier food/more roughage, so it wasn’t hard to do so for seven more days. I still saw the light at the end of the tunnel cups of coffee with almond milk.
As time went on in the cleanse, I started to latch on to some favorite, easy-to-make recipes. As a busy human, I appreciated that Kris made some recipes that could be prepped quickly the morning of, so naturally her Green Guru Smoothie became my morning jam. With lettuce, cucumber, pear and good fats in the form of avocado, it had enough sweetness to be a tasty a.m. option. I also became fond of the Ezekiel Sprouted Grain cereal I mentioned in the last post. The amount of protein makes this stay with you, and the crunchy texture was something that I apparently missed when giving up cold cereals.
The makings of a delicious massaged kale salad.
Simple meals of baked tofu, whole grains, steamed and raw veggies and big salads became the norm, as well as soups, the Eggless Tofu Salad, Buddha Bowl and Massaged Kale salad (recipes from the book). There were plenty of recipes in the book, but some required more time or dehydrating, (I am dehydrator-less), so I stuck with the recipes that worked well for me and this helped me succeed in finishing the cleanse.
And even more salads. I thought this one with a bit of everything was lovely.
Here are some things I learned as a result of taking on the Crazy Sexy Diet Adventure cleanse. Maybe they’ll help you if you decide to take it on one day.
Takeaways:
- When I do this cleanse again I will want to make sure that I have more time and use it to do the majority of food prep during the weekends. I struggled with meal repeats sometimes due to lack of time and knowing that I knew how to make certain things, so I feel like my experience wasn’t most representative or the best it could be. Maybe it’s because I’m a crazy person who decided to do a cleanse while working, going to grad school and living life, but I definitely suggest food prep on the weekends and juicing every other day so your cleanse goes smoothly.
- I definitely suggest starting this cleanse on a Monday. As a result of starting mine on a Thursday so it would end at the end of the month, I unintentionally made it so that the seventh day juice fast days were on a Wednesday, my busiest day of the week. Next time I want to try the one day/week juice fasts, so I will start it at the beginning of a week.
- I kind of wish I had a buddy doing the cleanse with me. Trust me, I’m not codependent, but it would’ve been great to message or talk to someone else who was going through the cleanse with you and feeling the things you were. Instead, it was my friends and coworkers who heard about all the things I was craving/missing while detoxing. Accountability is excellent, and next time it’d just be nice to have someone around who’d know what I’m talking about.
- I did this cleanse mainly without reading the 21-day guide in the back of the book. Now, I don’t know if that affected my experience at all, but since I’m not into prayers/meditations/neti-potting, I felt like I followed the cleanse well enough just taking into account the food/exercise recommendations. Next time, I may read the passages each day and write down my thoughts/experiences to get a better overall picture of how I felt on the cleanse.
Overall as I mentioned before, this cleanse was a lot easier than I’d anticipated, and not as scary as most. When I told friends I could eat tofu, Veganaise, gluten-free bread and sprouted grain cereal, they kind of shook their heads in disbelief. Clearly more challenging cleanses exist, but despite the fact that you could still have some beloved foods, this cleanse forced to be more conscious of what I was eating everyday, and helped me incorporate more greens and veggies into my diet. It’s been said before, but it’s super easy to eat unhealthily on a vegan diet. This cleanse is excellent for those who want to recharge but not totally have to restrict themselves into doing a cleanse that might set them up for failure. This one is meant to be done successfully, and I think Kris Carr gives her readers all the proper tools to do so.
Raw trail mix has become a new favorite snack as a result of the cleanse.
Things I aim to keep up (for the most part) post-cleanse:
- Water with lemon every morning upon waking (no cayenne)
- Drinking a juice or smoothie everyday. Not a huge one that I did on the cleanse, but a smaller one so that I still get a burst of energy from green veggies first thing
- Having a salad every day (whether meal-sized or side-sized)
- Consuming less sugar overall, and limiting desserts to once or twice a week. Except dark chocolate, as that doesn’t count (to me)
- Focus on eating more alkaline foods than acidic. I won’t be as regimented, but I will strive to stay as close to 60% alkaline/40% acidic as possible
- Keeping my intake of gluten in check. As I mentioned before, I am pretty in love with gluten and breads, but I am in tune with how it makes my body feel, (sluggish). As hard as it’ll be, I’m going to try to keep my intake of it to a minimum so as to not inflict undue strife on my body and to focus on more whole foods instead
Overall, I loved this cleanse and would highly suggest it to anyone looking to refocus, recharge and clean up their act. If I could do it, you definitely can too. It’s all about focusing on getting back to basics and scaling back from those indulgences for a bit, which is something I think we can all benefit from once in a while, even while living our vegan lifestyles.
Did you also take on a cleanse in January? If so, which one? How’d you do, and what were some of your biggest challenges?
