I’m Doing the Three Week Clean Program Cleanse ~ Anybody Want to Join Me?

After three weeks of gorging ouselves (also known as the High Holidays ;-)), my husband and I decided it was time to detox.

Thankfully I didn’t gain any weight over Sukkot. But I sure didn’t lose any either.

And my tummy is not right. I feel… heavy.

So I checked out a half a dozen books from the library on the subject of detoxing. After reading through most of them, and of course turning to my old friend Mr. Internet, I decided to follow the recommendations of Dr. Alejandro Junger in his best selling book, Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself.

Why am I posting about this? Well, because

(a) I’m hoping it will help to keep me accountable, and

(b) I’d love for some of you would decide to join me and my husband.

You already know that I think that losing weight and getting out of debt have a lot in common. I am hoping that this three week cleanse will do the same thing for our relationship with food as a “spending fast” did for our finances.

{Yes, I am still much healthier than I was in July when I started my diet, but consuming those heavy yomtov foods over the last three weeks have set me back – physically and emotionally.}

You can read Dr. Junger’s book for yourself, but there are some great free downloads available on his website that summarize the program and even give you a sample three-week menu. I printed out the menu plan and had it spiral bound for a few bucks at Office Max.

Here are the main Clean requirements, as I understand them:

• “Fast” for at least 12 hours every day between dinner and breakfast – if you finished eating dinner at 8 p.m., don’t start eating breakfast until at least 8 a.m. After eight hours, your body will enter “detox mode” and needs another four hours to do a “deep clean”. If you eat again before the 12 hours are up, your body can’t do this essential work. Water and tea are okay during these 12 hours.

• Consume the “yes” foods and avoid the “no” foods – Dr. Junger asks you to eliminate all foods that irritate your gut, including the most common allergens. That’s why foods like citrus and strawberries, even though we normally think of them as “good for us”, are excluded from the  cleanse. Of course, other foods like flour, sugar, dairy, eggs, peanuts and soy are excluded, too. And of course, no processed or packaged foods, no caffeine and no alcohol. You can see a complete list of the Yes & No Foods on page 151 of his book.

• Eat one “solid food meal” each day (ideally for lunch) and two liquid meals (ideally for breakfast and dinner). If you exercise a lot, or just find that you need more food, you can add in snacks – also recommended in his Three Week Sample Meal Plan. I already have a smoothie most days for breakfast, so I don’t think that will be too hard. But juice, smoothie or soup for dinner, too? Yeah, that’s gonna take some getting used to.

• Do a three-day pre-cleanse first, unless you are already eating an exclusively “clean”, “whole foods” diet. (Uh, no.) This pre-cleanse is basically three solid foods meals a day, but all from the yes category of foods.  It will help your body transition to the detoxifying elements of the cleanse, and help eliminate some of the “unwanted side effects”. Apparently, some people detox so hard that their skin starts breaking out and they spend all day in the bathroom. If I can avoid some of that, I’ll happily ease into things for the next three days!

• Drink plenty of filtered water – enough so that you are going to the bathroom at least once an hour.

• Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night (uh oh) and exercise normally. Eat to the point of satisfaction, not satiation. I.e. you should be about 80% full – or as I say, “not hungry but not stuffed either”.