The grown not made cleanse is on!

I never thought I would see the day that my husband and I would choose not to eat sugar, dairy, wheat and all delicious things that come out of a bottle, but, having thought about doing a cleanse for some time now, we decided to go ahead and just do it. We are only on day 3 of 7, so I can't yet comment on how it went in full, but the first three days have been a challenge! I have struggled with having the time to cook and prepare enough food to keep us full, whilst my husband has been going through some actual detox symptoms, somewhat like a junkie in rehab, moments from going into the foetal position!!

When deciding what type of cleanse to do I needed to keep in mind that I couldn't let my body go through a detox as I am still breastfeeding. I also need to maintain an intake of approximately 1800 calories so I needed to watch my intake accordingly. There are so many different types of cleanses you can do, but was mostly inspired by my friend Amber who swears by a healthy living cleanse and by several of our friends who eat Paleo/Primal. I am following most of the same principles but am tailoring it to our needs, mostly with the goal of maintaining my milk supply too. 

What the forbidden fruits for the week consist of:

- Caffeine (I am about ten steps ahead on this one as I'm allergic to caffeine anyway, so don't consume it more than one or two cups of tea each week... but... if you are used to having a good cuppa each day, this one is going to hurt!)

- Sugar (this is a hard one so far, a piece of apple and a piece of fudge just aren't the same thing, not even close)

- Alcohol (So far so good, but that's because it's only Tuesday....come see us on Friday night and see how we're enjoying it!)

- Red meats or other fatty meats like sausages

- Packaged or processed foods (anything that has artificial anything in it is not permitted. Basically you don't want your body spending time having to break down complicated ingredients. If it hasn't been grown, then you can't eat it)

- Wheat or gluten (No bread, pasta, grains or wheat products, which for us means eating about a tonne of lettuce to feel the same satisfaction as one piece of buttery bread!)

- Dairy (Okay, this one is the toughie for me, I love my dairy!! I've clung to the fake notion that you "have to drink milk to make milk" and love my tall glass of milk after most meals. When I saw that one glass of whole milk has 200 calories in it I nearly died!! I am consuming a third of my daily calories in milk alone! Yikes).

- Anything else that is essentially made and not grown

What does that leave us to eat (gasps my husband):

- Fruit (for someone who kind of still sees fruit as something I should eat and not something to enjoy, this has been an interesting change for me, because now I look forward to my piece of fruit after meals as my something sweet. It's no glass of milk, but it's fine for now!)

- Vegetables (as many as you want of every single type! vegetables are so great and the simple act of cooking them changes them completely, giving you such a breadth of opportunities. Take a red pepper, grill it, and all of a sudden, it tastes like candy!! Or so I try to convince myself)

- Lean proteins such as turkey, chicken, fish, eggs (We bought A LOT of eggs at the start of the week!)

- Nuts (and boy do they up the calorie intake in a hurry!!)

- Dried fruits (which includes raisins, dates, dried mango and the piece de resistance, sundried tomatoes!)

- For me, after day 3, I am bringing oats back in, primarily for milk supply purposes (Pete is not so lucky!)

We are only doing the cleanse for 7 days, and aren't doing any juice fasting or full-on detoxing like that. We are simply hoping to rid our bodies of these harmful foods in the hopes of feeling a little healthier and changing the way we relate to food a little. We noticed on Sunday just how much time we usually spend thinking about food and cooking/eating, and whilst we love that time, it probably needed to be reigned in a little. 

In an attempt to get ourselves excited for the week ahead we went to the local farmers market and bought all fresh and locally sourced produce. I do love seeing actual dirt on vegetables, proof that it has in fact come from the earth!! Wouldn't know what to do with a radish, but it looked so great we bought a bunch!

Wish us luck for the remaining four days, I will be posting all the yummy recipes that I've come up with over the week and will hopefully not go into the foetal position from my dairy withdrawal!!!