Blue Print Cleanse

Friends.  Hi.

You might know that I just finished working on my first cookbook.  It’s a baking book…. duh.  I spent months knee deep in butter and sugar and flour and cream.  It was delicious.  It was overwhelming.  It made my waist bigger.  It made my pants tighter.  How could it not!?  I think I was absorbing butter and sugar through my pores.  Wait.  Can you gain weight through your pores?  Call a scientist.

After I turned in my manuscript, I decided to clear out my system with a cleanse.  Before you tune out… listen.  I’m not a cleanse girl.  I’m not particularly fancy.  I really really really like to eat food.  I just thought this might be a good thing to do for my body to regulate my sugar cravings and try to get myself back in control.  I don’t own a scale.  I wasn’t trying to lose weight.  I just thought a few days of wholesome juices might be a good way to counteract the constant stream of butter I had allowed into my system.

I embarked on a three day juice cleanse with Blue Print Cleanse.  The word ’embark’ makes this process sound far more daunting that it actually was.  This post is more words that I ever write on my blog.  I just wanted to tell you what happens when a girl that is totally into food only drinks juice for three days.

In the days before my juice cleanse I tried to revamp my diet.  I stayed away from meat.  I ate salads.  I drank tea.  And I don’t want to talk about how many french fries I ate…. the number is more than 10.  Whatever.

Day One:  Alright belly.  Food is so… yesterday.  I start off strong with the juices.  Juice. Water. Tea. Water. Juice.  Everything is going along just swimmingly.  And (miracle of all miracles)  I’m totally not hungry. Well well well.  Imagine that!  I have a pep in my step, I go for a long bike ride, and I’m stoked on the day.  Unfortunately, it all came to a screeching halt when I went for my first colonic.  See… the BPC website highly suggests you go for a colonic during your cleanse.  I wanted to get the full cleanse experience.  Um… I’m sure this procedure works for some people.  It’s just not for me.    (If you’re feeling faint at the mere mention of a colonic, feel free to skip the next paragraph.)

…If you don’t know what a colonic is… google it.  It’s a hot mess.  I hated every single second of it.  Sweet Lord.  Not ok.  The lady tried to convince me that I had major problems going on inside my body.  Um… guess what super ancient colonic lady?  I totally don’t believe you.  I’m pretty sure I’m young and healthy, and I take care of my body, and the major problem with my body right now is the hose you have shoved where the sun don’t shine.  Kindly remove that hose, your hands, the giant massager you insist I put on my belly.  Get everything off me exactly right now so I can run screaming from this place.  The classical music isn’t helping.  What are you doing on your iPad, colonic lady!?  You’re like… 80.  Are you playing solitaire?  Cause that’s annoying.  Oh Lord.  Help.  Stop saying I have high cholesterol.  Did you know there’s a legit test for that?  Yea.  Check your iPad.  There’s nothing wrong with me…. except for the fact that all  I want to do now is sit in the fetal position and eat cheeseburgers.   See what you’ve done?  Thanks for that.

Day One (the saga continues)… I don’t eat cheeseburgers.  Ooooh heavens.  I really want to.  It’s not that I’m hungry, it’s just that I want fat in my face after such a traumatic experience.  I push through, drink more juice and handle my business.  The first day was much easier that I thought it would be.  I thought I’d suffer without cookies and kale and rice and bacon…. the things I normally eat.  There’s was no suffering!  I even struggled to finish all of my juices because I felt so full.

Day Two:  Whoa!  I woke up from the craziest dreams.  Not scary-clown crazy… but vivid and topical and totally appropriate for where my brain is.  I was dreaming about issues that I’ve shoved to the back of my brain in an effort to avoid.  … But after one day of no food, they all can rushing forward.  It felt good.  I felt like I could settle some things and get some clarity.  Now… I know this sounds totally hippy-dippy… and this is totally not my style.  But!!  I felt like I had some amazing mental clarity.  My brain felt unclogged and I didn’t even know it was stopped up.  I took some time to sit and be quiet in prayer.  Supreme.

What’s up lunchtime?  It’s not that I’m hungry… It’s just that I want a giant sandwich for my face.  I had meetings on my second day of the cleanse.  That means that I had to be out in the world, interacting with people… normal people who eat delicious food for lunch.  I had juice.  I didn’t make a bit deal out of it.  I didn’t feel superior.  I didn’t feel fancy.  I just drank my pineapple juice thingy and enjoyed it.

I went to a spin class on Day Two of the cleanse.  I was feeling particularly badass.  I had enough energy to sweat buckets for 45 minutes.  Um… where did all this energy come from?  Amazing.  The only slight downside was that after the mega work out, all I could think about was dinner… and beet juice didn’t really fill the dinner void.  To fill the void, I heated up a mug of low sodium vegetable broth cut with hot water.  I know.  This sounds totally crazy.  I just wanted something savory and warm and dinnery feeling and the vegetable broth solved the dinner problem.

Day Three:  Alright.  Another day, another six juices.  By now I feel like I’m an old pro at this.  I even get in the kitchen and start making this soup.  It’s totally weird cooking food that you can’t really eat.  It smelled really good.  That’s a problem.  I took pictures of the soup.  I took five small tastes of the soup.  I put the soup in a container in the fridge and forgot about it… until dinner time.

Dinnertime: when I naturally want to shovel food into my mouth.  In a moment of weakness, I texted my friend for a dinner date.  Dinner date!  Since this friend had ribbed me through my whole cleanse… I thought he’d surely be happy to help me break my fast and cheat a bit.  His response “I secretly hoped you wouldn’t break your cleanse”.  And with that, my confidence was restored and I stuck to the juices.

After the Cleanse:  Food.  Food.  Food.  Food!  It’s a day for foooooood!  The one ironic bit about the first day back at food; I’m not really hungry.  Like… at all.  This is practically unheard of in my life.  I started slow with a banana, warmed up to a small salad and had lots of tea.  Amazing, my craving for sugar did not rule my life.  I know in my brain that that bag of Cheetos is delicious, but for some reason I don’t need to pour it into my face.

Overall, I feel great!  My wine consumption is in check, my sugar cravings have toned waaaaay down, and the jeans that were once a little tight at the waist, now fit like a dream.  I can’t tell you whether or not I lost weight, since I don’t have a scale, but I can tell you that I feel great from the inside out, my skin is bright and happy and my clothes fit better… and!!! I crave whole, healthy foods now more than junk.  I’m stoked.

I wouldn’t suggest this cleanse as a weight loss, ‘I need to go on a crash diet’ tool.  I don’t think you should ever go on a crash diet… so there.  While it seems that I did lose a few pounds on this system, I fully expect to gain some weight back… you know… since I’m eating real food again.  This juice cleanse was very effective in helping me reset my food choices and I think that will benefit my waistline in the long run.  Also… the juice is delicious.  Deeeeelicious!

Please also note:  I’ll happily chow down on some fries next week and I won’t even feel a little bit guilty.