Cooking With Sean Test 2

Well, I finished the cleanse on Thursday and I have to tell you I still feel great. I probably ate more food than recommended in the book, but what I had was just fine. I feel very good.

We started out the day with orange juice and fruit. The fruit is very satisfying. For lunch we had the Lentil-Veggie Soup I started preparing last night. It turned out heartier than I expected, but boy was it delicious! This soup has lots of fiber, so I am hoping it it good for me. We are trying to stay off dairy for the next few days since it's hard for the body to process that right after the cleanse apparently. I must say it filled me up very quickly.

For dinner I made my first vegan dish - Creamy Asparagus Soup. Oh my! That was delicious. I really enjoyed it and even had seconds, which I kind of regret since I felt stuffed afterward. Still no bad side effects.

For a treat we had fruit with soy yogurt. YUM! I am kind of ready to get back to dairy, though, since vegan dairy substitutes seem to be really heavy on the fat front. I will say, however, that they certainly are tasty!

I still have no craving for meat or alcohol, which is good. I feel like my body is kind of getting back to normal. I lost about 15 pounds on this cleanse and I sure hope I don't gain it all back!

You can see both my recipes below this posting, or just click the links below to go directly to them. Once again, they may be too heavy but I had not problem and I actually think the asparagus one would be just fine for anyone.

Lentil-Veggie Soup

Creamy Asparagus Soup

From Slow Cooker Favorites Made Healthy (Better Homes & Gardens Cooking).

This was a surprisingly delicious soup. It was actually much thinker that a soup, but thinner that a stew. As Rachel Ray would say, a "stoup." This soup has 0 grams of fat and 12 grams of fiber, so it's very healthy! It takes a long time to cook so you have to kind of plan when you are going to make it. I made it around 8 pm the previous night and we had it for lunch the next day. It reheats wonderfully.

I have a huge slow cooker, so I doubled the recipe. I makes A LOT so be prepared! Also, while it doesn't call for it, I added salt and pepper. It was just to bland without it.

Note: I planned on this being my first soup after my master cleanse. It may be a bit to hearty for most, but we had it with no troubles.

From The Vegan Chef - Vegan Recipes - Beverly Lynn Bennett

This was my first vegan recipe ever! It was simply delicious! Not hard to make at all and I followed the directions very closely. The next time I may cut the water just a tad, but besides that the soup came out perfectly. This makes a lot of soup, so plan on having it for while. It was so delicious, though, I even had seconds!

Note: This was our second soup the day after the master cleanse.

Success!!! We did it! Ten days! I am really excited that I accomplished this and I really feel great. Now, I must be honest and admit that I did kind of end a day early since I started the orange juice today, but we will get to that later.

I drank the tea for the last time last night and was able to sleep until about 5 am when I started having cramps. Not horrible cramps, but annoying. They were pretty bad in the morning when I got out of bed. I passed some strange stuff. It looked like squid ink. It was weird. Once I did that I felt much better. Those must have been some serious toxins. Blech! I did the salt bath just because I wanted whatever was in there to get out! That went fine. Since I was passing this I probably should have stayed on the cleanse another day or to, but I have to tell you the thought of it was too gross. For the first time the thought of drinking the lemonade was really unappealing. I guess once my mind was made up to stop, I just really need to stop. I just can't drink that again for awhile.

So, I had orange juice today! YUM!!! This is what is recommended when you first stop the cleanse. I drank it all day and it was cold, delicious goodness. I felt pretty good all day, but I have to admit I was getting pretty hungry. The lemonade does really fill you up.

I walked to the produce market to get everything for our weekend. It was a good walk and it was so fun to go shopping for food and have meals to prepare. I prepared our soup for tomorrow. We are having a vegetable soup that simmers in the slow cooker for 12 hours. It felt so good to be back in the kitchen and even better to know I was cooking a really healthy meal. I will post the recipe tomorrow once I have tried it.

Tonight Joey and I had fruit. Now, that wasn't recommended in the book, but we wanted to chew. We both just really wanted real food. We had kiwi, banana and mango. It was smart that we had to peel it all ourselves because it took up time and filled us up. It was very satisfying! The fruit tasted amazing. Right now, I feel totally fine, so I don't think it was a mistake. We ate very little and chewed very carefully. We wills see how we feel tomorrow!

There is one thing that is kind of interesting. I am a bit sad that the cleanse is basically over. It really has been a big part of my life the past ten days and I think I will miss it a little. Not the lemonade, but doing it. I guess I will need to set a new challenge for myself!

Wow! For some reason the number nine seems like such a milestone! In many ways it seems like I just started this thing the other day and at the beginning the end seemed so far away! Well, the end is almost near. YAY!

Today was not really eventful on the cleanse front. I am still passing solid toxins (sorry if that is too vivid) but I didn't feel bad like I did yesterday. Yesterday really was the worst of all the days. I drank the tea last night and didn't have to get up once during the night! That was nice. I got a really good nights sleep. I don't have to rush to the bathroom nearly as much as I did the first five days or so. What a shame that my body is getting used to this and I am about to taper off! I drank my salt water today and I am actually getting used to it. I still drank it in three rounds, but I did it one right after the other. Once again I will say, if you do this, start off that way! Don't try to drink down a quart at once. YUCK!

I made my very last batch of the lemonade today as Joey and I are going to start juice tomorrow. I must say I won't miss it, but I will kind of miss the routine. How easy it is just to get up and make all your meals for the day in 15 minutes! Even Rachel Ray couldn't do that! :-) Drinking the stuff, though, I don't think I will be craving it. I have grown a bit tired of it. I will say, though, that not once did I think it was gross, just monotonous.

So, as I said, Joey and I are going to start drinking orange juice today. Ideally, I would go at least one more day or longer since I am passing solid toxins, but this is a practical thing for us. Joey has been on this two days longer than I have since I had to wait until after Tuesday to start. We both really want to get back into eating this weekend and since tapering off isn't something you could really do when you are going to work, the weekend seems to be our only option. Tomorrow is orange juice all day and maybe a little fruit. Saturday is soup (we are making two) and Sunday we will have more soup and I am making a vegetable tofu dish for Sunday night. We have really planned this out. I have known since last Sunday exactly what I am making. It is so fun to be thinking about cooking again. I really miss that!

Anyway, I will be keeping up my Master Cleanse journal for at least another week since that is part of the process and then I can go to blogging about our new food adventures. We are not going vegetarian, but we are definitely going to eat more vegetarian meals. That is really part of the cleanse, too! Get those toxins out and start over! Honestly, I don't crave meat at all. Nor to I crave alcohol. In fact the thought of alcohol is really gross. If that is the only thing I get out of the master cleanse, then hallelujah! That is enough.

Today was tough! I was so tired this morning and so cranky all day! Not to be gross but I have started releasing solid toxins. It's really making me feel a bit poopy. I don't feel sickly, just tired. I drank the tea last night, but didn't have to get up in the middle of the night, thank goodness!! This morning is when I started the toxin thing. I didn't really understand what was going on, but after looking at some Cleanse blogs, I found out that was it. Now, this one diary I have been reading said that when she went through this on Day 8, she decided to keep drinking the lemonade until she only had mucus again. NO WAY JOSE! I can't do this beyond tomorrow and Friday. Okay, I actually could, but I am tired of it and I have my whole weekend of getting back to food planned. Two soups on Saturday and a special veggie tofu dish on Sunday. Besides, I think I really have gotten what I need out of this - a change in lifestyle!

So, there is one thing I did learn today that is new for me. Boy, exercise really helps the mood out! Even just a short walk! I was super cranky today. I had to meet someone from work to get some files a few blocks away. About a five minute walk really. Well, after walking down the hill and back up I really felt much better. My mood totally improved! I need to remember to take a little walk even if it's only 15 minutes! I especially need to do that if I get cranky!!!

Wow, I am almost there! I can't believe it! I am really glad I am doing this, but I will be more glad when it's over!

Today I had to go to our office in Sonoma so I didn't drink the tea last night nor did I do the salt bath this morning. I really didn't want to risk having to go on the way there. I will say that I think that part of the cleanse is actually more important than I thought. You really do need to flush yourself out and these two things seem key to that. I will drink the tea tonight (and probably wake up at 2 am!)

The day wasn't bad at all. I was in better spirits than I had been in ages and it felt good for people to notice that I have trimmed down and look healthier. I might even be motivating some people to do the cleanse! I packed up my lemonade and took it with me. I only took half of it because I didn't want to have to go on the way home either!

At lunch I went to Whole Foods with a friend because I wanted to pick up some Nutritional Yeast I knew they would have it. It wasn't bad being in there. I didn't look at things and drool or anything. It wasn't hard at all. What was hard was going back to the office and smelling all the food people were heating up for lunch. I don't know who decided to have some cheesy goodness at 4 pm, but I almost ran into the kitchen to steal it from them! It's the first time I really was around people eating and everything smelled good.

I got home and actually had a tiny poo, which was strange. I worried that maybe I had gotten up in the middle of the night and night ate, but I could find any of the usual signs when I searched for them. (Usually, the peanut butter is mysteriously gone.) I guess that was because I had skipped the wash and the tea.

One thing I have noticed is that when I am hungry I crave all the thing that are not good for me. Since I am a meal skipper by nature, it will be very important for me to keep my body fueled so that I don't fall into bad habits! Once I had the other half of my lemonade I was fine.

I am feeling pretty good about myself for making this far and will feel even better when I finish and can start on my healthy adventure. We really intend to change our eating habits and eat as healthily as we can. That doesn't mean I am still not having that quesadilla a week from tomorrow. Come hell or high water, we are having Mexican that day with all is cheesy, fatty goodness!