Time to Get Clean

Now that graduation is over, and we've passed by Christmas and New Years (both of which were pretty lovely, btw), it's time to get rid of the crap I've been eating for the last 5 months.   Thanks to my hectic schedule I've regained 10 lbs that I'd previously worked so hard to lose, and I gotta get it back off.  I feel absolutely gross, just bloated and sluggish.  But all things are good.  I was offered a job by the agency I've been interning with, and got the salary I had been hoping for, so heading into 2013 should be pretty good unless taxes screw us over (which I'm pretty much expecting at this point).

I was at work a few weeks ago, and mentioned to a co-worker how gross I've felt since the beginning of fall semester.  Long story short, she and I decided we were going to do a cleanse starting after New Years.  She told me she does one every January to restart and reboot her body, and it isn't a crazy "lemon juice and cayenne pepper" cleanse.  It's more about eating simple and wholesome foods, limiting intake and trying to cleanse the body of toxins (this is based off the book Clean by Alejandro Junger).  We start the first phase tomorrow, and hit the cleanse starting next Monday.  I'm really excited, but nervous, and am looking forward to feeling better in a short month's time.

I'm suppose to keep a food journal while on the cleanse, to monitor how I'm feeling and handling it.  So I thought it'd be a good way to get back into blogging too if I just use this to write about the cleanse.  Two mini-resolutions in one!

Today is my "last hurrah" day.  If Matt starts feeling better (he has been a bit under the weather since before the holidays) we were going to hit up Old Chicago for dinner, have a pizza and a beer or two, then it's all over till January 27.  No caffeine, no alcohol, no junk food.  This week is the "Elimination" phase, where you are supposed to start limiting the bad foods and substituting with better foods.  For example, this week I will switch from my typical frozen lunches at work to a simple green salad with quinoa, walnuts, and chopped cucumbers.  Dinners will be a chicken breast or fillet of fish with simple seasonings, brown or wild rice, and roasted or steamed veggies.  Snacks will be pumpkin seeds or almonds and fresh fruits.  Since I haven't been much of a breakfast person (though I really tried when I was on my diet last year) I'll be starting with an Almond Energy Shake.

Monday we dive into the full cleanse, which will be a smoothie/shake for breakfast, a simple lunch, and a veggie soup or shake or dinner.  I was able to download a menu plan off the Clean website for those three weeks, so it'll be some fun new recipes to try.  My hope is to keep a bunch of them afterward and work them into our normal eating schedule.

So there we go!  A new start to a new year.  I'll do my best to keep up on this, so feel free to send questions or comments to keep me going :)