A Cleansing Kind of Day

Today was day one of my Whole Living Action Plan cleanse ... and the timing was probably ideal considering the first thing D says to me in the morning is, "Honey, are you retaining water?" While I loved the honesty, I don't think I needed the public announcement. Yes, I could tell that for some reason my morning water retention was a little higher than normal.

So, because, the cleanse provides you a few meal options, you get to choose the days you enjoy the food. Originally, I wanted to start with a grapefruit ginger juice ... alas, the grapefruits were not good (confession, they were from two weeks ago, and we had used the peels for something else.) So, needless to say, my cleanse was not starting on the right foot when I had to toss the grapefruit out ... so I quickly switched to the green machine smoothie. When making a smoothie that's first two ingredients are lettuce and kale ... I'm not quite sure how long you have to puree it to get it truly smooth. Whatever the answer is ... I definitely did not puree it long enough ... it was clumpy and I had to chew my smoothie. I did re-puree it, but I still did not find my ultimate smoothness. The taste was what I expected ... but I knew I was definitely in a "cleanse territory."


Picture from the Whole Living website

I spent my morning (thankfully it was a holiday) preparing my snacks for the week. One was a fruit and nut bit (which I will confess, may have me no longer buying Larabars, because they tasted as good, but I can customize the flavors!) and a pistachio butter-filled date. Both super yummy, paleo-inspired snacks that made me think that perhaps this cleanse might not be so bad.

Lunch came around before I knew it since I had spent the morning pureeing and mixing my snacks. I was ready to conquer the butternut squash soup -- because, frankly, it is one of my favorite things. However, I have known good butternut squash soup and I have definitely endured bad versions. So, I wasn't sure what I was going to face when it came to this, since it was supposed to be all detoxing and cleanse-like. The soup was amazing!! It delivered on everything I love about butternut squash soup - I settled in for a delicious lunch and new promise came to light for this cleanse.

For dinner, I was originally going to do a steamed broccoli dish, but when I was looking at the menus, I saw how long the beet soup I was supposed to have later in the week took to make ... and while D has nicely offered to make my meals along with his and the boys meals, I couldn't ask him to labor over this soup. So, soup for dinner, it was. I am not a fan of beets, so the roasted garlic and beet soup was something I anticipated having to choke down similar to my morning smoothie. Roasting beets and garlic definitely made the kitchen full of aroma ... and roasting beets definitely ensures pink tinted fingers when you peel them afterwards. The soup was so much better than I could have imagined, the taste of beets was so subtle, and the garlic and splash of lemon really mellowed it out. 

So, after Day 1, I am feeling good, but of course, Day 1 was at home and I had the luxury of taking my sweet time and making my food. Tomorrow, Day 2, is at the office and that will present some new challenges. Lunch will be easy, because I am going to enjoy the butternut squash soup again ... but I have to make sure I make a smoothie I can muster down in the morning before I go off to work ... that will be the real challenge.

Now, it's off to relax, unwind and enjoy a hot cup of herbal tea and read a little George R. R. Martin before I make sure I fall asleep to make sure I get enough hours in.