As I mentioned yesterday, I began the Clean Gut Cleanse over the weekend. I read Dr. Junger’s other book Clean, a couple of years ago and attempted to do that cleanse. The two liquid meals a day made it really hard for me to do – I lasted five days. It makes sense to me that what we eat can make a big difference in how we feel; I’m excited to see if the changes makes a difference. Junger believes that many of our health issues begin in our gut, including: heart disease, cancer, depression, allergies, autoimmune disease, back pain, and infertility.
Here are some of the keys to the cleanse:
- Eliminate Toxic triggers including: gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol
- Try to maintain a diet of 80% veggies & 20% proteins
- Don’t pair animal proteins with vegetable proteins
- Take the following supplements: an herbal antimicrobial; saccharomyces boulardii; multi-strain probiotic; magnesium; digestive enzymes; monolaurin; and B Vitamin Complex
- Have a liquid breakfast
- Lunch should be the largest meal of the day
- Dinner should usually consist of a large salad (with 20% protein)
- Allow 12 hours between dinner and breakfast the next morning
- Take a 10 minute walk after dinner
Three weeks on the program is supposed to help heal your gut and reboot your system. After 21 days on the program, you begin reintroducing toxic triggers one at a time to see how each of them affect your body.
For the first two days, I suffered from a headache and was pretty tired; I think this was due to the lack of carbs. I’ve been trying to eat something every few hours. I felt much better yesterday. I spent a lot of the weekend searching for and pinning recipes that fall within the plan. I’ve eaten more cauliflower than I probably ate in all of 2013 and am learning about dairy-free cheeses. I have no idea if the cleanse will work its magic on me, but I suspect that by forcing myself out of my comfort zone and experimenting with new foods (like the spicy baked Tex-Mex meatballs pictured above). I will at the very least have an interesting experience and some interesting stories to share.
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