Reboot Results

Well, I did it. A week of Rebooting. Day 6 was actually so fantastic, I considered staying on my cleanse. Day 7 I started with juicing and later in the day I ate lightly. Now, I'm juicing in the mornings for breakfast and eating lunch and dinner.

I have to say that I felt a tremendous difference in energy and clarity on the juice cleanse. I notice a tiredness when I eat now, even when I eat good food. Digestion takes a toll. I also noticed what my allergy medications do to me. The first four days I stayed off of them, but by Day 5, when I had to go back to school, the sneezing was building up, so I took a Zyrtec. I was so, so sleepy by the end of the day. The next day I skipped it, and felt wonderful. Oh well, it's only for a season.

I did lose just over 5 pounds and 2 inches over the week, not that that was my primary motivator, but it was a nice side effect. I did take note that I was taking in approximately the same number of calories, which makes me think that while calories count, there is also something marvelous about nutrients, and that a calorie is not just a calorie, in some way unexplained.

One of my main goals was to get as many green leafies in as possible, since I know that is an area of weakness in my diet. Love them as I do, I can only eat so many. I wanted the deep, chlorophyll green, so most of my juices were variations on that theme. Usually the drinks went something like this:

6-8 leaves of kale
2 monster handfuls of spinach
1 cucumber
3-4 stalks of celery
1/4 bunch of parsley
2-4 carrots
2 green apples

Sometimes I changed the green apples for red, or tossed in another. Sometimes I added lemon and ginger, but the ginger was getting to me by the middle of the cleanse. Sometimes I threw in grapes or strawberries, but mostly, I was concentrating on the vegetables. But there was another juice blend that I made a few times that I really, really loved. I would make it in the afternoons and it felt so refreshing to me. The recipe comes from Joe's Rebooting site. Now, I love it because I love grapefruit. If you don't, this won't be for you.

2 red grapefruits (peeled)
2 oranges (peeled)
2 red delicious apples
2 stalks celery
2 handfuls of spinach

Another one that I liked was an orange drink:

7 carrots
1 orange bell pepper
1 pear
2" piece of ginger
1 fennel bulb

I am astonished by the amount of nutrient-rich juice that fed my body last week. And though I'm eating again, and enjoying it, I do miss the clean feeling of juicing. I'll definitely keep the juicing as part of my day, and periodically go back for a short cleanse.