After holiday parties and family get togethers in Denver and Nebraska, followed by a trip to Mexico, my wife and I decided it would be a good time to take it easy on our bodies for a bit. Late last year we each got a Metagenics 10 day cleanse and decided this would be the perfect time. I’ve done some research before on cleanses, diets, organic food, etc. and I’ve always been a bit wary of an type of “cleanse”, and definitely fad diets. My view of cleanses is that do nothing but strip nutrients from your body and starve you until you lose weight, and are not healthy in the least bit. After reading a bit about the Metagenics cleanse program, and watching a video, we’d thought we’d give it the old college try. Because of my view of typical cleanses, I think the term “cleanse” is a bit misleading for this product. Yes, you will cleanse your body of harmful toxins and potentially lose weight (although it’s not specifically designed for that), but it’s more of a “healthy living guide” to me.
Getting Started
Metagenics provides a shopping list, recipes, and guides to help you eat the best you possibly can while you’re on this cleanse. It’s not meant to starve you, and in fact they say that you shouldn’t go hungry any time during the 10 days. What a relief! We generally try to eat pretty healthy, but we knew that we didn’t have anything in our house that we could eat during the next 10 days. I also know that most diets tend to fall apart because of mindless snacking (at least mine do). I work from home, so I do tend to snack when I need a break from the computer. So, we decided to prepare a shopping list and plan out our meals for the next 4 days. I typically eat around 5 small meals a day, so having healthy foods to snack on is a must. Armed with our shopping list and our best intentions, we headed to Sprouts to get our meals for the next 2-ish weeks.
I can tell you right off the bat that we don’t eat as healthily as we thought! Although I tend to avoid a lot of bread, sugars, and sweet things, most of our food is chock full of chemicals and ingredients that I can’t pronounce. Every item we bought from Sprouts is organic with simple ingredients. No preservatives, no chemicals. This was hard, and took a lot of extra time to find items that I didn’t even know existed, like tahini (sesame butter). Yes, it was a little more expensive than our normal shopping trip. However, we decided that spending a little extra money now to eat healthier will more than likely save us a lot in the future.
First Impressions
I’m excited about the next 10 days. I don’t think that it’s going to be easy, but we bought some really delicious looking food, and we have about 15-20 new recipes to try, which is great! Once we get the hang of what to avoid while shopping, it will get much easier. I’m writing this after a very filling lunch on Day 1 (minestrone, home made hummus with carrots, rice cake with almond butter), and I’m looking forward to an amazing dinner tonight. I’ll update every few days or so with a diary of the ups and downs. After this is over, I’m definitely looking forward to living a healthier life!
*Results may vary from patient to patient