Spring Detox

The hubby & I decided to do a spring cleanse for the whole month of May.  We're avoiding The Big 5: animal products (that's right, vegan), caffeine, alcohol, gluten & sugar.  For me, since I already limit caffeine & alcohol and avoid gluten, I just had to eliminate sugar & animal products.  For my hubby it's been much harder!  I wanted to do this not only as a cleanse, but because my sugar consumption had crept up and I knew I needed to limit it.  Especially since I'm on this new treatment regimen.  No sense trying to kill the bacteria all the while feeding them sugar to make them thrive!

Surprisingly it's been easier that I expected!  I thought I'd miss cheese.  I LOVE CHEESE!  But, it's been quite easy.  Don't get me wrong - eggs & cheese might be the first things I add back in, but I think there are lots of this way of eating that I will keep.  My veggie intake is way up.  My cravings are way down.  I don't even want decaf coffee anymore.  I don't want dessert after dinner.  It's amazing.  It forces me to cook and I've come up with some great new recipes to add to the repertoire that my kids love, too!  Vegan bolognese sauce with tempeh and grated veggies has been a hit with the whole family, as are black bean patties.  Black bean patties were not a big stretch for my kids since they love chickpea-corn patties.  Baby N's favorite food is black beans, so we just combined the two and both the boys love them.

I find myself skipping less meals and as such, eating fewer snacks.  Breakfast is a protein smoothie every day, which keeps me satisfied all morning.  Lunch is typically raw veggies & hummus or nut butter of some kind.  Fruit & nuts are snacks if I need them.  Dinner is soup or some other delectable vegan entree.  As we transition out of the cleanse, I'll probably take a more flexitarian approach, but want to keep the breakfast/lunch habits I've formed & incorporate more & more vegetarian dinners into the mix.  ( sort of Vegan until Dinner).  After a month of eating like this, I think even my die hard meat eating husband will welcome meatless meals into the daily mix!