My 5 Day Detox

February 2021 was a busy one. We finished our kitchen renovation, I worked just about nonstop (12-16 hour work days on average... all self-inflicted since I'm currently Full-time Freelance and schedule myself...but that's a whole other story...) and I turned 30.

It was a terrific, hectic, mostly good, very busy month

Well, as you can imagine, with a busy work schedule, chaos closing up a home renovation, and a big birthday - there was a very low emphasis on health and fitness. I didn't think ahead on food. Grocery shopping was minimal, if at all. We just finished our kitchen- was not used to having a kitchen available. I was stress eating cheesecake and chocolate the first week of March, working too long, not sleeping enough, constantly craving sweets, feeling bloated, not exercising... you get the point.

I needed a reset.

In the past, I've done 28 day meal plans, or a 3 day juice reset. I'll write about those another time, but to summarize: I feel great after intense focus on what I'm eating. Better energy, clearer skin, all the wonderful perks of eating right. I've since given the juicer to a friend (love the juice, hate the mess and storage... still kind of regret giving it up at times) BUT I wanted to do something similar, and I've heard of online companies that will send you all the food you need for detox style stuff.

One of the big takeaways I learned from my juice days: it's SO MUCH liquid to consume in a day, AND I missed chewing. (weird sentiment, but if you've tried it, you know)

Anyway... I bought the first online detox I came across with good reviews. The company I got mine off of was "Your Super" Their story seemed great, the focus on the food, etc. I used a discount code, and clicked order without fully looking at what I was getting.

I did this for two reasons:

1) If I hesitated, I knew I would chicken out in doing it

2) If I over-researched, I'd overwhelm myself with options

When the box arrived:

I initially thought "well this is smaller than expected for five days worth of food" and when I opened it, I realized... I did not read what I was getting ahead of time.

What showed up was a few canisters of different powders, and two informational booklets. I still needed to grocery shop for it, which is exactly what I thought I was paying for. After some internal frustration at myself, and a few days of avoiding the grocery store. I hyped myself up, and went grocery shopping.

The timing wasn't ideal, as I went grocery shopping right before a big storm hit our town, so the stores were pretty picked over, but I substituted a few similar items.

Day 1: Monday

Breakfast was a smoothie that included mangoes. I do not like mangoes, but was pleasantly surprised at the smoothie. Not bad.

Lunch was a big green salad with green dressing. The included ingredient that I generally avoid: avocado. Managed to eat most of the salad, it was huge, and the avocado could still be tasted, but wasn't terrible.

Dinner

I was really tired and didn't make it, just tried to get some sleep.

Overall thoughts ending the day: too tired to think straight. Daylight savings?

Day 2: Tuesday

Breakfast another smoothie- not bad,

Lunch was a salad with a Dijon dressing, and I'm a big fan of dijon so it was pretty tasty.

Dinner was a dark purple smoothie- largely blueberries, sweet and tasty, a very intimidatingly intense color though. Looked like something a wicked witch would force upon victims.

Overall thoughts ending the day: a lot of measuring and cutting, but things are pretty easy to make and eat. I'm definitely picking up some skills on how to eat healthier, and easier, on a daily basis.

Day 3: Wednesday

Breakfast another green smoothie- not bad, pretty refreshing for a morning smoothie actually. A good amount of greens to start the day, and the energy I got from this smoothie was more consistent and less jittery than coffee, so big bonus there.

Lunch was a big salad that had an almond butter dressing, which I was very skeptical of the salad while I was making it, but it was really good. It had an overwhelming amount of vegetables, but I ended up eating the whole thing.

Dinner was a smoothie that had strawberries and banana in it, along with other things, but you can't go wrong with a strawberry banana combo

Overall thoughts ending the day: I feel like belly bloat is going down, but I might just be in my head about this one, either way, I've got a lot of energy from the increase in vegetables.

Day 4: Thursday

Breakfast I mistakenly read Day 3's morning smoothie recipe, which turned out in my favor since day 4 had mango and avocado in it, but this smoothie was just as good the second day in a row.

Lunch they didn't have kidney beans originally listed on the grocery list, and we never found pumpkin seeds at the store and both ingredients were in the salad, so I made day 3's salad instead.

Dinner

Another berry smoothie- it's a really nice to end the day with fruit smoothies.

Overall thoughts ending the day: I really wanted a pizza at the end of the day, but I'm committed to finishing this since I started it.

Day 5: Friday

Breakfast if you guessed a smoothie, you were right. I made one of the other options instead of the designated day 5 smoothie. The one I made had spinach, orange, mangoes and it was really good. Definitely adding that one to a regular rotation

Lunch was a salad that had some sweet potato in it, which was a welcome change-up.

Dinner

Another fruity-berry smoothie

Overall thoughts ending the day: Today was really just getting bored with the "smoothie, salad, smoothie" repetition, but it's the last day!

Thoughts on the whole week:

• I'm less sassy about the fact that I still had to go grocery shopping

• I really liked starting my day with smoothies, and may continue that more consistently going forward. You just feel so much better about yourself if you force yourself to drink 3 servings of veggies to start the day...

• I now better understand how to build a salad from scratch, I've generally relied on bagged versions from the grocery store

• I can't really speak to the power of the powders, but they must be doing something right, because I definitely feel much better at the end of the week

• I learned what tahini was (a sesame seed paste) and it's pretty tasty

• Stomach bloat has gone down considerably

Again, this was intended to be more of a reset, and not seen as some diet thing. I just needed to stop craving sugar so much, and force myself to make some food. I'm happy I did it, even though smelling my husband's pizza was tempting on weeknights... BUT I'd say the biggest thing I learned from this 5 day experience is how to use veggies more, and that's not a bad skill to learn.