Raw Food Cleanse

How is everyone’s Thursday? I can’t believe this week is almost over I feel like it is just getting started! In an effort to start 2011 off right and continue improving my health I decided to do a raw food cleanse to reset my body, boost my energy and improve my digestion. I have wanted to do a raw cleanse for awhile but the fact that I am no longer a procrastinator forced me to buckle down and accept the challenge.

I have had this book, The Raw Food Cleanse on my shelf for awhile but had never taken the time to sit down and read it. After pouring through the pages last night I realized raw food is extremely approachable and figured using this book as a guide I would give it a try! It took some convincing to get my protein/cheese addict boyfriend on board but he agreed to a three day all raw detox ! We made our shopping list and headed to Kroger and Whole Foods to pick up everything we would need for the weekend!

We piled unsweetened vanilla almond milk, lemons, spinach, bean sprouts, oranges, avocados, basil, raw cashews, raw almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, tomatoes, carrots, and portobello mushrooms into our cart.

We also picked up frozen blueberries, raw pine nuts, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, celery, zucchini, mixed greens, green onions, kale, parsley, and hemp seeds to prepare for our raw food journey. All this beautiful, raw produce had me excited!

When we returned I started my day with a beautiful green smoothie loaded with spinach, coconut oil, dried coconut, almond milk, frozen bananas, and flax. Dutch was a little skeptical of the fact that his shake contained no protein and ate the coconut on top of mine to make up for his “need of extra calories”. After breakfast I got to work making some raw almond butter, nourish bars, raw cashew cheese, and almond cacao truffles for dessert tonight. (ill post those recipes later)

Lunch was a large mixed greens salad loaded with nuts, spiralized zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, and avocado. Delicious and quite filling I was bouncing off the walls with energy! I also snacked on almonds, pumpkin seeds, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes throughout the day to keep me from getting too hungry. I decided to opt out of a hard gym workout and chose to do a light 2o minute yoga video to get my body moving, but not drain my energy.

Here are some of my goals for this cleanse:

1. learn how to incorporate more raw food and recipes into my life

2. gain more energy and refresh my body

3. become more aware

4.cut back on coffee and increase tea consumption

5. improve digestion

I am pretty excited to see some changes over the next three days and am hoping this will help me begin to incorporate more raw into my diet long term. I’ll be posting regularly to share the details of my experience, I hope to provide some healthy inspiration as you all begin your new year.

Time to get started on dinner i’m making raw zucchini pasta with pesto i’ll be back with recipes and pictures later Enjoy your evening.