Diet
Detox Diaries: My Three Weeks on "Clean"
Diet
Detox Diaries: My "Crazy, Sexy Diet"
Can a chai-obsessed, meat-loving writer become a green juice-drinking vegan for 21 days in order to detox her body? Find out
The prep phase
Like any good detox, Carr recommends I slowly wean myself off foods that are off-limits on her plan: caffeine, wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, eggs, and meat. Ideally, I'd take a couple weeks to slowly cut these foods out of my diet so that Day 1 of my detox isn't so shocking -- both physically and emotionally.I mostly followed the prep period of this plan but to be honest, if you're starting out with a relatively healthy diet -- and you're not totally addicted to caffeine -- you can jump right into Carr's 21-day "adventure cleanse" (as she likes to call it in her book) without a whole lot of prep work. Some things I do recommend you get in place before you start:
• Buy a juicer. And take the scary-looking thing out of the box so you can test 'er out. When it comes to juicers, you've got a few options, which I'll go into in more detail later.
• Rid your pantry of junk. Is it heartbreaking to toss all of that delicious food? You bet. But I'm telling you -- if those chocolate covered raisins are in your pantry, and the frozen pizza is sitting on the shelf in your freezer, you will reach for them in a moment of weakness. And those moments of weakness will happen.
• Stock your pantry with "Crazy, Sexy, Diet" staples. You'll get handy lists of foods, as well as recipes, in the book. But here's the rundown of the staples that will get me through this detox: brown rice cakes, almond butter, agave nectar, steel cut oatmeal, organic nuts, organic raisins, avocados, every kind of organic vegetable and fruit you can imagine, tofu, and tempeh.
SEE NEXT PAGE: My starting point
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