The past few weeks have seen me consume more sugary baked goods, drink more “summer beers,” and dive into ice cream with a vengeance – it IS summer after all. So I decided to clean it up for a few days…just to see how I felt. Nothing dramatic. Nothing akin to a full cleanse (as I’ve said before, I don’t really believe in cleanses). Just a few tweaks based on Dr. Alejandro Junger’s book Clean.
Dr. Junger is director of integrative medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. His approach to what I call health-supportive eating – allowing our bodies the room it needs to heal itself with the food and lifestyle choices we make – makes sense to me. Here’s what I did and what I discovered.
I followed what Dr. Junger calls the “Elimination Diet.” It’s a precursor to his full cleanse, a diet that prepares your body for the more extreme – but still not all that extreme – Clean cleanse. (Just FYI: If I were to do an actual cleanse, this is the one I would do. It still allows for solid food. I like solid food.) These are the “rules”:
I eat this way about 80% of the time anyway. My goal was to try to get to 100% for at least a few days. The big “subtractions” for me: oats, tomatoes, corn, chocolate, coffee, eggs/egg whites. The toughest thing to let go of was my morning oatmeal, and I replaced coffee with green tea (sorry, Dr. Junger…couldn’t ditch caffeine altogether).
My food diary is at the bottom of this post for those who want more details. But here are my discoveries:
- I need grains in my diet to feel full…and I might even need gluten. Oats don’t have gluten in them naturally, but most store-bought oats are processed in facilities that also process wheat products, so they’re prone to gluten cross-contamination. Unless you buy “gluten-free oats,” you get gluten in your bowl of oatmeal. Maybe my body needs a little gooey gluten to feel full. As nourishing and filling as they are, quinoa and brown rice just didn’t satisfy me the way oatmeal does…unless I ate a lot more of them, as I did on days 3 and 4. Having said that, I feel better when I don’t eat a lot of gluten. Will have to find a balance here. (If you have any suggestions, leave them for me in the comments. Oh, and if you have celiac disease or are gluten-intolerant, read this article about oats.)
- I can do without coffee, but I did miss the jolt – and a serious boost in productivity and focus – I get from my morning cup of joe. Green tea helped my focus, just not as dramatically as coffee. And I will ALWAYS love the taste and smell of coffee. Funny thing though: I stopped this little experiment two days ago, and I’m still opting for green tea in the morning. Hmmm…
- I really do feel better without a bunch of dairy in my diet. I don’t eat that much dairy, to begin with, but cutting it out entirely made me feel less sluggish for sure.
- Sugar…I still eat too much, even though I opt for “gentler” sweeteners like agave. I felt better without any refined sugar this week, although I did have mad sugar cravings for the first couple of days. (I blame last weekend’s ice cream and cookie episode in Cape Cod.) By day 4, fruit alone did the trick.
- I eat a LOT of tomatoes! (I love salsa.) It was tough not having them, even for a few days. This was a little surprising.
Bottom line? Experimenting is really the only way to figure out what works best for your body. It’s what I support my clients to do and can be a fun process if approached with curiosity instead of fear. (You know…the fear that keeps me from trying a full cleanse? Maybe next year…)
What food experiments have you tried? Share your discoveries in the comments.
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Lara’s “Clean” Food Diary:
Day 1
- Breakfast: brown rice with almond milk, blueberries, almond, agave, and cardamom (I ran out of cinnamon, which I normally put in my oatmeal. Cardamom was a surprisingly good substitution.)
- Lunch: raw spinach salad with sunflower seeds, avocado, blueberries, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt
- Dinner: lentil salad (the dressing recipe came from Clean and included olive oil, lime juice, turmeric, cumin, salt, pepper), brown rice, raw spinach
- Snacks: roasted almonds, apple, avocado slice
- Liquids: green tea, water, Naked “Green Monster” Smoothie
- Mood/Cravings/Hunger Level: Was hungry pretty soon after breakfast – had some almonds. Was hungry again pretty soon after lunch, but was okay after I had more water – didn’t have an afternoon snack because of meetings. Mood was fine, although a little crabby when I didn’t have a snack and was particularly hungry before dinner. Slight headache and hazy feeling in the morning.
Day 2
- Breakfast: smoothie with blueberries, mango, almond butter, agave, cardamom
- Lunch: chicken breast with lemon juice and salt, steamed broccoli, lentils
- Dinner: raw spinach with lentil salad and quinoa (olive oil and sea salt added to quinoa)
- Dessert: quinoa with blueberries, raspberries, almond milk, agave
- Snacks: apple, almonds, Blueberry Muffin Larabar
- Liquids: green tea, water, iced chamomile mint tea
- Mood/Cravings/Hunger Level: Starving all day. Craving oatmeal, grains, sugar (could be more stress-related though…busy day). A little crabby and was sad later in the afternoon. Didn’t have headache this morning or a particularly hazy feeling…hmmm…interesting. Finally felt satisfied after “dessert quinoa.”
Day 3
- Breakfast: warm quinoa with almond milk, blueberries, raspberries, walnuts, agave
- Lunch: smoked salmon over raw arugula and beets
- Dinner: lentils, spinach and mushroom salad with oil and vinegar
- Snacks: Blueberry Muffin Larabar, two bowls of quinoa with fruit and nuts
- Liquids: green tea, water, coconut water
- Mood/Cravings/Hunger Level: Less hungry after breakfast, but have been hungry pretty much all day since about 11a. Energetic this morning, but low energy and a little sad in the afternoon. Craving grains. Was really hungry still after dinner – had about 3/4 cup brown rice with almond milk + fruit + almond and felt satisfied.
Day 4
- Breakfast: 1/2 Cashew Cookie Larabar before spin class; 1/2 after; warm brown rice with almond milk, berries, walnuts, agave, cardamom
- Lunch: monkfish fillet with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper on a bed of lentils; spinach and mushroom salad
- Dinner: chicken with sautéed spinach, heirloom tomato salad with peaches and ricotta (was at a friend’s house for dinner…couldn’t very well tell him “hold the tomatoes” on the tomato salad)
- Snacks: almonds; brown rice with almonds, berries, and agave; peach
Liquids: water, green tea, herbal tea - Mood/Cravings/Hunger Level: Definitely less hungry today in general. Mood is pretty good too, better than yesterday. Not craving sugar nearly as much
xo,
