Trent McNair
If you have been following along, Linda and I have been doing a 5-day vegan cleanse. Previous journal entries can be found here, here (day 1), and here (day 3). Unfortunately, you are missing some entries from myself due to the fact that I had to leave the realm of cyberspace to attend a funeral with family. But this is a normal thing in our daily lives; speed bumps due to schedules, emergencies, and travel are all factors that affect anyones diet. Luckily I saw the trip coming and was able to prepare myself for it with the food I would need for the 2 day trip (thank you Linda for all your hard work in the kitchen!).
Preparation for each meal is probably the one big drawback here. It takes an exhorbitant amount of time to prep your meals. Unless you don’t mind the monotony of sticking to 2 or 3 dishes, this will take up time. We spent probably an average of 2 hours a day prepping and cleaning. No joke. If you are just starting out on your endeavor, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to do this.
So, the big question; did I stick to it? I did! And how I felt as the days progressed was a marked difference to how I felt normally. I would wake up refreshed when I usually awakened tired. Coffee had been eliminated from my mornings but it really wasn’t the needed crutch to getting my day started like it used to be. This alone was something of a shock. For those of you who think that they need a cup of coffee to get through the day, I say you are wrong. It’s really not that big of a deal, and if you are like me and drank coffee throughout the day, you are going to find that you feel energy and clarity that you thought could only come from a hot cup ‘o joe (which in my case was a short-lived sensation because I drank so much coffee).
I also lost over 6 pounds in those 5 days!
Conclusions
For me, there are so many pros to a cleanse like this. I feel better. Linda and family say that my skin looks better. I lost weight, most of it probably loaded with the toxins I accumulated over 40 years of abuse. My mental clarity and energy have returned to levels I vaguely remember having 20 years ago. And most importantly, I realized a level of willpower that I didn’t realize that I had. At Day 4 I really wanted to throw in the towel and join my family in heaping plates of lasagna and garlic bread soaked in butter, but I didn’t. And I didn’t die. It was ok. And it made me feel so awesome to say no to these urges, despite how hard it was at times.
I broke my cleanse about 14 hours early since we had company come over Friday afternoon. I BBQ’d chicken and Linda made a delicious whole wheat pasta salad with a vinaigrette dressing. Afterwards we made a small bonfire and had smores and coffee. And I felt like a bag of hammered crap afterwards. I had tons of gas, bloating and overall complete lethargy. And the cup of coffee (sweetened with agave nectar instead of refined sugar), kept me up until 2 a.m.
So now, Linda and I are making new adjustments to our menu – discussing ways to only eat local, sustainable meats on less nights per week, and sticking to a high fiber natural vegetable diet in all of our other meals. Who knows, I might find that I begin to eliminate meats altogether! I’ve decided to only drink one cup of coffee per day, and stop eating dairy as much as possible.
So that leads to my next journey; How hard is it to find local, sustainable meats? Stay tuned!
Tags: cleanse, diet, sustainable, vegan
