The Action Plan: Day 4

This was what I ended up eating the rest of day 3:

• Blueberry mint smoothie
• This was a great smoothie. First I used my juicer and juiced two peeled cara cara oranges and ½ organic lemon (with peel). There was so much juice that I didn't need to add water to the smoothie. I blended the juice with the rest of the ingredients. YUMMY!
• Macadamia nuts
• I didn’t have any trail mix left but I had a small bag of macadamia nuts. It was an easy grab when I was packing my lunch for the day.
• Leftover cauliflower rice stir fry
• Was just as good as the night before!
• Vanilla Rooibos Tea
• This is one of my favorite tea flavors by Starbucks. It's caffeine free and tastes great without adding any creamers or sugars.
• Sweet potato chips
• I made these last night using my new spiral vegetable slicer. They were a great snack.
• Leftover French lentil salad
• Lots of water

I have made it to day 4 and honestly, it has been touch and go, especially last night. I have definitely been feeling some of the common side effects of a detox: foggy head and achy joints and muscles. But they come in short waves; sometimes for just a few minutes and other times for half an hour or more. It's the strangest thing because when the wave passes, I feel great! Everything else seems to be functioning just fine. And my skin! OMG my skin. I need to write an entire blog on skin and the things I’ve gone through. But if vanity is strictly what you’re going for then do this Action Plan because I cannot remember the last time my skin has been this clear. True story on that one.

But I digress… I want to talk about the detox symptoms so that people know what to expect. I wish I could better articulate what my head feels like because it's not a headache and it’s not painful. I don't have any trouble concentrating or thinking clearly. I just feel blah. Last night was probably the worst of it. I was sitting on my couch and I just felt yucky. I have read that massaging the lymph nodes helps to get the toxins out so I decided to try out this thing called dry brushing. I first read about in a book called Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. In her words:

"Dry brushing loosens dead cells, stimulates acupressure points, tickles your chi, massages your meridians, moves the lymph, helps reduce CELLULITE, stimulates your immune system, wakes up circulation and makes your skin soooo soft and velvety!"

That all sounds like good stuff, right? It’s basically exfoliating your skin and at the same time massaging your body to improve the flow… Afterwards, I took a nice hot shower and it seemed to the do trick. The foggy blah feeling was gone and I felt like a million bucks going to bed.

I know everyone will have a different reactions to this cleanse. It all depends on where you’re starting from. For me, I managed to cut out my caffeine addiction a couple years age. So I knew caffeine headaches were not going to be an issue for me. But the foggy brain feeling really peaked my curiosity. What was causing me to have these small waves of “blah?” What’s going on up in my head?? I did tons of online research to try and figure out exactly what causes the foggy brain feeling (it's the nerd in me to always ask the how and why). I found an online article that went into great detail on the different causes for a foggy brain, everything from psychological causes to cancer to bowel toxicity to misalignment of the spine. I thought it was an interesting read to share.

So far on day 4, the foggy brain situation has lifted and overall I feel pretty good. I should mention that I have not felt hungry, deprived or starving at all. And I’ve only eaten the recommended meals and snacks. Thoughts of sugary snacks still enter my mind but they're not maddening like on day 2. I think I had about 4 different opportunities to eat sugary snacks at work yesterday:
1. Birthday cake for the secretary
2. Brownies in the break room
3. Bacon caramel cupcakes in my managers office
4. Publix soft cookies in one of my meetings
And I didn’t have any of it. So that’s a mini victory for me! I wanted a bacon caramel cupcake like no other because they were made by a girl in my office who does some professional baking on the side. But I stood strong. If I make it to day 21, maybe I’ll experiment with making a cleaner version J