ExamineHealth

 
We made it 28 days and truthfully I learned an awful lot. I have lots of new things that I want to tell you about, and will be in the next couple of weeks. The whole experience was quite enlightening. I can't say that I've ever done that intensive of a focus on my nutrition and my health in general. Sure, I've focused on gaining muscle mass, or dieting to drop fat, or training for an athletic event. However, I can't help feeling like those were all misguided efforts now. The way of looking at health and nutrition that Scott introduced me to makes so much sense, that it really provides you with an AH-HA! moment regarding the rest of your nutritional choices.

I think that the biggest thing that I learned is that I don't need to have meat three times a day. Looking back, I don't really know where that belief came from originally, probably my bodybuilding days. I used to go to fairly extensive lengths to ensure that I was getting at least three servings of animal protein each day. This drove my meat intake more than my enjoyment of meat. I had convinced myself that I needed meat in my meals to get full from them.

And it really didn't take any huge change in thinking, or direct effort to reverse this belief. Going through this program and cutting meat from my diet for 4 weeks, demonstrated to me that I don't need meat in my diet. Interestingly, this lesson didn't come from any huge change, but in the realization of how much stayed the same when I cut meat out. My energy levels stayed up, my head stayed clear, and my muscle mass didn't suffer at all. The only explanation is that my previously held thoughts about how much meat I needed were wrong.

In fact, the biggest thing I noticed while doing this cleanse were my lack of cleanse 'symptoms'. I found that this cleanse was really quite easy to do, and I didn't get sick, or experience any intense cravings which can sometimes be the result of embarking on a cleansing protocol. Megan experienced more symptoms than I did, getting a few upset stomachs and headaches. I got a couple of my standard headaches, and while they did last longer than normal, since I was abstaining from any painkillers, they weren't any more severe than normal. The only minor symptom I experienced was about 2.5 weeks in, I had a metallic taste in my mouth whenever I ate anything. This lasted for several days and ruined the flavor of the foods I was eating. It was annoying and inconvenient at worst, and didn't last long. I'm told that this is a fairly common cleansing symptom, and indicates toxins being expelled from my tongue.

The toughest thing about the cleanse was eating out. There really aren't many restaurants that provide good options for those who are avoiding any kind of meat or flour. The flour was the tough thing. You'd be surprised at how pervasive that ingredient is, even at healthy or vegetarian restaurants. We did find a couple of good meals around Denver, but generally speaking, eating out was painful.

On the contrary, while eating at home, we ate like kings. The recipes that come with Scott's book were delicious and we had more food options than we knew what to do with. It introduced us to vegetarian cooking and we're integrating it into our regular lifestyle even post-cleanse.

I think that was one of the biggest things that I took away from this experience. I had never had much exposure to vegetarian cooking, but it can be really delicious. Many of the meals and eating habits that we learned while on the cleanse, we decided to keep up with beyond the end of the cleanse. Even though we're slowing integrating flour and meat back into our diets, we're much more conscious of those items in our meals now, and are going to moderate their intake. I don't like putting too many rules around what I can eat and can't eat, but it's refreshing to KNOW what the healthy choices are so that you can be aware and make educated decisions on what you consume.

I highly recommend this cleanse to anyone who is interested in eating healthier and resolving annoying symptoms that have plagued them for too long. Especially stomach and skin symptoms, they are particularly affected by our diet and changes to what we eat can have a profound impact.

There was so much more that I discovered during this cleanse that I want to share with you, but in an effort to keep these articles in digestible chunks, I'll be breaking them out into separate articles. So stay tuned to learn more! The best way to follow these writings at this time are via the RSS feed, it will make sure that you get new articles as they are announced. I'm working on getting a mailing list service set up so that you can subscribe via email, but it's not quite ready yet.

As always, feel free to leave comments if you have any questions or advice for others.