This weekend is my Green Smoothie Cleanse weekend! It actually kinda started Tuesday, which was "vegan" day. Wednesday was grain-free, and Thursday was all raw... which led me to Friday and the beginning of the all-smoothie, all the time weekend.
Since this has been taking up quite a bit of my thought process for the week, I thought I'd talk about it a little bit.
I should begin by saying that as long as I am using ingredients I like in a good combination and blending them up sufficiently, not only do I enjoy green smoothies, but I feel like I'm doing something good for my body and getting some good nutrients and energy for the day when I drink one. I also love that Zeke enjoys them (again, as long as they contain some essential ingredients such as a banana, blueberries, and spinach or kale). I have enjoyed getting the two of us into the habit of each drinking a nutrient rich, calcium rich green smoothie every morning (well, Zeke's 16 oz is stretched between breakfast and a mid-morning snack). So even in preparing for the cleanse, I learned a lot, and I've been inspired to make one major change in our daily eating habits.
The other thing I like about this cleanse is that I'm not starving myself for it... I can eat as many smoothies as I need (which it turns out is about one less than I expected to need, for a total of 4 a day).
Now for my whining! First off, along with the general rule to eat at least three green smoothies a day (and ONLY eating smoothies), the cleanse also has a schedule of other activities that you SHOULD do, including getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking lemon water an hour before the breakfast smoothie, spending time meditating, exercising, etc. HA! This is all the stuff that I sort of laughed at. Sure, without a 15 month old I might be able to dedicate my whole 3 days to this cleanse and force myself to do all this stuff I normally don't do, but... even 8 straight hours of sleep is still unrealistic for me. Still, I tried to do any of the items that seemed reasonable. I even TRIED to get 8 hours of sleep, although my first 2 days of that have been unsuccessful.
But pretty much, aside from eating smoothies, I've only managed to get about 30 minutes of exercise each day, drank plenty of water and herbal tea, and took psyllium before bed. Oh, and I did the dry skin brushing. Yep, that is all. Alas, I do the best I can.
And oh man, I gotta say this green smoothie thing takes more of an investment in TIME and CASH than I imagined. I'm sticking with it and happy to be doing so, but my wallet is hurting... it costs a whole lot more to eat all veggies, fruits, nuts, and superfoods than it does to eat lots of rice, legumes, and beans supplemented with the veggies, fruits, and nuts. And the food prep and smoothie blending both seem to take more time than just cooking up some meals. Sticking with it, but to be honest I'm glad it's only 3 days of smoothies, 5 days of raw total... my wallet couldn't sustain it any more than that. And time... Thursday night I got Chris to help me prep my veggies (washing, cutting, soaking, etc... getting things organized in the fridge so I can just toss stuff in the blender when it's time to make them), and it took the two of us about an hour to do. Then each night I've made two smoothies for the next day's lunch and snack, and THAT has taken about an hour each night. Not to mention I think I'm seriously wearing out my cheap blender.
So those are my main takeaways from this experiment. That doing green smoothies requires more of a time and cash investment that I have on a regular basis. It's more of an upper middle class event, it seems. Even the time and energy investment is a bit more taxing than I like. But as I said, I'm still glad I'm doing it, and I hope it helps me feel better and gets me back in good eating habits overall. And I do love that making one a day for Zeke ensures that he gets the nutrients his needs, even if he feels like being picky over the rest of the day's meals.
3 comments:
It can be expensive to do something really healthy and really powerful for your body- but I think it is well worth the investment. Think of it as an insurance policy :) And yes, it is more expensive than what a normal three days of eating would be, but I also think we've all taken to the idea of 'saving' on food, and this is the last place our budgets should be cut.
Meghan, I agree that it's worth the investment to do something like this for 3 days or a week. I'm just saying for someone like me who is on a pretty strict budget, it's just not sustainable for any longer than that. I couldn't just decide to do a month grain and legume-free to see how I felt, for instance. Our budget just can't handle it! Even moving up to a smoothie each morning is gonna add up, but that's something I think we can manage more long-term.
Great job on the cleanse! We start out every day w/ a green smoothie (including for my 3 kids under age 5)... the most popular is spinach, mango, pineapple, banana, almond milk, with a little OJ concentrate sometimes. I always feel more energetic and healthier :) Good luck! - @DCDietitian (www.BitchinDietitian.com)
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