Thank goodness it is FRIDAY!! I am so happy that the weekend is almost hear because this week has been stressful and very tiring and I need a break. If you have been following along the past few Friday's you know that my best friend has been doing the Whole Living cleanse and this is her third and final week! To catch up, you can read
week 1 and
week 2. Enjoy and have a great weekend!!
Whole Living Cleanse: Week 3
Welcome to week 3 of the
Whole Living Cleanse! The end is near and I am so excited to welcome back the array of off-limit foods I have been staying away from for the past three weeks! Some of you may remember from my first post that wholeliving.com includes a bonus week 4. When I started this cleanse, I had every intention of taking it to the end and doing all four weeks, but I am pretty much done with not eating bread or having coffee, and my willpower is starting to fade. While life is all about eating well, I think you also deserve to eat the foods you love!
Breakfasts this week involved an array of delights: a smoothie one morning, followed by oatmeal the next, and so on. Even though I had the option to have eggs for breakfast this week, I decided against it because I knew I would crave toast or hash browns and that was definitely not happening.
Lunches consisted of quite a bit of gluten free pasta drizzled with various sauces and veggies: broccoli almond pesto, butternut squash, avocadoes…
Dinners were excellent and most like what I cook on a normal basis. Quinoa, gluten free pasta, and the big excitement: veggie burgers (bunless, of course)! I do plan to make a few of the Whole Living week 3 soups this weekend (specifically the Kale, White Bean and Potato Soup and the Roasted Red Pepper Soup); I simply ran out of time to make them for dinners this week. Nearly all of the dinners I cooked this week are ones I will add to my arsenal of easy, wholesome weeknight recipes, which was really exciting. The veggie burgers are definitely coming back next week with yummy rolls and a bit of mayonnaise with the lettuce and tomato topping!
But, I do have a confession to make- I couldn't completely follow the cleanse diet this week, and had to break my routine for one meal on Monday. Due to a personal family matter, my husband and I had to travel out of town for an overnight trip, and it is obviously very difficult to make healthy choices while on the road. I had packed us lunch, a snack, and breakfast for the next morning so that we wouldn't have to eat at thruway stops, but I couldn't get dinner together and figured we would have to rely on our hosts. I was hoping there would be some meatless, wheat-less options and didn’t worry too much about it. Well, there weren't. I ended up starving myself through dinner with some wilted romaine lettuce and balsamic vinaigrette while everyone else noshed on yummy baked ziti oozing with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. The next day, still famished, I knew I couldn't put my body through a low cal lunch with a 6-hour car ride home. So, I ate 4 mini sandwich wraps off a party tray from Wegmans. They had wheat in them, probably a slice of cheese, and turkey. I hated breaking the cleanse, but I really didn't have a choice and luckily I am not gluten intolerant so I had to remind myself it was okay to eat wheat and I would be doing so again in six days after the cleanse ended. Nevertheless, it was disappointing, but sometimes that is life. Also, it gave me a bit of comfort to know that Lindsay, an editor at Whole Living and a fellow cleanser,
also cheated this week; she had a cup of coffee.
While I don’t know of anyone who is allergic to gluten AND dairy, I certainly know people who have at least one food allergy. Among other things, this cleanse has given me a heightened sensitivity to the food allergies that people live with. It is very hard to eat at restaurants or at a friend’s house when certain ingredients are forbidden! I am thankful every day that I can freely enjoy wheat, dairy, nuts, and soy.
Other than that, this week was good, and most like my normal diet. Having an egg on top of
my dinner last night tasted like Christmas. Mostly the cleanse has helped me think about my relationship with food and how valuable colorful fruits and vegetables are to a healthy diet. However, buttermilk pancakes will be gleefully served at my house this Sunday morning.
Thank you so much for reading and following me on this journey!
