On most Saturday mornings, SWMBO and I enjoy a lie-in. Aware that it is morning, we hover between sleep and wakefulness, listening to the cats scampering on the sun deck outside the bedroom, the interminable chirruping of Playhouse Disney downstairs and the traditional Kiwi weekend chorus of lawn mowers hard at work. No.3 usually makes us a cup of tea which we enjoy while reading a book or chatting about weekend plans before getting up for breakfast.
This morning, however, saw us sitting up in bed trying to read while slowly but surely working our way through swallowing the best part of forty capsules each; a scene so absurd that we turned, looked at each other and burst out laughing. The reason for this unusual activity is that we’re half way through a detox and internal cleanse at the moment, supposedly giving our abused bodies a break in the short breathing space between our Christmas visitors leaving and our late January visitors arriving. It is the first time we have tried this sort of thing so we sought advice from friends who have done a cleansing detox before and have settled on a programme based on herbal products.
The idea is that you prepare for the cleanse over a few days during which you avoid proteins, grains and refined foods. After a couple of days of that, you start taking capsules of four herbal products (anti-inflamatory, high fibre laxative, stimulating laxative and nutritional supplement) while eating meals based on the ‘delicious recipe ideas’ before returning to a normal diet after you’ve finished the capsules.
Though you can spread this programme out over fifty days by taking just 4 capsules twice a day, there’s no way that we can go for a month and a half without bread, pulses, diary products and, in my case, meat. This being so, we decided to go for the ‘power’ cleanse and do whole the thing in 8-10 days. It was only on the fourth morning, when I broke the seal on the containers of capsules, that it dawned on the ‘power’ cleanse option means chugging between 32 and 40 capsules morning and night! Ho hum.
So, for the last five days, breakfasts have been fruit smoothies and lunch and dinner a rotation of vegetable soups and salads. Snacks are made up of fresh or dried fruit or, well, more vegetables. I have to say that I am finding the restrictions of the required diet trying and I have no doubt whatsoever that the lack of stimulants like caffeine and alcohol play a fair part in this. Likewise, the tiredness and the headaches that commonly accompany detox and cleansing only serve to darken my mood further.
However, in the spirit of the venture, we are trying to find new ways to make the allowed foods interesting. Tonight, I made a dish consisting of a bed of cos lettuce, covered with a Roma tomato and onion salad, topped with sliced avocados. I served this with a yoghurt dressing I whipped up to add some contrast and zing to the salad. For the recipe, click over to my food blog, Big Boy’s Brunch, where you’ll find a similar post.
I really miss the texture of freshly baked ciabatta, the snap of a sausage against my teeth and the aroma of coffee so, with the weekend without the distractions of work just hours away, it remains to be seen how many days I’m prepared to go without them.
