When was the last time you felt fantastic?

That is the slogan of the clinic that I work at, and it stares me in the face every single day. I see people come in and out making changes to improve their current state of health and start to feel fantastic again

For the last three and a half years, I’ve been dealing with digestive issues, I won’t go into detail, because poop talk makes me squirm, but I’ve gotten used to feeling not 100% that I’ve just continued on with it for a very long time. There are days that my head is in a fog, some days I have the acid reflux of an 80-year-old man, and often I go to bed and appear to be six months pregnant. Sometimes there’s pain, sometimes it is a thick, heavy feeling right in my gut. I’ve become accustomed to bloating, cramps, and am never sure how any given meal will make me feel. Because I’ve still been able to go about my days relatively normally, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my stomach is kind of whimpy. Though I can deal with frequent bloat –hooray for flowey shirts!—I worry a little when I think about what’s going on inside.

So, of course, I was on board when a couple of girls are work mentioned trying out an anti-inflammatory cleanse! For 28 days, I’m cutting out gluten, dairy, refined sugars, caffeine (tear), tomatoes, red meat, alcohol and peanut butter. I’m also limiting sugar in general i.e. honey, maple syrup, molasses etc.

Questions I’ve been asked:

What CAN you eat? 

Vegetables, fruit, rice, quinoa, millet, oats, meat, fish, eggs, nuts (except for peanuts), seeds, beans, lentils and on and on and on.

Is this to lose weight? 

Not even a little bit. I’m pretty sure that I’m eating more than I normally do.

Why are you doing this again?

Because 3.5 years is a long time to just feel O.K.

Things I’ve noticed

• Reduced bloating immediately! I’ve had a happy tummy for seven whole days, the only exception being after I ate the skins of a buttercup squash, my intestines did not appreciate that.
• Throbbing headache on the first and fourth days which I am attributing to caffeine withdrawal. Normally I drink coffee 2-3 times a week but drink black tea every morning. I wasn’t expecting to experience any symptoms from cutting out my cup of tea but there they were! I don’t find myself craving tea in the morning, but having tea in the morning keeps me full from breakfast longer, so I’m hungry for lunch super early! The headaches and the early lunches are all a small price to pay for a noticeably happier stomach though.
• Energy is normal, I feel the lack of caffeine durring morning exercise
• It’s nice to know that I can go without that cup of coffee or peice of chocolate that I would usually convince myself that I needed
• Without fruit I might die.
• As long as I’m keeping full, I don’t crave any foods that are off the plan.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and luckily is pretty easy to make wheat/ dairy/ sugar free.

Pumpkin Pie Quinoa

Pumpkin, chopped apple, cooked quinoa, pecan butter, walnuts

Breakfast Cookies

 Oats, banana, cocoa, almond butter –> mashed and spread onto a plate overnight + Coconut butter ‘icing’

Oats – Banana – Strawberries – Vanilla – Chia – Coconut Butter – Raw chocolate cake crumbles

Now, if you’re rolling your eyes at me for doing a cleanse, I don’t blame you, cleanses get a pretty bad rep. This cleanse is very basic and turns the focus on whole, easy to digest foods. If I start talking about my new appreciation for the flavour of tree bark or replacing meals with some lemon juice/ cayenne/ maple syrup concoction, feel free to intervene.