Welcome back! Yesterday we talked about the why of cleansing, today we’re getting down to the good stuff! Your 3-day cleanse schedule + recipes!

Before You Begin Your Cleanse:

Grab a pen! It’s journal time.

Think about any patterns, habits or cravings that you may want to change during your cleanse, for example:
● Are there any routines around eating that you want to change? Maybe you’re ready to turn off the tv or put down your phone during meal times.
● Is there anything you’d like to learn about yourself, your eating, or your body through a cleanse? Perhaps you notice that you are eating out of boredom, sadness or maybe to celebrate.
● What are you excited about?
● Worried about?

Listen to your body. Take some time today to take stock on where you’re at right now in your life and your relationship with food. You are the expert on you and there’s some very valuable info tucked away in there.

Have you cleansed before? How was that experience for you? Have you ever found that you self-sabotage? Is there anything you could do to ensure that doesn’t happen? When in your life have you felt the most successful with food?

Specifically, set an intention for your cleanse. Consider starting a food journal today to bring awareness to what kinds of foods you are eating, how big your portions are and when you are eating (are you hungry, bored, tired, happy, sad etc.). How do you feel before and after eating? Are you starving and then super stuffed?

Consider the following leading up to and during the cleanse:

Do more:
● Drink more water! Perhaps the easiest of all. Start each morning with at least 20 ounces. Try to drink it before you even get out of bed!
● Sweat to eliminate toxins (light to moderate exercise or even easier, hit the steam room or sauna).
● Eat fruits and veggies especially dark leafy greens + root veggies.
● Cook at home and prepare simple meals. Home cooking is the easiest way to control the ingredients that go into your meal. Baked root vegetables with spices or steamed greens with salt + pepper are an excellent choice for pre-cleansing.

Do less:
● Sugar!
● Binge Eating. The idea of binge then cleanse is not what we are going for here. Resist the urge to eat a “Last Supper” feast before you start your 3-day smoothie cleanse. You already know what those foods taste like. You have eaten them hundreds of times. Any beautifully dressed up slice of sugar is only going to make the withdraw experience more extreme come the first day of the cleanse.
● Alcohol. Umm it’s a sugar too. I know, that part always kills me too!
● Chocolate. Did I just lose a few of you? It’s just 3 days. It will be there when you’re ready to come back to it (IF you still want to– you might just surprise yourself).
● Dairy. If you’re used to eating lots of cheese, drinking a glass of milk a day etc., now is the time to start tapering off and even eliminating it before you begin your cleanse. Consider subbing in Almond, Rice or Oat Milk. Almond is the favorite in our house.
● Refined, processed anything. Especially refined white flours. Consider subbing in healthier organic versions of what you usually eat. For example organic corn chips (I like the blue ones) can be subbed for potato chips. Or go with baked sweet potato fries instead of fried french fries.
● Red Meat. Red meat in the body adds to swelling + swelling adds to dis-ease.
● Caffeine. This is a big one. The first time my husband and I ever cleansed he spent most of the first day curled up in a ball on the bed with a pounding head from severe caffeine withdrawals. At the time he was a morning 3-cup coffee drinker and it hit him like a ton of bricks! Depending on how much caffeine you drink either in the form of sodas or coffee consider tapering yourself off in a way that works for your body. Write down how much you drink a day and develop your 4 day reduce + eliminate plan… today 1 less cup, tomorrow 1/2 the amount you’d usually drink and introduce black or green tea… etc. If you’re a soda drinker consider trying sparkling water + fruit.

The Daily Schedule:

Essentially you will be replacing breakfast + dinner with a green smoothie. Lunch will be a simple whole foods meal made up of some combo of greens, grains + beans. Snacks will appear in the form of fruit, nuts + seeds only if you need them.

Feel free to drink as much water as you want to, it can be helpful to sip warm water throughout the day. You’ll want to stop drinking 2.5 – 3 hours before bed or you’ll be up + down all night going to the bathroom.

Modify the schedule to work for you according to when you wake up in the morning. I’ve pre-selected smoothies + lunches for you to make the shopping list easy breezy. Feel free to modify based on the recipes you choose.

8:00 am
Wake + warm water with lemon

9:00 am
Green Smoothie – within one hour of waking up is ideal, you’re trying to BREAK the FAST from the night before.
Day 1 Breakfast – The Ron Burgundy?

Day 2 Breakfast – Blended Zen

Day 3 Breakfast – Blended Reset Button

Need a snack? Choose from a handful of almonds or fresh fruit.
A note on fruit. It is best to eat fruit alone. Fruit digests quickly in the body. Eating fruit with other foods causes it to ferment in the stomach while the other food is digesting. It causes gas and over time hernias can form. It’s ideal to give yourself at least 20 minutes before consuming other foods.

Between 12:00 – 2:00 pm
Lunch. You’ll be eating a whole foods lunch with greens, beans and grains! I’ve selected three of my favorite recipes for you for this cleanse to make it really easy.

Lunch day 1 – Roasted sweet potato + black bean salad
Lunch day 2 – Chickpea + Basil Salad
Lunch day 3 – Quinoa Salad

If these aren’t hitting the spot you can access dozens of recipes on my site here. Remember to keep it simple. Choose from dishes with any combo of Greens, grains and beans. Use spices + herbs to season your lunches but stay away from butter, oils, condiments + salad dressings with more than 3 ingredients or anything that has sugar/ fructose in it.

Optional afternoon snack. Handful of nuts or seeds or fruit eaten alone.

Between 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Green Smoothie

Day 1 Dinner – Purple Kale Smoothie

Day 2 Dinner – Watermelon Cooler

Day 3 Dinner – Green Power Smoothie

7:30 pm
Herbal tea

You’ll need:
A dose of can-do.

A blender. While a Vitamix is AMAZING, most blenders will get the job done. You may feel a bit like you’re chewing your smoothie if you don’t have a high power blender. A good way to troubleshoot is to blend liquid (almond milk or coconut water) with your greens first and then add the rest of the ingredients. Some of the smaller bullets are really efficient! I like this one.

Join us tomorrow for your completed shopping list, Q + A, loads of support and more!

Love + green smoothies!
Lacy