I am heading into week four of the six-week yoga project that I’m undertaking for the first time at my local studio, Power Living. Last week we looked at “getting real” and it included six days of yoga and 20 minutes of meditation daily, as well as a five-day cleanse. The cleanse was the obvious challenge last week – the meditation and yoga had nothing on that! My post last week details what was involved in the cleanse – but I got it wrong. There was no brown rice, quinoa or chicken – it was largely green juices, vege broth, salad, fruit and a little fish. No meat, dairy, caffeine, sugar or white flour. I realised when I went to our weekly group meeting last Monday evening that the cleanse should be far stricter. It was a huge challenge. The only saving graces were the fish and a little raw, natural nut butter with vege sticks (or with a spoon!).
For the first three days of the cleanse, I had a headache – probably caffeine withdrawals – and was hungry often. I was practicing at least an hour of vinyasa yoga in 30 degree heat per day – sometimes an hour and a half. On day three and four, I practiced an hour of yin yoga each day which is a far more subtle form of yoga, involving holding deep stretches for between three and five minutes each. It was a welcome break from the more intense physical style of vinyasa – particularly when it was just a green smoothie with a little protein powder for dinner.
By day five I felt amazing, but the nearly all raw food diet didn’t agree 100 per cent with me – I am so used to mixing up my diet with cooked food, so I felt a little queasy for most of the week as my body attempted to adjust. By the end of the week, I was feeling real benefits from the cleanse – clearer skin and a far more measured mood. I felt calm and clear, and even lost about a kilo or two in the process.
The real benefit was the discipline muscle that the cleanse worked. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get through the week – but I did. On Saturday and Sunday, I went back to my usual weekend eating patterns and felt the effects nearly immediately. After a heavy lunch of pulled-pork tacos followed by a piece of home-baked cake on Sunday, I felt so lethargic and the effects of what I’d eaten were so obvious to me. (Although it was incredibly delicious!). It’s amazing how the body responds to what you put in it.
I certainly won’t be going back to my previous way of eating – after going through three days of caffeine-withdrawal headaches, I’ve decided that I don’t really need coffee in my life that much. I will try to restrict my intake to the weekend. I couldn’t live on a raw diet, but incorporating more fruit and vege-based foods and less white flour, dairy, meat and soy products will be key to my diet moving forward.
One of the major things I found with the cleanse was the emotions that came up around food. Being unable to feed my emotional states with food or coffee, such as having a big dinner at night and coffee after lunch to get back into work for the afternoon, I found that I actually had to face the feelings that came up for me rather than diluting them with an immediate gratification. What’s more – I realised that I didn’t need these things. I just had to acknowledge and accept the feelings, and move forward with this acceptance.
The cleanse has given me a confidence in my own strength and discipline that I probably didn’t have before around food. Although the cleanse was temporary, the change in my attitude towards food and my knowledge of my own physical reactions to eating certain foods are certain to have long-term benefits.
Have you tried a cleanse? How did you feel at the end? What were the emotions that came up during the cleanse?
