To everyone I’ve talked to about it, or mentioned it to, I’ve just shortened the title to “The Crazy Diet”, since compared to what I would usually eat, that’s what it seems like – borderline mentally unstable. But allow me to explain myself; if you found a book that taught you how to avoid colds, constipation and cancer, have glowing, clear, beautiful skin and led you down the road to inner peace, I think it’d all be worth a few weeks of crazy, don’t you?
The diet is basically vegan and raw plant based – you can tailor it to your own eating wishes, as long as either 60%, or 80% of your plate is filled with raw, lightly steamed or sautéed veggies, and the rest of your plate is alkaline or easily broken down acidic foods. Processed foods, coffee, black tea and alcohol aren’t Crazy Sexy Friendly; you are on a Cleanse, after all. Breakfast is a green juice or smoothie, with some fruit if needed – aiming to have nothing but liquids before lunchtime if possible. Exercise that makes you sweat happens for 35mins once a day, as does meditation, although the length is up to you (15-20 mins minimum is recommended). *
Let me compare this to me regular diet;
- Breakfast = porridge with honey (made with skim milk), rockmelon.
- Morning tea = carrot sticks, green beans and dip, or low fat Greek yoghurt with raspberries, blueberries and honey.
- Lunch = omelette with salad.
- Afternoon tea = corn chips with salsa, or 1 piece of wholegrain toast with Vegemite and avocado.
- Dinner = Home-made Veggie pizza with lots of cheese.
- … Punctuated with mini Snickers bars, small packets of tiny teddies and more corn chips.
As you can see I like to eat in rather large portion sizes, and most of what I eat meets its doom before midday. Sure, my regular diet isn’t too bad – I can usually meet my daily requirement of vegetable and fruit intake and only ever have small portions of really bad junk food… But there is a pretty big difference between the two, clearly.
The first big difference is the VEGAN part. I’m regularly vegetarian, and find milk, eggs, yoghurt and cheese to be a reliable source of protein and they are also pretty delicious (especially when in things like pancakes, pizzas, froghurt…). I’ve never been one of those people who just drinks milk, although I do have a soft spot for cereal with milk, and this has lead to much of me being soft spots, as I tend to eat cereals in excess and expand in result. Omelettes had me at hello, and cheese, oh, cheese, how I will miss thee. But I’m giving them all up for 21 days, no looking back. Don’t worry, I’ll be getting enough iron and protein and calcium and all those things typically associated with animal products – I solemnly swear to be nutritionally stable – through the devouring of delicious delicacies like beans, lentils, leafy greens and whole grains!
The second big difference is the liquid mornings. First thing I would regularly do of a morning is drink 2 glasses of water, followed by scarfing down a big bowl of porridge and stuffing my face with fruit. Only a few hours would pass after this before I’d be munching and crunching on my morning veggies with dip, regularly a Spring Onion or Pesto with Fetta variety. No solid food before midday? Big difference – but I’m up for the challenge.
The great things about this “diet” are the following; there are no restrictive portion sizes – if it’s Crazy Sexy Friendly, and within your veggie-to-other-stuff-ratio you can eat as much of it as you please, the second is that you know exactly why you’re eating this way. Kris Carr hasn’t given you a mysterious meal plan, restricting you to eating each thing at each meal, exactly as she’s written, with little discernable reasoning behind it; instead she teaches you how to eat, gives you some hearty meal suggestions and recipes, and lets you take it from there. She explains why eating alkaline is important, what exercise does to your body and guides you, every step of the way, through daily prayers, affirmations and suggestions. The book isn’t so much a diet book; as much as it is a complete lifestyle book.
So why I would I go on such an extreme quest? Well at the moment my health is in a slump – I’m exercising more, eating better, but getting nowhere. (CAUTION: Over-sharing ahead) Since my real-life-horror-story sinus infection last year in Texas (during which I had a fever so high I almost got a ride in an ambulance – this would have been cool if I hadn’t been hallucinating and trying not to throw up at the time) I’ve had excess mucus up to my eyeballs. Thirdly, I’m going to Hawaii in a month and have a little extra junk in my trunk – a lot of which I picked up during my trip to The Lone Star State – that I could do without in my holiday photos, thank you very much. Plus, cancer can’t deal with being in an alkaline environment, such as me when I’m eating this way.
So I’m bringing you along for my Crazy Sexy Cleanse journey… Wish me luck and cheap veggies in abundance!
* This is a very basic guideline, so if you were interested I’d recommend you get your hands on a copy of the book! It really is a fun read and not boring or complex and confusing at all. It’s also hella entertaining; e.g. in your natural state “unicorns want to lick you”. Fact.
Ell-Leigh, try some barley grass in a drink every morning...very good for being alkaline, not so good on taste though!
ReplyDeleteI used to drink Barley grass for skin problems, drinking it in orange juice and it just tasted so yuck, like drinking lawn clippings! However, I've taken the plunge this week and bought some wheatgrass powder to add to my morning juices to pump up my cleanse a bit more. Lauren mentioned that you were trying an alkaline diet, I hope it's going well for you!
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