Standard Process Cleanse - Day 2

I still do not have this morning thing down pat. I even woke up 20 minutes early so I could get everything pulled together, but I didn’t take into account dragging a five year old out of bed and back into the routine of getting ready for school after Easter break. Shame on me for not packing my lunch last night and shame on me for not counting out those pills!

Let me touch on the pills for a second. In the first 10 days of the cleanse you take 30 pills a day. You read that correctly—30 pills a day. There are 7 Standard Process Cleanse pills and 3 Fiber Supplement pills (like I’m not getting enough fiber right now) that are taken three times a day. I’ve never been adverse to pill swallowing. Some smaller pills I can even handle without water, but these monsters require some effort. I’ve gagged already several times trying to choke down the pills and swigs of water. Mind you – I’m also not a huge water drinker from the get-go, so chugging the amount of water it takes to wash down 10 pills in one sitting is already challenge enough. There has to be a better way, please discuss.

I’m still not very adventurous in the way of my shakes. I really want to make a few that include veggies, but that would involve me waking up even earlier to juice said veggies. This morning was a concoction of strawberries, pineapple and banana. Wishing I would have swapped out the banana for Mango but whatevs, maybe tomorrow!

I think that the caffeine withdrawal is starting to set in a bit. Around 10:00 I started to feel the tinges of a headache approaching. I tried to stave it off with a cup of green tea but I’m not sure that it really worked.

Lunch was another salad topped with the remaining garlic/parsley dressing and the rest of my shake. I didn’t really grab anything else. I wish I would have brought the leftover squash/zucchini mix from dinner last night. I went to the kitchenette to get my lunch out of the fridge and a group of guys from the office were about to dig into some Taco Bell. I saw myself jumping across the table and ripping the Bell Grande right out of their hands and devouring it like I was some sort of nacho goblin, but I didn’t. 

The caffeine headache really started to kick in around 2:00 – and it is getting progressively worse. This is going to be a fun evening! I think if I were quitting caffeine without the diet change I would feel much more sluggish at this point. I hear that after a week in I should have more energy so we’ll see.

I have a Betterment meeting tonight so dinner will have to be something fast. I heated the zucchini/squash mix and up some brown rice (that I actually had the foresight to cook in advance and pre-package into neat little 1/2 cup sized serving containers). I also made an extra smoothie. Because I had some extra time I got out the juicer and juiced a few carrots, an apple, a handful of spinach and a lemon. I tossed that into the blender with a little bit of ice and two scoops of cleanse powder and called it a drink. It looked gross but it actually tasted pretty good.

One of the hardest things is making dinner for the rest of the family. I made kielbasa and onions for the kids and as the onions were sautéing and getting a lovely caramelized color, it was hard for me not to reach in and grab a few (actually, I could have had the onions) but they were mixed in with the kielbasa and I’m not supposed to have meat.

One for the win column: I actually took the time to count out all of the pills for the rest of the week. I told you I would get around to it eventually.

As I mentioned – I have a Betterment meeting tonight. At this meeting I typically have a glass of wine. Sometimes I have two. Sometimes I get an appetizer. I was full from my shake and leftovers so I wasn’t hungry but as soon as I saw the glistening red stream of a Cabernet being poured into my friend’s glass, it took everything in my being not to order a glass for myself. But I am committed to this cleanse. I figure there is no point in doing it halfway. I’m all in here. Unfortunately my headache persisted through the night.

I did find that I wasn’t ready to crash and burn at 9:30 as I usually am. Not sure if this was part of my newly formed energy from the cleanse or just that I didn’t plop directly on to the couch as soon as the kids were in bed. I decided to put my energy to use so I ironed some clothes and did some journaling.