CLEAN

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

The book by Dr. Alejandro Junger ..... anyone ? (besides me, of course).
It's going like Gilligan's Island. What started out as a "3 -hour tour " has gone on for months now, and appears to be a lifestyle. So much for a 3-week cleanse . It's ok, I don't mind losing weight and being healthy .

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Actually, this book isn't about Vegan or Vegetarian; my faux pas for putting it here. I simply adopted the major components of CLEAN to Vegan because it seemed like a good idea at the time . Still does , with occasional cheating , maybe even some meat once in a while . Holidays with the kinfolk and such ...

[Silver]

How 'bout giving us the 3-hour tour?

Maybe a simple break-down of the kinds of stuff you eat everyday?

The only way I've ever lost significant weight is living off of protein shakes and bars. I was never much of a fruit eater, but my neighbor got me into it, but that isn't cutting it, either.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

How 'bout giving us the 3-hour tour?

Maybe a simple break-down of the kinds of stuff you eat everyday?

The only way I've ever lost significant weight is living off of protein shakes and bars. I was never much of a fruit eater, but my neighbor got me into it, but that isn't cutting it, either.

Lots of hemp protein ,mixed with cocoa powder and Stevia to make it drinkable. Usually some nuts with that for good fats. Some Hemp/Pea/Rice protein drinks that has fructose, and fruit with these, since the fructose is 'sugar' . Beans, Quinoa , Amaranth . Lots of veggies , and I use Natural Balance Soy-free margarine with the vegs (used to be lots of cheese and non-soy-free marg) . Let's see ... some sprouts , some gluten-free crackers (Mary's Gone Crackers are my fave) . Pepitas, Macadamia, Almonds, Sesame, Pecans, walnuts, all instead of peanut butter .

The biggest changes I eased into were elimination of Wheat, Corn, Soy, Oats, Dairy, Peanuts, Sugar, Caffiene, artificial sweeteners , white rice, non-organic spuds, honey, tomatos & peppers.

The concept is to have a clean diet that promotes alkilinity and gets the digestive and immune systems functioning right . I wasn't 100% strict , using the Natural Balance , but I figure months , or a lifetime, of that sort of 'cheating' , plus some salsa and chiles now and then, even eggs and a little meat a couple times a year, is a whole world of better than what i was used to. I still pig out , but not as much, so my stomach has shrunk and I've lost 20 lbs in 3 months . Plus , I'm working out more , the plan being to 'convert' more fat to muscle .

For about 20 years, I coasted on the fact that I wasn't killing myself with alcohol, drugs , and tobacco anymore, but I knew at some point I'd need to continue the cleaning process, but never really tried much till now (I drank oceans of diet soda, coffee, and tea, and had a high-glycemic diet , and snacked a lot). I wasn't even planning on this, but I saw the guy Junger on Dr. oz and liked what he was saying . Got the book, liked what i saw and sort of fell right into eliminating the old foods and making replacements. So far so good.

[Silver]

The biggest changes I eased into were elimination of Wheat, Corn, Soy, Oats, Dairy, Peanuts, Sugar, Caffiene, artificial sweeteners , white rice, non-organic spuds, honey, tomatos & peppers.

I've eliminated wheat, most corn (kinda hard to pick them out of rice or soup but I do try), soy, oats (I never did like cereals much), dairy - I'll have an occasional ice cream cone or yogurt but rare), sugar mostly (it's in my flavored coffee creamer - I have 1 cup of instant in the morning, sometimes eat rice and potatoes but not that much, honey hardly ever have, tomatoes and peppers are bad???

I have 1 to 2 mercola protein shakes a day, am going to start checking out the protein bars again, Met-rx has been my go-to bars in the past.

I know once I start being more active (walking, I want to build up to bicycling), things will be much better.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Tomatos and peppers (and all of the Nightshade family) increse acidity, but I just won't stop eating red and green chile, or salsa. A few months without was ok, but around here, beans without chile is unheard of .

It's actually 'Earth Balance' spread I've been using , made from canola, safflower, olive, palm, and one other oil. The least offensive of such products , from cardiovascular -health perspective, I've heard.

The CLEAN book says to eschew dairy , eggs, pork, raw meat and fish , shellfish, beef, veal, sausage, canned meat, franks, and cold cuts, but
allows for fresh or water- packed cold-water fish, wild game, free-range chicken, lamb, turkey, but I couldn't quote specifics about the whys of each.
It's about how the body deals with each , as compared to the ones not allowed.

We just stopped eating meat, so I don't buy it or go out to eat it.
Kind of boring but not really . The benefits seem to be motivation enough , and that's a whole paradigm shift in itself

[Silver]

I have no problems getting sausages, canned meats, hot dogs and cold cuts out, but I refuse to give up Chinese food. I just had me some tonight, as a matter of fact - steam rice with broccoli beef, some kung pao chicken and bbq pork, I had fried rice, too - the rice I only ate some, will save all the leftover rice and put it in egg drop soup tomorrow - made with free range chicken broth - I'll separate the eggs and use mainly the whites with just a tad of the yolk.

I won't give up cheeses entirely, but I haven't been eating hardly any for a long while now.

It's good to talk these things out to help remind myself what I'm doing all this for.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

I have no problems getting sausages, canned meats, hot dogs and cold cuts out, but I refuse to give up Chinese food. I just had me some tonight, as a matter of fact - steam rice with broccoli beef, some kung pao chicken and bbq pork, I had fried rice, too - the rice I only ate some, will save all the leftover rice and put it in egg drop soup tomorrow - made with free range chicken broth - I'll separate the eggs and use mainly the whites with just a tad of the yolk.

I won't give up cheeses entirely, but I haven't been eating hardly any for a long while now.

It's good to talk these things out to help remind myself what I'm doing all this for.

Yeah, I'm doing some stir-fry as I type , soy sauce being the 'cheat' . Life without spaghetti sauce is not going to happen , either. It's nice, but not really surprising, how good some things taste after you haven't had them for a while , and also, how good some things that weren't top faves become top faves when you don't eat your old top faves any more. Some gluten-free black rice bread with sugar free spag sauce and olives on top seems a lot like pizza , and brown rice and buckwheat (allowed) pasta with sauce sure is good all by itself when you haven't had parmesan for months. Even plain quinoa with a little marg and sea salt becomes a delicacy , when you haven't snacked on doritos and cheese slices all summer . Fruit becomes a heavenly explosion of all things sweet and juicy , and you forget what it was like to do drive-by (okay, walk-by) birthday cake binges (birthday? .... we don't need no steenking birthday ).

Absolutely, it's good to talk about it, and reinforce the good behavior , and remember why . I expect I have a fair (or large) amount of arterial plaque buildup , and a diet like this will force it to melt away over the remaining years of my life . After rehab in '88 a doc said "you should start to worry about cholesterol in 5-10 years " and here it is 25 years later. I don't have bad numbers now, but the new doc said "I wouldn't wait for 6 months to do something " , so I figured I didn't want to listen to that kind of whining every year , and started the turnaround