What I Learned From My Detox Diet

I started a modified version of the Whole Living’s beginning of the year Detox Diet in hopes of stopping my addition to sugar. I also wanted to celebrate Lent and prepare for Easter. Here’s the beginning of my journey and here’s where I ended up! These are the things I learned over the past six weeks.

1. It takes a Loooong time to menu plan when you can’t eat anything. The first week we only ate veggies and lentils. It is really tough to plan when you can’t have eggs, meat, fish, gluten, any grains, sugar, alcohol, and coffee.

2. In spite of being hungry ALL THE TIME that first week, I felt more clear-headed and slept amazingly well.

3. My sugar cravings grew less in frequency and duration over the six weeks, but they never actually went away.

4. Sundays were our free/feast day, but I learned early on that Mondays would be horrible if I overindulged myself on Sunday.

5. My PMS symptoms were almost completely nonexistent. Apparently sugar has really been messing with my hormones!

And just to keep it real I did slip up a couple of times during those six weeks. There were a couple of afternoons when I ate some chocolate in the afternoon. However, it was 85% dark chocolate that has a minimal amount of sugar in it not the chocolate chips I used to eat by the handful! At one point during the six weeks I got that awful flu with the sore throat. I kept up with the diet, but one evening I did have a glass of wine to help with the sore throat. This soup was wonderful when I needed something to help me fight back. I got better in one week compared others who are still sick after months. Finally, last week we went to the zoo. I didn’t have any bread and I knew that my family would need carbs as much as I did so I bought a bag of chips. I was super glad I did because our schedule was a little off from our initial plan and we all needed those extra calories!

So now what!
Well I am going to keep up my good habit of no sugar or very limited sugar. I just can’t seem to handle sugar at all. In spite of all my dietary restrictions, my PMS is a problem except when I was on the detox. I also noticed that I don’t need to HAVE chocolate chips EVERY afternoon when I give up other sugars. I was surprised that I lost a lot of weight/inches. That wasn’t a goal, but by the end of the six weeks I had more clothes that fit and felt great! And I needed fewer naps overall which is always a plus when you have a busy toddler and are working from home.

How about you? Are you using food to help yourself heal? Any habits you want to try to change with diet?