Use It Up Part 1

We've all been there. Or maybe not. In any case, I was there recently, and it didn't work out. Where was I? OUT OF MY MIND. A co-worker of mine decided she was going to do a 7 day cleanse diet. I thought, wow that sounds like a great idea, I'll do it too! Lose 5-12 pounds in a week, get pumped full of vitamins, clean out the system, feel better than ever. My supportive other half decided he should do it too, even better!

So this is how it was meant to go down: Day 1: Only eat fruit. That sounds great, I love fruit! Day 2: Only eat vegetables. You can stir fry them, eat them in a salad with oil and vinegar,and you get to eat a baked potato for breakfast! Day 3: Eat only fruits and vegetables. Day 4: Eat bananas and drink milk. huh. This is going to be a tough one for me-- I don't even like bananas, but I'll make smoothies! Day 5: Tomatoes and lean protien. Day 6: Vegetables and protien and a cup of brown rice.Yay- rice! Day 7: Fruit and vegetables only. Oh, and you get to make "wonder soup" which you can eat in unlimited quantities over the 7 days. Great! It's essentially onions, peppers, tomatoes, celery and cabbage.

So last Sunday I headed to costco, loaded up on all the fruits and veggies we would need, and also picked up some fresh caught halibut for the Day 5 protien-- what a treat!

Can you sense my pre-cleanse enthusiasm?


Day one: We had strawberries, kiwi fruit, pineapple, oranges, blackberries, and rasberries. By 2:30 I couldn't look at another piece of fruit. I'll have the wonder soup! (and by the way, I now know the general size of a "vat", which is about how much wonder soup I made). After the soup, I started to catch on to why you lose 12 pounds in a week. It's a wonder how you will ever choke down another bowl of the wonder soup. I couldn't wait for nighttime to roll around so I could just go to bed and not think about how hungry I was.


Day two: I got through the baked potato, a bowl of stir-fried veggies, and half of a salad. Now I can't look at another vegetable, and I've lost 3 pounds. I just couldn't do the wonder soup again. Instead, famished and without energy, I go home and eat a tablespoon of all natural peanut butter right out of the jar. It doesn't even help. My hubby and I go to home depot, and once there I can't remember why we went. My brain has turned to mush from the cleanse. I have zero energy, a pounding headache, and a raging case of the "hungry meanies". After a fairly short conversation about why we were choosing to do this to ourselves, the decision was made to ease back into real world of a balanced diet. Dinner on day two was the "day 5" halibut, grilled, a buttered baked potato topped with sauteed mushrooms, and salad with brown rice, feta, tomatoes, green onion, and lemon dressing.  I am now human again. 

So essentially I lasted 2 days. My co-worker and her hubby lasted 5 days. She brought her blender to work on day 4 and made banana smoothies. Eating my black bean burrito and watching her drink her smoothie I knew I had made the right decision.


I "wonder" if anyone has ever lasted 7 days!!


Now I have 9 onions, a boatload of roma tomatoes, 16 bananas (the diet suggested you eat up to EIGHT of them on day 4), an extra pineapple, cabbage, 4 red bell peppers, and some various other produce.  Now what? 

Time to use it up!  This week, I'll be posting recipes with the said ingredients.  First recipe:  

Marinara Sauce

I kind of "winged it" on this one, and it turned out quite nice:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 onions (seems like a lot until you see the amount of tomatoes I used)
5 cloves garlic, minced
14 roma tomatoes, chopped
2 teaspoons dried oregano
handful of fresh basil, chopped
2 whole bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flake
1 cup red wine

Over medium heat, heat the oil in a large pot.  Add onion and garlic, and saute for 10 minutes until the onion appears translucent.  Add the tomatoes, herbs, bay leaves, sugar,
red pepper, wine, and then season with salt and pepper.  Let this simmer for at least two hours.  Since I used fresh tomatoes, it seemed to take a lot longer to come together than if you used canned.  Remove the bay leaves.  Use a stick blender to blend to your desired consistency.  Use, or freeze until you are ready to use. 


Comments

  1. OMG, what were we thinking? Great blog!

    I just threw out my grapefruits and melons. ugh!

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  2. I must say the "menu" of the diet sounds appealing. I get why you thought it was a good idea. But that must be the reason we have a balanced diet so that we don't go crazy eating only fruit or veggies or bananas all day long. It also looks like you turned "lemons into lemonade" with all your yummy meals after wards.

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