3 Day Refresh - Day 1 Review

Gotta be honest, I have been thinking about completing a cleanse for a while but ever since I pushed the "submit payment" button I have been terrified. Luckily, now that I'm a day in and am writing retrospectively it all seems much worse in theory then it is in practice. But let me start from the beginning!

PREP WORK

After begging a friend to do it with me, receiving my 3DR package, tapering off caffeine and reviewing the contents I got down to the business of prepping. Meal prepping is something that happens almost every week in my house so I wasn't concerned about any of that. What I was concerned about was:

1) Having variety throughout the 3 days
2) Making sure everything was ready and easily available so I would have no excuses to cheat
3) OMG I'M GOING TO STARVE, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?

After my expected freak out moment I made a list, went to Wegman's, perused the organic fresh produce while sipping a cold brew coffee and politely allowed an elderly gentleman to run over my foot with his power chair - not once, but twice. Typical.

The program is simple to follow, with a helpful booklet that easily explains what to eat when and in what quantities. See below:

The fruit options range from 1/2 a banana to 12 strawberries and veggies range from 1/2 cup kale to 3 cups of lettuce - obvi I went for options that gave me more bang for my buck in terms of volume. I felt like if I was going to be successful I wouldn't be able to just count out 5 measly asparagus spears and call that a meal. In terms of "healthy fats" you had choices like 2 tbsp hummus or avocado, 1 tsp of oil or 1/2 tsp almond butter. Most of the time I chose hummus since it was one of the highest quantities (do you see a pattern here?) but did use a little almond butter at one point.

Prep work was easy. I cut everything up, roasted a bunch of beets and brought my 21 Day Fix containers to work so I could easily portion stuff out while there for each of my meals. I labeled my bags with the day and the meal time so it was easy to remember what was what. Also, the guide includes spaces where you can write in what you will be eating and I found that very helpful.

And so it began! I went to bed early on Sunday, said a prayer, put on my sleep mask and hoped for the best!

DAY 1

BREAKFAST

 

Breakfast was easy as I have Shakeology with fruit a lot. I chose to blend mine into my shake to make it a bit bulkier. I froze my 1/4 banana and 1/3 cup mixed berries so that it would be a frostier drink. Worked like a charm so down went my 8-10 oz of water and then my shake. Perf. 

OPTIONAL MORNING TEA

 Hello - do not offer me something "optional" in a cleanse where I'm eating 900 calories a day and expect that I'm not going to eat it. I will every single time. So the morning 'very not optional" tea was a blueberry green tea and while I was STARVING (like, woozy starving) before I drank it, by the time I was 1/2 way through I felt fine. Makes me wonder how often I misinterpret thirst signals for hunger on a daily basis...

MID-MORNING FIBER SWEEP

Okay this was the thing I was feeling most nervous about...FIBER SWEEP?! I don't know about you guys but anything with the words "fiber" and "sweep" automatically make my whole body sweat. As soon as it hit the water it started to expand and I thought OH. MY. GOD. What have I done?! Fortunately this stuff is basically unflavored Metamucil and at 8 grams of fiber, I've done way worse things to myself just by overloading on Fiber 1 bars while intoxicated (but that's another story for another day...). Fiber sweep kept me full right up to lunch and I had no complaints by this point. 

 

 LUNCH

 

Lunch on day 1 was surprisingly large. I had my first taste of the vanilla fresh shake which is actually delicious, I totally find myself craving this now. I am not a huge vanilla fan in general so I was fully expecting to have to gag this down but it was totally not the case at all. I wish I could buy this and just have it all the time. The vanilla shakeology does not taste this good - Vanilla Fresh for the win. I also had 1 cup of golden beets, 1/2 an apple and some almond butter. My two mistakes were:

1) Waiting to drink the shake - always drink that first bc your stomach starts to fill up and it gets harder to drink the longer you wait and 

2) Too much sweetness at one time - switching out the almond butter for hummus would have been a way better choice because I really had no relief from how sweet everything was.  

Overall though, not mad at this lunch. I could get down with this. Feeling great and getting all hyped because I feel like I can actually do this!

AFTERNOON SNACK

 Because I'm not actually an adult who can plan her time well I ended up goofing things in the timing department for the rest of the day. Months ago pre-cleanse scheduling I had offered to run a resume workshop at my alma mater (GO HAWKS! #thwnd) from 3:30 - 5:30. This meant I would have to drive out of the city to campus and eating would be difficult. That said, I ended up waiting only 1 hour between lunch and my afternoon snack and wasn't even hungry by the time it came around. But I ate it because I knew I would regret it it I didn't. Fortunately it stuck with me through the presentation but not much further than that. By the time I was done lecturing to and critiquing resumes for 40 graduate students my feet hurt and I was exhausted. To be fair, when I present, to say that I am "animated" would be an understatement - it feels like a 1 woman show sometimes but that's my style - so I definitely expended a lot more energy then I do on a normal day. By this point a mild headache had set in which I pretty much attributed to no caffeine and coming off of the high of the presentation.

DINNER

 By the time I got home I was famished and knew there was no way I was going to make it until 7:30 for my husband to get home, shower and be ready for dinner. So I cheated and had my Vanilla Fresh shake early, around 6. The rest of dinner waited until we could eat as a family. I made lemony kale and pine nuts (which doubled as his side to go with his grilled chicken for dinner so that was easy and also totally delicious, will absolutely make that again) as well as my vegetable broth - again, optional, but definitely not optional for me. Headache still persisted and I was EXHAUSTED (read - "fell asleep on the couch by 8:45") but wasn't hungry which was a pleasant surprise. I definitely attribute the major exhaustion and headache to the presentation and lack of planning my afternoon meal times.

So there you have it for day 1! Day 2 to come tomorrow!