First off, for the moms, very cool news to report:  My milk supply continues to do great!  Again, this is while strictly following the purification program and living my stressful schedule.  Also, two other nursing moms who are doing the cleanse reported that their babies are spitting up a lot less.  Isn’t that neat?  Every mom knows how frustrating spitting up can be, I am so happy these babies are doing well.  And, I will continue to follow everyone’s progress and keep you posted.  It makes sense though that because this program forces the majority of food allergies out of the diet, you get healthier (and so do your children!). 

I had a ton of energy yesterday, but today I have been extremely tired.  And, the Starbucks cravings are still there in a major way…  Maybe sleep and a change in the weather would help that!  However, when I eat, the cravings subside, which is good.  We have still been drinking smoothies for breakfast.  I am snacking on veggies and hummus (today we bought cilantro jalapeno hummus from Whole Foods- delish!), fruit and veggie chips (kale chips I made and sweet potato chips we bought at WF).

Snack Ideas:  Organic Medjool Dates- cut them open, remove the pits and stuff w/ organic dried coconut shavings.  These taste just like Hershey’s Mounds to me, and can quickly taste like an Almond Joy if you add an almond too (I try to minimize nuts on the cleanse though).  This is a great snack when you are craving something sweet, but if you are trying to loose weight on the cleanse, you may want to avoid these.  And, raw okra, have you tried it?  It is really good! 

For lunch yesterday, we ate at one of our favorite vegan restaurants.  If you haven’t tried it, you have to go.  Spiral Diner rocks, especially on the cleanse!  Plus, I love browsing their menu and trying their food because I have many recipes that have been inspired by this restaurant.  For dinner last night, I was rushing to a birth, and I ate leftover stew.  I also had the stew with brown rice and a spinach salad for lunch today.  On our salads, we typically use olive oil, fresh squeezed lemon juice and sea salt and pepper.  And for dinner tonight, we ate a very green meal of brown rice pasta (you can buy it at WF) with homemade pesto and a side of fresh steamed asparagus.

Did you know pesto is so easy to make and tastes so good without cheese and milk fats, which are typically in most pestos you buy?  I made my own tonight, and here’s the recipe:

1 cup pine nuts

¾ cup olive oil

½ large bunch fresh basil

½ cup fresh parsley

3 garlic cloves

1 tsp sea salt

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor (you can use a blender if you don’t have a processor) and blend to desired consistency.  Pesto is great to put on salads, over cooked veggies and brown rice.  We use it a lot on the cleanse too.  I add a bit of fresh squeezed lemon to it too.

Mixing in the food processor

Finished product, enough for tonight’s pasta and to enjoy on other dishes this week.

Our wonderful supper!  Who said being healthy can’t taste good?!  I, of course, sprinkled nutritional yeast on mine.

And our side of veggies!

Thanks for hanging with me, we are over a third of the way there!

Harper and I shared a breakfast of boiled eggs (he only had yolk), grapefruit and banana.  I really wasn’t wanting a smoothie for breakfast, I needed a change.  It amazed me after just 5 days of being off sugar how sweet the grapefruit alone tasted!  Growing up, we would always sprinkle our grapefruits with sugar to make them edible.  Ha!  Since I was up so late in the morning and then went back down for a nap, I really didn’t snack after breakfast. 

Lunch was delish!  We had spaghetti squash with the tomato recipe I made on day 1.  You must try both of these!  And, we had a class this evening, so we had a shake before class and dinner afterward.  For dinner, we ate leftover curried lentils and brown rice and some boiled okra.

The smoothie tonight was made of:  1/2 cup organic coconut milk, 1/2 cup water, large handful of spinach, some frozen strawberries, some frozen pineapples, 1/2 scoop of whey protein powder and 2 scoops of SP Complete.  I love coconut milk, and it really gives the smoothies a great, smooth texture- yum!  Did you know that coconuts are so healthy for you?  We usually cook with coconut oil because it can sustain higher temperatures (unlike olive oil) without going rancid and is really healthy for you (unlike canola or peanut oil).  Also, coconuts are a wonderful source of really good fats and have an extremely high mineral content.

Spaghetti squash can be purchased in most grocery stores in the produce section.  It is great because once cooked, it resembles and tastes a lot like spaghetti.  However, unlike spaghetti it is a vegetable, doesn’t have the high carb content and is much more nutritious.  Thus, you can see why it’s one our favorites, especially while cleansing.  Bring the squash home, wash it, and cut it in half lengthwise to prep for cooking.  Remove the seeds from the center by scrapping with a spoon.  Then place cut side down in a shallow pan of water, and bake for 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

The Squash will look like this once cut, before seeds are scrapped out.

Here’s how they come out of the oven.  The squash on the right has been scrapped with a fork.  Run a fork through the meat of the cooked squash to form your noodles.

And, here is the delicious final product.  We added the tomato sauce on top, with some fresh basil and nutritional yeast (tastes a lot like cheese, will talk about it more later).  Experiment with this squash.  You can add a meat sauce (when cleanse allows or when not cleansing), or do it with a pesto sauce or some fresh herbs and butter.  

Happy Cleansing!