I Cleansed and Lived to Tell About It by Dina Ramon

It’s Day 1 of a three-day, Dr. Oz detox cleanse. An ambitious attempt I agreed to thanks to my husband talking me into it, by the way. I’m pretty gung-ho and can certainly use a regimen of no solid food for three days. But I highly suspect it will make dinnertime with my daughter a challenge; in fact, anytime she is here and eating something will be a challenge for the next three days. I’m a pretty disciplined person but I’m wondering how I’ll get through this? It is only 1 PM on Day 1 and I dread watching her bite into a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie when she gets home from school. I’ll have to hide.

Day 1, evening – With my daughter’s support and looks of sympathy mixed with pity, I made it past my dinner of mango, cayenne pepper and kale shake. Yummy!  I almost passed out at the smell of her pasta dinner cooking. I begged her to distract me with a game and to let me help her with her homework and she kindly indulged me. I can’t wait for this day of consuming kale, celery, cucumbers, berries, flax seed and almond milk to end.
My daughter doesn’t understand why her mom and dad are doing this… I’m trying to position it as a healthy choice and embellished it as best I could.

Day 2 – morning – I woke up groggier than usual but managed to get my daughter ready for school. Luckily my husband actually took her there. I’m not really that hungry during the day…until my daughter gets home from school and asks for her snack. Truthfully, I’m not that hungry I just want to eat something that isn’t a liquefied fruit or vegetable. My daughter says she’s worried I might have a tummy ache but I assure her that I am fine. By dinnertime, I am fading and have a headache. Her pasta and veggies look delicious and the aroma is hard to take. She tastes my shake which I tell her is like the Robek’s smoothies that she likes but she can barely swallow her tiny sip. Only 1 more day to go.

Day 3 – Miraculously I woke up before my alarm, rallied my daughter to speed up her school prepping process and made it to Noon with only my scheduled shake. I’m thinking this cleanse thing is giving me more energy until about two o’clock when I started to crash. My daughter will be home soon so I will psyche myself up to ignore her afterschool snack. I’m in the home stretch and will make it through this. But believe me, I look forward to having a ‘normal’ meal with my daughter tomorrow.

Overall, I look at it this way: My own health is critical to my daughter’s well-being in so many ways. So this detox/cleanse was a productive exercise to demonstrate that I eat too much and that I can probably be significantly healthier and feel better if I ‘cleanse’ more often.

Tags: 3-day detox cleanse, cleanse, detox, Dr. Oz, health diet, healthy eating, hungry, kale shake, liquified food, Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie