Diary of an Alkaline Cleanse

alkaline

Cleanse Breakfast!Every now and then I really believe in doing a mini-cleanse, a 2-3 day cleanse to give your body a real boost, a flood of nutrients and hydration to flush out toxins, melt away fat and experience an unbelievable energy surge (that lasts). In fact, all of these benefits last because they are based on a foundation of nutritional abundance rather than restriction or starvation. This cleanse is not about consuming only one thing, or (lemon and syrup) water. It is definitely not a fast. It is about giving your body more. More vitamins, more minerals, more nutrients, more hydration, more antioxidants, more healthy fats, more of everything.

Rather than starving your body into ejecting everything in the hope that toxins will come out too, you give your body an abundance of the tools it needs to repair and replenish.

You get the picture, so here goes.

This weekend me and my girlfriend are doing a 3-day cleanse. We decided last night as we have just gotten ourselves settled into our new flat, got our stuff in, got the ionizer set up and are starting on another set of different health and exercise goals next week, so we thought now was a good time. The cleanse might spill over into next week and there are rumours that we might push it out until Tuesday (making it a 4-day cleanse) so we’ll see how we go.

I thoroughly believe in cleansing and I have decided to diarise my cleanse here. I am doing this for two reasons:

  1. To show you what I do, when I do it and why. What I eat/drink, what supplements I take and what exercise I do
  2. To give you an insight into what it is like! How I feel, what I do and how I react

Here are the rules of the cleanse (and cleansing in general):

  1. Consume only fresh, raw, alkaline soups, smoothies, juices and water
  2. Eat and drink as much and as often as you need to – never go hungry
  3. Soups can be warmed and still raw – remember that, it makes a massive difference!
  4. Use herbs as liberally as you like to alter flavours and give variety
  5. Drink four litres of good, clean water every day
  6. Aerobic exercise is essential, but only light exercise (walking, rebounding or very light jogging)
  7. No acidic foods, drinks or OTC drugs
  8. Treat supplements as a supplement! Don’t try to replace food or meals withsupplements!

And, on that note, here are my supplements for this cleanse:

  • Green Drink: Doc Broc’s Power Plants
  • pH Drops: puripHy
  • Clay: Terra pHirma
  • Chlorophyll: ChloropHeal
  • Omega Oils: Udo’s Choice
  • Colon/Bowel Detox: pHlush
  • Antioxidants: GlutapHione
  • Multivitamin: Quest One-a-Day
  • Colloidal Silver: Silvagen
  • Fibre: Husk

cleanse supplements

This may seem like a lot to you, but it isn’t really. I could easily not use a number of these, and I only use a lot of them sparingly. If I had to choose my top three they would be the greens, pH drops and omega oils. I am only using the ChloropHeal because I don’t have access to a juicer this weekend and so it up’s my level of green food to make up for that.

And here are my goals. These aren’t scientifically set, they are just my aims and reasons for doing this:

  • To give my energy levels a big boost
  • To clear out my digestive system
  • To shake off an amusing little bit of belly that seemed to appear during my last few weeks in Melbourne
  • Not lose any muscle weight – this is very important for me!
  • To cleanse out any yeasts that may have found their way into my system
  • Cleansing gives me a great sense of personal achievement and it is lovely to focus this much on your own wellbeing and happiness every now and then

Let’s get started…

Day One: Waking Up

It is 7am. I’ve just woken up and remembered I’m doing a cleanse. It’s a feeling of part excitement (thinking about the benefits I’ll get!) and part trepidation. It is the weekend and normally I would really be looking forward to a long and lazy brunch and a read of the papers. Today I’m really looking forward to flushing myself out! I’ve got that real impending feeling that I am about to take what Dr Young calls an ‘internal shower’.

Its a lovely day in London and the sun is out again (for now). I’m going to get straight into it. Throughout this diary I am going to bold and point out everything I actually do for the cleanse. I am going to put it into great detail to leave no questions left unanswered (but if you do have one leave it in the comments below).

Cleanse Action: 7:30am – Drank 500ml of warm lemon water (400ml ionized water, 100ml of hot ionized water, 2 drops of puripHy, squeezed quarter of a lemon)

That was very refreshing and tasty but I’m already starting to get hungry so I am going to make a big smoothie in a minute. Sometimes doing a cleanse can be a bit tough for the first couple of days so we’ve not given ourselves too many things to do today. We’re going to the farmers markets, topping up at the supermarket, checking out our new gym and signing up ready for next week, and generally getting as much sunshine as possible.

cleanse fridgeCleanse Action: 8:00am – Made and drank 500ml of an Alkaine Smoothie (1 avocado, 1 spring onion, 2 garlic cloves, 1 inch of ginger, 1/2 green pepper, three bits of broccoli, handful spinach leaves, handful kale leaves, big summer greens leaf, splash of veggie stock, handful of romaine lettuce leaves, 1 large cucumber)

This is really easy to make, you just wash and chop all of the ingredients, lightly simmer the broccoli for 2 minutes and blend it all up with a little splash of the water from the broccoli.

This has actually taken the edge right off my hunger and I feel pretty good. I’m going to give it five and then start on my green drinks for the day. For those of you new to this, green drink is the mix of powdered greens (mostly grasses like wheatgrass, barley grass, kamut grass etc alongside powdered alkaline veggies such as broccoli) in water. You mix it up by adding one (or more) scoops into a litre of good, clean water. By good, clean water I mean filtered and alkaline – you can do this by filtering the best way you can and adding pH drops to the water. Again, if you are new to this, pH drops are highly concentrated drops containing highly alkaline ingredients (such as potassium, magnesium, calcium and sodium).

I personally use a water ionizer (a Chanson Miracle MAX if you’re interested) which I personally believe it the very best way to filter your water. It takes all of the harmful stuff out (including molds and bacteria) and raises the pH of the water to make it alkaline. You can set it to whatever pH you want, I set mine at 9.5. If you want to know more about the importance of alkaline water and the the importance of hydration click here.

Now is also a good time to take my first supplements alongside my greens. So I’m taking a multivitamin and am going to put colloidal silver and glutathione into my greens.

Cleanse Action: 8:30 – Made & Started Drinking First Litre of Green Drink (2 scoops in 1 litre) with 4 drops of Dr Young’s puripHy, 15 drops of colloidal silver and 15 drops of Dr Young’s GlutapHione

I have upped my normal supplement intake (in terms of variety) for this cleanse as I’ve not been perfect even by my own 80/20 rule standards lately with the travel, the event and then the move to London, so I am going to have a proper flush out. So alongside my normal supplements I’m also going to take Dr Young’s cleanse products – pHlush and Terra pHirma Clay.

I’ve taken a few of my supplements now and will have a few more in a bit when I get back from the markets.

Cleanse Action: 9:00 – Taken 4 pHlush capsules & 2 tablespoons of Udo’s Choice

Right, it is now 11:41am and I am back from the markets (which were a bit of a let down). I got myself some nice organic spinach and lettuce, but in hindsight it was a bit of a mission. The walk was good gentle exercise (about 3 miles) but I got pretty hungry and lightheaded when we got there – but this helped:

Alkaline Diet Recipe Book BannerCleanse Action: 10:30 – Drank a large vegetable juice of carrot, beetroot, celery and ginger

Beetroot and carrot are not absolutely ideal for a cleanse because they are still a little high in sugar, but I was out and needed something. I also got the juice girl to put more celery in than anything else.

This made all the difference, I felt better straight away and really enjoyed the walk home. Turns out we were walking through South Kensington and Chelsea, which were really nice! I dread to think how much places around there cost!

Once back home it was time to start thinking about lunch and make another green drink, this time without the silver or glutathione.

Cleanse Action: 11:46 – Second Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy & a squeeze of lemon juice for flavour and variety!

Getting pretty hungry again, it is nearly lunch so I’m happy we’ve made it through to mid day without too many troubles. A little bit of light-headedness is perfectly manageable! Time for a big soup, and everything went in!

Cleanse Action: 12:00 – Big Alkaline Soup: 1/2 cucumber, 3 bits of broccoli, 5 bits of cauliflower, 1 clove of garlic, 1 inch of ginger, 2 massive summer greens leaves, handful of spinach, handful of kale, 1 small courgette (zucchini), 1/2 green pepper, 1/2 avocado.

I just gently simmered the leaves, courgette and broccoli for 3 minutes to soften it a tiny bit and warm it up a bit too. This lot made us two massive bowls and then enough for a small second helping. It was pretty tasty, but I am wishing I could have a normal cooked dinner.

Cleanse Action: 13:00 – Took second 4 pHlush capsules

The market situation was a bit too much this morning to be honest and there was no way I was going to do another big mission so we just chilled out and took it easy. At about 2 we decided to have a nap (what a luxury!) and it was lovely. Woke up feeling really quite refreshed. I definitely think having some extra rest during a cleanse is a smart move.

Cleanse Action: 15:00 – Made Third Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy & 15 drops of ChloropHeal

After waking up we had that second serving from the lunch soup and it perked me up again. Took another walk around town and checked out a couple of gyms. Again, started to feel lightheaded and was glad when we got home. No headaches yet at all, but a lot of lightheadedness. Stopped off at the shops on the way back to get some more soup ingredients, mint, peas, butternut squash, tomatoes etc. Going to mix it up a bit tonight and tomorrow!

Feeling a bit anyhow so made a nice herbal tea. Makes all the difference.

Cleanse Action: 17:00 – Made Fourth Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy & 15 drops of ChloropHeal

This green drink went down really well. I think my body really appreciated the extra hydration. But still, being a hungry young man, I felt it was nearly time for dinner again! Feeling really glad we stopped by the shops to get some ingredients to make a soup with a bit more variety!

Cleanse Action: 17:35 – Dinner – Tomato & Pepper Soup: 12 organic tomatoes & 2 big pointed red peppers (capsicums)

To make this soup I literally just blended the ingredients together. It was that easy and so tasty. Definitely one I will be making again! It was a big bowl for both of us too!

After this, and having had a nap I really fancied a bath. Think I just wanted to be nice to myself. I know that I might sound dandy from this diary, but it has actually been quite a hard day. Thus far, the secret is to make sure you’ve got enough of everything so that you don’t go hungry.

Cleanse Action: 18:00 – Alkaline Bath and Skin Brush

So I hopped in the bath! I put in a load of alkaline salts (you can use Epson Salts which is pretty much 100% the alkaline mineral magnesium). Before I hopped in though I gave myself a rigourous skin brushing. I love doing this, it really wakes you up – and remember, your skin is your largest organ and your body is constantly detoxifying through this.

As it gets into the evening you really want to slow down your consumption, so the last of the supplements for the day are taken and we’ve both enjoyed having a fresh lemon and ginger tea (with fresh lemon and fresh sliced root ginger).

Cleanse Action: 18:30 Final four pHlush supplements and two spoons of Udo’s Choice

The last Udo’s was a little bit hard to stomach, but it is so important so down it went.

After this it got a little bit hard for me to be honest and I did get pretty hungry and felt like I was counting down the time until I could go to bed. I ‘cheated’ slightly and had a quarter of an avocado, but I ate it in such a way that it was pretty much just a tiny smoothie. I had more tea with lemon and ginger to divert the attention of my stomach away from food and sat it out. Tania put me through two episodes of Sex and the City back-to-back which essentially put me to sleep.

We went to bed at about 11pm and I was surprised when I woke up that I got straight off to sleep and slept through!

Day Two

Woke up this morning, feeling fine! Slept from about 11:30 until 7:45 which is a decent amount of rest (important on a cleanse). I have woken up feeling positive, happy and not hungry at all!

I feel like we can have a decent day of it today and not worry too much about nausea, headaches or any of the other ‘detox symptoms’. I’ve kicked the day off straight up with 500mls of lemon water and a multivitamin. Shortly the first smoothie/soup of the day will be made and I’m quietly looking forward to it!

Cleanse Action: 08:00 – 500ml of Lemon Water, with Ionized Water, 2 drops of puripHy and I’ve used lime instead of lemon!

I already felt hydrated this morning, but this made me feel great. I honestly, actually feel great. How nice is it to wake up in the morning and your first thought not to be how thirsty you are? I admit, I had fallen into the bad habit of really falling back with my hydration in the latter part of the day over the last two weeks and had been waking up feeling it. But now I have reminded myself why steady hydration is so important. It won’t be happening again in a hurry. Man, it feels great to be healthy. I know I might sound a bit over the top at the moment but I just feel awesome. Really positive and SO looking forward to the day.

cleanse smoothieCleanse Action: 09:00 – Alkaline Green Smoothie: 1 cucumber, 1 avocado, 2 tomatoes, 1/2 green pepper, a splash of stock, 2 big handfuls of spinach and 2 big handfuls of lettuce

This made about 1 litre of smoothie for us to share and it tasted delicious. I seasoned it by putting a pinch of Himalayan salt and a squeeze of lime into the blender before any of the other ingredients and it made it taste great.

We both also had some psyllium husks to help cleanse out our digestive system. Will probably start the pHlush tablets in about an hour. For the first time I’m also going to try mixing the Terra pHirma clay in with my greens. Could taste awful. We’ll see. My quandry is that I want to do a course of the clay today, but I don’t want to miss out on my greens and both require being drunk four times per day, each time in one litre of water. There is no way I could manage 8 litres, so I will give this mixup a try!

Cleanse Action: 09:17 – 3 scoops of psyllium husk in a small glass of water

The husks aren’t vital unless you feel you want or need the extra fibre. I didn’t need to have them, but I felt good giving my digestive system a helping hand!

Cleanse Action: 09:45 – First Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal and one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

So the experiment went well, the clay made it taste almost nicer. It only really changed the texture and, to be fair, it is probably no nicer or not, but the change of texture was nice. For those of you who are reeling at the thought of drinking clay, it isn’t thick or anything. It is a really fine powder and it doesn’t make the water gluggy. The water still has quite a thin consistency.

Cleanse Action: 10:00 – Second Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal and one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

OK, it is 10:30 now and I am getting really hungry again and a bit less enthused. I am a bit irritable to be honest. I need more of everything. More soup, more greens and a nice cup of tea.

Cleanse Action: 10:15 – Jumped on the rebounder for 10 minutes

Tea first, I’m geting a bit bored of using the blender and making soups. I think I will have to jazz the next one up a bit. Not sure what with just yet, I can’t judge my tastebuds at all! I think I am going to go for a heap of different vegetables that I’ve not used so far…

Cleanse Action: 11:45 – Vegetable & Tomato Warm Soup (10 tomatoes, 2 carrots, half a savoy cabbage, handful of kale, 1 parsnip, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 onion & 1/4 swede)>

That was an awesome soup. I made it by steaming all of the veggies (carrots, cabbage, kale, parsnip, swede) and then steam frying the onion and garlic for a minute. Then I chucked the tomatoes, onion, garlic and about 1/3 of the veggies into a blender. Then I mixed in the rest of the veg and just warmed them slightly. With a little bit of Himalayan salt & pepper it was delicious and made enough for both of us with a big bowl then and a little more for later.

Cleanse Action: 12:00 – Third Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal and one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

I have to say, eating/drinking this soup really perked me up and made both of our moods a little brighter! So much so that we went shopping at a big shopping centre! Folly. After about an hour we were both totally ready to get home.

Cleanse Action: 14:00 – Vegetable Juice – Celery, Spinach, Cucumber & Ginger

Thank the lord! We saw a juice bar on the way home and stopped for a veggie juice. It has been frustrating not having a juicer this weekend, but hey, sometimes your conditions aren’t perfect but you just have to make do. Normally I would probably have had about 3 – 4 veggie juices per day alongside all of this other soup, smoothies etc. To make up for it I have been putting double scoops of Doc Broc in my green drinks and having plenty of ChloropHeal (Dr Young’s liquid chlorophyll).

Cleanse Action: 15:30 – Second Serving of Veg & Tomato Soup

We bought some more teas while we were out – Fennel and a Ginger, to keep things mixed up a bit. Totally done in after shopping so we had the rest of the soup and settled down to watch Roddick vs Federer (recorded while we were out). Heh, first two games and four aces already!

Cleanse Action: 16:00 – Jumped on the rebounder for 10 minutes

Annoyingly I just realised we forgot to have any Udo’s Choice this morning, so I am going to go and have a big serve now. Plus the glutathione we also forgot and another serve of husks.

Then tea.

Cleanse Action: 16:15 – 45ml of Udo’s Choice (about 4 desert spoons), 15 drops of GlutapHione and (separately) 3 scoops of husks in a small glass of water.

Poor old Andy Roddick! What a game though eh? Anyway, on with cleansing – the Udo’s and GlutapHione went down without too much trouble and the Udo’s has sent the ‘nutrition coming’ signal to my brain and has stopped me feeling hungry. I think that when cleansing (especially with my goal of keeping muscle mass) it is essential to have a lot of healthy oil to give your body a good clean source of fat calories. Fat is so essential to our proper functioning, especially so during a cleanse.

I’m really feeling good again this afternoon, if a little tired. I do feel like a nap, but am going to hold off so that I definitely get a good solid night sleep tonight. Really wondering how I am going to feel with regards to carrying on tomorrow…decisions, decisions…

Cleanse Action: 16:30 – Fourth Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy and one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

Time to rack up the fourth and final greens of the day. Note, this isn’t my only water consumption. I reckon I have about 5-6 litres including all the lemon water and teas. This is proper hydration! I’m really happy with how the greens and clay go together. No longer will I have to sacrifice one for the other!

I find that the more I stay hydrated, the less I have the urge to snack during the day. Apparently the signals to the brain for food and water are quite similar.

Cleanse Action: 17:30 – Alkaline Vegetable Soup (Same as yesterday) & 15 drops of ChloropHeal straight into the mouth

More veggie soup this evening. It is so filling and satisfying! I will hopefully not have the snack-attack just before bed tonight. This should keep me going through until the morning…

It is important to note on this cleanse that you should never be hungry. The only times I have been caught out are when we got ambitious and went out of the house for an adventure. Please remember for when you do this – if you get hungry, make more food. There is no restriction.

At about 20:00 I did get a little bit hungry, but I made myself a nice cup of ginger tea and settled down with a bit of TV. Fell asleep watching a movie and I reckon we stumbled off to bed at about 23:30. Yawn…

Day Three

Woke up feeling damn good at about 7am. I felt really ready to start the day and really positive about my day ahead. Today I am tackling a big project that I’ve been putting off so I just got straight into it. Something I learned from reading Leo Babuata’s blog, Zen Habits, is the skill of getting your three most important tasks for the day done before anything else (even email) so I applied that today. It felt great to get the first job knocked off!

Cleanse Action: 07:30 – Drank 500ml of warm lemon water (400ml ionized water, 100ml of hot ionized water, 2 drops of puripHy, squeezed quarter of a lemon)

Got about 2/3 of the way through my first big action and started to get a little peckish. So I hopped on the rebounder for 5 mins to wake my digestive system up and headed into the kitchen.

Cleanse Action: 08:00 – Jumped on the rebounder for 5 minutes

Time for breakfast. Another smoothie today, but to mix it up (and because I forgot to buy more avocados) I’m making a kind of soup/smoothie inbetweener. A smoop if you like:

Cleanse Action: 09:00 – Pea & Mint Smoop: 1 cucumber, 5 lettuce leaves (large), 2 handfuls of spinach, 75 ml of veggie stock, half a bag of peas, a big handful of mint leaves, pinch of Himalayan salt

pea & mint soupBecause the peas were frozen this comes out chilled. I had mine chilled as a smoothie and I warmed Tania’s slightly and put it in a bowl for her to have a soup. I think she is struggling psychologically with the relentless green smoothies I keep giving her.

This was totally delicious. I am so happy that it is so easy to mix things up on this cleanse. I can’t see how folks who do the cleanses/detox that only have one thing (one type of soup, or just lemon, water and syrup) cope. Or how their body copes, but thats another matter.

We decided that we really want to go to the gym today – we are desparate having not had a gym to use for over a month. Therefore we are going to transition out of the cleanse today. I will document this too because I think it is an important thing to do and not many people do.

So here is what will happen:

  • We have had an alkaline, liquid breakfast
  • We will have a warm, normal, alkaline lunch – probably avocado, spinach, broccoli, kale and tomatoes on a bed of organic brown rice. This will give us the energy to have a light workout
  • We will go back to liquid food for dinner – probably a big alkaline soup
  • Tomorrow we will be back to normal 80/20 alkaline living

Cleanse Action: 10:00 – First Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal, 15 drops of Colloidal Silver, 15 drops of GlutapHione and one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay plus (separately) 3 spoons of Udo’s Choice

Supplement hit! The drink was a mega-alkaline-cocktail and used this to wash down the Udo’s. For the record, Udo’s tastes a lot better than any other oil supplement. Especially since he’s added coconut oil.

Having had half of this it was skin brush and shower time. The skin brushing gets me totally buzzing!

Cleanse Action: 11:00 – Second Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal, one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay plus one Multivitamin

I can’t believe how good I am feeling today. Really not hungry at all, definitely no nausea, definitely no headaches and lots and lots of energy. I think if you get past day two, cleansing is a breeze to be honest.

We’re still going to the gym, just for a light jog, a cycle and a steam room session.

First it is time for our alkaline transition-out-of-cleanse lunch

Cleanse Action: 12:00 – Transition Out Lunch – Small serve of organc brown rice, 1 avocado, 2 tomatoes, 8 bits of broccoli, handful of kale, 2 handfuls of spinach, a bit of red onion and all drizzled with lemon juice and cold pressed olive oil

That made two serves by the way. It felt nice to be eating food with crunch again! I very lightly steamed the broccoli and kale just to give it some warmth and it went down well. I feel really nicely full now!

The gym was fine. Thankful that I had a more substantial lunch. Got a bit dizzy after the steam room but all is good! Kept well hydrated with water throughout.

On the back of this I still felt good enough, and full enough to make it through til dinner time when I made the capsicum and tomato soup again, with the addition of a few extras!

Cleanse Action: 15:45 – Third Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal, one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

Feeling very well hydrated, well cleansed, well fed and well looked after. I still maintain that this is the very best detox/cleanse you can possibly do. There is nothing to complain about! It gives energy, an abundance of nutrients, plenty of hyper-hydration and gives amazing results.

You can’t go wrong!

Cleanse Action: 16:30 – Two spoons of Udo’s Choice

More oil needed. Now on with dinner.

Cleanse Action: 17:45 – Dinner – Tomato & Pepper Soup – 6 tomatoes, 1 brown onion, 1 clove of garlic, 1 large pointed red capsicum & a little stock

I simply steam fried the onion and garlic in a little stock, threw that into a blender with the tomatoes and peppers and a little Himalayan salt and black peppper. It was flippin’ delicious. You can put in more tomatoes or more peppers (capsicums if you’re Aussie or from America) to taste, but this made enough for both of us and filled us right up!

Followed this beauty up with a cup of ginger tea. Life is sweet.

Cleanse Action: 18:30 – Fourth Litre of Green Drink (2 Scoops in 1 Litre) with 4 drops of puripHy, 15 drops of ChloropHeal, one scoop of Terra pHirma Clay

Getting towards the end of the final day and I’m really rather happy with how it has gone. All I need for the rest of the day is tea, relaxation and maybe an evening walk.

Cleanse Action: 19:00 – Hopped on the rebounder for 15

It is time for our final cleanse meal and we’re both happy and sad to be finishing. We’re happy that tomorrow we’ll go back to a more normal diet (probably still have a smoothie for breakfast, but then a normal salad lunch and big veggie dinner at my folks place), but we’re also sad not to go into a full blown week long cleanse after getting through the hardest part! But still, the results we’ve gotten from the last three days have been perfect, so stopping now in favour of some full on work is probably about the best we could have hoped for.

Cleanse Action: Alkaline Soup for Dinner – 1 avocado, 3 bits of steamed broccoli, 1 cucumber, 3 big handfuls of spinach, 3 big handfuls of lettuce, 2 tomatoes, 2 spring onions, 2 garlic cloves, handful of kale, a little stock

Last green soup. Went down ok. Made me feel happy enough and will definitely keep me going until tomorrow morning. Looking forward to waking up and seeing how I feel! I’ve got high hopes.

Just enough time for one more cup of detox tea before bed time…zzz.

End of the Cleanse: My Thoughts

This has probably been the most enjoyable cleanse I’ve ever done, and I could easily go on for a few more days if I were going to be staying in London. I’m happy to stop though as I have a 10 day cleanse planned for October. I might do another weekend one in between now and then.

I definitely think the first two days are the toughest. While your body starts to cope with the extra flood of nutrients, all of your food being liquid, and no bad stuff (you know what I’m talking about) you do get some troublesome times – nausea, headaches, light-headedness, hunger and some folks get flu-like symptoms too. When this happens you just have to look after yourself, more soup, more smoothies, more juices, more water, more tea. Give your body more.

Don’t over-exert yourself. Don’t try too much. I made this mistake on the first morning and paid the price. Had there not have been a juice bar handy it would have been a very sorry walk home from the markets and possible vomiting! I felt pretty rough. But as soon as I had that juice I felt on top of the world again.

After the first day I was really craving normal food. It was all I could think about. But now at the end of day three (and all day today really) I’ve been fine. I could happily go on. And that feels fantastic.

Results

For the intangibles, I can report that I feel amazing. I feel positive, energetic, full of life and more. I definitely feel a big difference to how I felt before the cleanse and I can only imagine that this is going to keep on going while I transition out of it back to a normal diet (80/20 alkaline/acid).

My outlook has become unbelievably positive and I’ve been incredibly creative today and have also been massively productive.

Now for the more tangible, and the result the girls out there are probably more interested in. I lost 3kg (6.5lbs) over the three days, and Tan lost 1.5kg or 3.4lbs (which was certainly all she needed to, if at all).

The amusing belly has disappeared and I don’t feel like too much muscle tone has gone so all in all I am over the moon with the results. Tania is really pleased too, although neither of us went into this with a weight loss goal. The great thing is, when you alkalise your body finds it’s natural weight…

Do You Want To Do A Cleanse?

Does this sound like the thing for you? We are just about to launch a 10-Day Cleanse Course to do as a stand alone thing, or either as a pre-transition for the full 12-Week Alkaline Diet Course, or to do after the 12-Week course.

This is the exact protocol I’ve been following above and it will give you everything you need to successfully do an alkaline cleanse (for 3, 5, 7 or 10 days) including:

  1. A daily schedule of meals & supplements
  2. A recipe book to show you how to make every meal
  3. Shopping lists to ensure you have every ingredient in the right quantity to do the cleanse (without running out of anything!)
  4. The Energise Cleanse Guidebook to give you all of the information you need to successfully cleanse
  5. One-on-One email support from me throughout the ten days to keep you on track and answer questions

We are just putting the finishing touches to it now, so if you are interested in getting it first (and at a discount) then leave your details here.

And if you have any questions for now then leave a comment below!

Alkaline Diet Recipe Book Banner


order the alkaline life

Ask Me a Question or Leave a Comment Here - I'd Love to Hear from You

*

  1. al Reply

    How can I get rid of the bar on the left of your email articles i.e.100,llike,5,2,g+1. It prevents reading of your articles
    because it is in the way. Very annoying! If it keeps up it
    will deter me from opening up the articles for reason of
    not being able to see them.

    Thank you.

  2. rosalinda piczon Reply

    your friends are also my friends except kale.trying some of your shakes and smoothies.

  3. Charlie Taylor Reply

    Hi Ross,
    I would like to thank you so much for sharing all your information. I have lost 4 Stone in 4 months & feel great. I had a live blood analsys last weekend but still showing acidity in the blood, could it be too early yet for the blood to change, my ph in the morning is about 5.8 rising to 6.8 during the day.
    Thanks again.
    Charlie

  4. Lucy Raeside Reply

    Hi Ross-
    Just came across your cleanse diary from last year. What a help that was. I am presently on day-7 of what is going to be a very long cleanse for me, and it was good to see that I was on the mark with what I was doing! Although I’m not using the clay. I did discover that I’m taking the Glutathione the hard way. Will try the drops in a green drink. Don’t know where I got this idea, but I was taking a tablespoon per day of the Glutathione. Too much?

  5. Sharon Gray Reply

    I would really like to try the cleansing but I live in the Caribbean the ingridients will be difficult to obtain any alternitive suggestions?

    • Ross Reply

      Hi

      I am sorry, I have no idea about what is available in the Caribbean. Your best bet is to aim for lots of leafy greens.

      Cheers
      Ross

  6. Mia Robbins Reply

    What i really want to know is if your detox will stop me losing muscle tone and if the weight i lose will be fat, colon stuff or muscle and water. thank you
    Mia

  7. Mia Robbins Reply

    Hi ross, I wrote a comment on here, but didnt get a reply??

  8. Mia Robbins Reply

    Hi Ross,

    I was wondering if you could help me please.

    I have been trying to lose weight as about up till 4 months ago I was really unwell, and I was bed bound for 6 months or so with no exercise and tablets that must have made me so acidic, I literally would eat everything I was not supposed to and heaps of it….I gained 3 1/2 stone! After an operation which made me better, I have strarted alkalising again with Tony Robbins greens ( from you) and eating a 80/20 diet of alkaline food with a once a week restaurant meal. I have lost 2 stone in 3 months and need to get rid
    of the rest asap ( I hate myself fat!) And I was wondering about the detox…..did you lose any muscle the weight you lost? As i have been trying to build my muscle and cannoy afford to lose any? Also I would really like to know if the weight you lost was only colon waste…and how did you keep up your muscle mass? When I was last on a cleanse, I found i was very tired and definatly could not go to the gym….

    Also is psyllium goo instead of the clay?

    I really appreciate you answering
    Thank you

    Mia

  9. Christine Kern Reply

    I think what you are doing is wonderful. I’m a health and fitness nut myself and I think you have something really good going here. You inspired me to do the same. thanks!

    • Ross Reply

      Thanks Christine

      Your feedback really does mean a lot to me!

      Ross

  10. Ian Hamilton Reply

    Holy smokes Ross, do you ever sleep? Or do you have superglue on your fingers connected to your keyboard?

    • Ross Reply

      Hey Ian

      Only when I have to mate…only when I have to!

      Ross

  11. Faye Reply

    I am currently going from a typical western diet, with a leaning towards the alkaline or 80/20 style diet. My trouble is finding really easy and logical advice towards making this possible.

    What interested me most was your comments regarding detox symptoms etc… and wonder if that’s whats wrong with me at the moment. I started this Saturday (its Tuesday now). I have been having smoothie for b/fast. Lunch would be similar or a a green soup, and then dinner would be soup starter and if necessary some wheat-free bread as a means of not getting too hungry. I take barley grass and have Ph drops too…

    I mostly feel ok but have suffered a gripey tummy once and flatulence.. I am also a liitle lethargic…

    – Is this normal at this stage.

    BTW – I am not making a radical life change here just yet – I am trying to stop eating meat – we’ll see how that goes. I am selecting soy protein for a meal once or twice a week that feels like the food I am used to.

    What symptoms during the next 3 weels would you expect i should accept as normal.

    I have also booked in for a colon cleanse as a starter.

    Thanks – love you article and have bookmarked you for the future.

    🙂
    Regards
    Faye

    • Ross Reply

      Hi Faye

      Congrats on the changes you’re making! I’d really recommend you use a quality oil supplement (if you’re not already), it will make all of the difference. I recommend Udo’s Choice. I’ve blogged about oils here: http://liveenergized.com/wordpress/2009/01/28/why-i-love-essential-fatty-acids/ – getting really good fats will make a massive difference with the lethargy. Also, make sure you’re eating plenty – I hope those soups, smoothies and juices are nice and big!

      Colonics are amazing – you’ll feel great!

      Let me know how you get on or if you have any other questions!
      Ross

  12. Anita Reply

    This looks awesome Ross.. and your diary makes it ‘real’.
    I am on holidays next week so when I come back I am doing this for sure. Thanks Ross =)

  13. Sandra Reply

    Thanks for sharing Ross! You’re such an inspiration!!!

  14. Sandra Reply

    Thanks for sharing Ross! You’re such an inspiration!!! ?

  15. Ross Reply

    Hey Janni

    It was pretty easy to be honest. It looks like harder work because I’ve been very detailed in my write up.

    A more simplified version would be:

    Eat heaps of alkaline soups, drink heaps of alkaline smoothies, juices and waters and go easy on yourself for 3 days!

    Erm, toilet trips eh…

    Right, at first (way back when…) when I first started out I was going to the toilet to pee all of the time. But the more water you drink the more your body gets used to it and uses the water you consume. You’ll also find that when you drink water that is more alkaline you don’t get the bloated feeling too.

    I did start to get a breakout spot on my forehead but it didn’t come to much. Remember I was cleansing from a pretty healthy place to begin with. If you went from 10 coffees a day, sweets, colas, meats and dairy and then went on a cleanse you’d get a lot more ‘detox symptoms!’

    I’ve just emailed you – would be good to hear how you’re going on the course!

    Have a great weekend
    Ross

  16. Janni Reply

    Wow! that looks like hard work ,but worth it! Might try it at some point if I want an extra boost! At the minute I’m seeing some very good results from the 12 week course. Friends cant believe how different i look and I feel so good on the inside and out!

    I have one question regarding your toilet trips! Not what everyone wants to talk about but its esseintially where the toxins end up! Since starting the diet I have never peed as much in my life! Also did you have any spots or any other signs of toxins coming out?

«