Detox week

I’ve done my share of bizar diets and routines, detoxes and cleanses and let me tell you: I wasn’t planning on doing one ever again…

About 7 years ago, I was searching for a cure for my abdominal problems and one thing I tried was a juice detox. Three days of drinking only vegetable juice would totally cleanse my system and give my belly a kickstart. What actually happened was me being grumpy for three days straight, thinking and dreaming about waffles and pink glazed cookies (which I normally don’t even like 🤷🏼‍♀️) and it took me 3 years to voluntarily eat cucumber again. This juice detox totally ruined the taste of cucumber for me, even when it was the pretty detail in a beautiful gin and tonic. Can you imagine?! 😱

Then, in an attempt to rapidly loose weight and feel more fit after the holidays, I also tried sportfasting. During 10 days you’re gradually lowering your food intake, until you only drink three fruit juices a day. During these 10 days, you’re working out on a certain heart rate level for 30 minutes a day. This regime is famous for athletes, who schedule this into their routine to get a boost of energy some days after the fasting is done, exactly on the moment they have a big game and need to perform. For me sportfasting was a complete struggle and although I finished it and lost 7kg (15,4 pounds!) in 10 days, it left me without energy and with a food-obsession, afraid to get into my old ways again.

Saying detoxing left a bad taste in my mouth (literally), is quite an understatement.

But what if a detox exists of three meal a day, with plenty of fresh veggies, seeds, nuts and grains, healthy fats and A LOT of variation? And what if, on top of that, you don’t have to do the groceries for this detox and preparing your food takes hardly any effort?

Now, that kind of detox suddenly sounds like music to my ears! 🎶

Perfect timing

Something I struggle with when it comes to food, is restoring the balance after a period of ‘eating-whatever-and-whenever’. Wether it’s after a joyful summer vacation or starting the year after the holidays, I find it extra hard to get back into my routine, when it comes to both exercise and eating right.

January 2018 didn’t feel different in that sense. Suddenly one chocolate treat turns into a swimming pool of chocolate bar wrappers (I buy the mini’s, but then eat them all, where’s the logic in that 🙈😂) and even the bike-ride to the cross-fit box seems to much to ask, let alone participating in a class. As much as I love healthy and wholesome food, in a dip like this it doesn’t really sound that appealing anymore.

When Pack’n Joy reached out to me and asked if I wanted to try out their Detox Pack, it felt like the perfect timing to reset myself. 

Detox pack is 6 days of super healthy meals, breakfast - lunch - dinner, home-made with fresh, biologic, local and in-season ingredients, filled with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It’s vegetarian, gluten- and lactose free. You can join every three weeks and you can pick up your pack at a pick up point near you. To assure the freshness of the food, there’s a pick-up moment in the beginning, on Sunday, and in the middle of the detox, on Wednesday.

Is this heaven?

I picked up the first part of the detox at a biological grocery store near my home. The first meal would be dinner; a large sweet potato, filled with vegetables and almond rasps. I only had to put it in the over for 20 minutes and dinner was served for my husband and I. Yes, you’re reading that right; my husband, the sweetheart he is, decided to support me and join me in this detox ♥️ We were both super surprised by the great taste and the originality of our first dinner and it gave us high hopes for the rest of the meals to come.

The next morning was a liquid breakfast: a ‘smoothie’ of a date, pumpkin seeds and a banana. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of liquid meals. I prefer some structure to chew on and I always have a hard time to finish liquids like this, because they fill me up quite fast. However, feeling full during a detox isn’t necessarily a bad thing and I wasn’t hungry until lunch time, so YAY for that! Lunch was an amazing salad and that night we had pumpkin risotto with sage.

This food schedule continued for the next 5 days and we were surprised by all the different flavors and the variety in the meals. Fortunately, breakfast wasn’t liquid every day, the lunch and dinners were super delicious and as for the dressings and sauces on top: I would have never guessed that sauces this tasty could be a healthy part of a detox week. Yum! 🍅🍆🍌🍍🍏

Was it all ‘Bliss and Happiness’?

The point of doing a detox, is to clean your body and reset yourself. I was therefore prepared for the inevitable struggle that usually comes with a cleanse like this. The intense discomfort I had on my past detox experiences were not something I was looking forward to and - Thank Heavens 🙏🏻 - they didn’t appear in this gravity this time. You don’t have to cook, you’re eating three meals a day and most of them are not just nice, but simply delicious. 

However, during the detox I did have some intense cravings. From the first day of the detox I was dreaming about bread and in my mind I’d ordered myself a nice sandwich a million times. Two days into the detox, I noticed on top of this, that I’m more dependent on coffee than I realized I was. At one point I phoned a friend to go on a walk with me, to get me out of the house and away from my coffee machine. [Yep, true story… That coffee machine was simply tempting me too much! ☕️]. The first days of the detox I had a tough time during the evenings too, because I’m used to having something (ok: somethingS 🍫🍬🍪) sweet to accompany my tea. As you'll understand, a few grapes don't really really solve this kind of problem.

As for quantities, I was prepared to be a bit hungry during this detox and I sometimes was. Whenever I got a bit shaky, this was easily solved with an apple or a few grapes. For my husband this wasn't the case and I think he would have needed a little extra food to maintain enough energy through the day (he is 2 meters (6 foot 7)). He took some extra fruits, but perhaps the Detox Pack should be adjusted slightly to keep men motivated too 😉

Anyways, I was prepared for this detox, I went all in and these struggles were definitely manageable. It was interesting to notice that my cravings for coffee slowly disappeared and that by Friday, 5 days into the detox, I decided I could easily go without bread. I had been going through bread and coffee rehab 😅

The final verdict 

If you’re looking for a way to kickstart yourself food-wise, this is a very interesting and healthy way to do it. By following this detox I became more aware of some bad habits and some foods that might be excessively present in my diet. For a Dutchie like me it’s almost common sense to eat bread every day, several meals a day and it’s hard to switch a habit like this and think outside of the box. Nonetheless, through this detox I got in touch with so many great bread alternatives, I ate such a beautiful variety of vegetables, no meal was ever the same and still nothing contained meat, dairy or gluten. For me, this detox opened the door to eating more diverse and stepping out of my routine. 

After the detox I felt proud of myself for sticking to it, I felt less bloated and less dependent on certain bad foods. Yet, the best thing I got out of this detox, was getting more creative with food again and re-inventing the endless possibilities of healthy and tasty food ✨

If you’re still reading, it means you made it all the way through the end of this blog post. Thanks for reading and I love to hear what you think! Are you into detoxing and healthy foods? And what would be the biggest struggle for you during a detox like this?

Let me know in the comments below and see you in my next post!

Love, Mieke