This is the last post for the food portion of my Master Cleanse. I have not posted in a few days because I ended up getting a flu and was out of commission for a while so I am playing catch up.
I did try the soy in the my Cheezy Vegetable Lasagna recipe and other than some mild gas I felt fine. I was fine the next day as well (it was the 3rd day I got the flu and had it for 5 days). I tried some sugar the next day since I caved in and bought some creamer to have a cup of coffee. I bought the extra tasty coconut creamer that is vegan and soy free but has sugar in it. It was amazing! I just don’t think I can give up that one cup of coffee a day and I don’t seem to lose any weight when I don’t drink it and I’m so darn tried without it so I’m going to say I am happy to be hooked to one cup a day!
I did feel a little icky after the coffee and know that I am sensitive to sugar (even though I love it) and I’m sure the caffeine being reintroduced to my cleaned up system was a bit of a jolt too. I know sugar and I don’t get along and I need to figure out how to get around that one (I already do agave and other pure sugars but even those cause issues for me). For me if I research something long enough and find enough bad things about it I usually can give it up so we will see with that one. I love sweets so I don’t know!! I have a friend who has a husband and two teenage girls and the whole family can take or leave sugary foods easily. I have gone over to their house months after a candy type of holiday like Easter, Valentines Day or even Halloween and they will have tons of it left over and offer to give it to us. They can have sweet cereal in their house until it goes stale. WEIRD! I think it is wonderful and weird and I am envious of that for sure! I wish I could just leave sugar untouched and not dream about the Chocolate Chip Cookies sitting in the kitchen and struggle to walk past a bowl of Carmel popcorn or eat only one peanut butter cup but I can’t! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 
After all of this I will conclude that I do not have any major food reaction issues but that I do have issues with sugar and should keep all the foods that are processed to a minimum and make sure whole foods the biggest portion of my day. Some days I do great with that concept and other days I am super lazy and anything packaged is what will get eaten before anything that has to be washed or cut or cooked.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
For breakfast today I tried a new raisin bran cereal that did not have any preservatives or sugar in it and it was nasty. It went soggy with in a minute of the rice milk touching it. I tossed it out and ate a pear instead. I have decided through buying that cereal, finding it nasty and being annoyed that I just wasted almost 5.00 on a box of gross cereal that I am going to start doing a product review on this website. I know that we all have different tastes but my family tries a lot of the foods that I do and I am always excited to try new things so I can at least share what we think about them. Maybe through doing this you all can not waste money buying gross cereal or what ever else you might be curious about. I will start a collection over the next couple of weeks before I start posting and then I can be ahead a bit to keep it coming.
For lunch I threw some refried beans on a corn tortilla and then topped it with another corn tortilla and salsa. Very simple but very good. The kids love this lunch and my 5 year old will eat two of those (I can’t even eat two of them!)
For dinner I made an AMAZING Black Bean Soup that even my husband loved!!! I ended up eating two bowls of it because it was so tasty! I had no cravings for sweets after dinner. Tomorrow I will try soy again in a lasagna and after I see how I feel I will stop posting on this cleanse.
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
This morning I made Oatmeal Waffles and fried potatoes for breakfast. It is amazing to me how the oats in the waffles keep my full as long as a big bowl of oatmeal does but it really does! I actually was full through lunch and then ate dinner at the normal time. My husband felt the same way from them and fortunately he loves those for breakfast.
For lunch I had some left over rice noodles from a stir fry I had made and my son was eating some chicken flavored ramen noodles that looked good so I decided to experiment to make my own. I used a vegan broth cube that i dissolved in hot water then I just added the cooked noodles and since they are so thin they warmed right up in the hot broth. OMG it was amazing! YUMMMM It is a new favorite snack. I shared it with my two little ones and they ate almost more of it than I did and we shared 2 bowls. I am going to the store to buy more supplies. It is cheap too but not as cheap as ramen but who cares it is at least better for me than those things are. I will experiment further in the future with adding some veggies and make a nice soup out of it.
For dinner I decided I would challenge wheat so I made pasta (with a no sugar added marinara sauce) on wheat noodles. I also made wheat blueberry muffins using agave nectar instead of sugar. I did not use whole wheat on either of these since my family would not touch that but still made from wheat. I did get a very mild headache an hour after dinner and a little grumbling in my stomach with some gas but not extreme like with the soy. I will see how I do tomorrow in the morning and if I am fine I will eat it again tomorrow and see if I feel ok.
I think I will post for a couple more days on my food until I try soy again and then end because I am almost back to normal eating again.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
Today I made a smoothie for breakfast with all the safe fruits, spinach and rice milk I have tested. This gave me pretty good energy for a few hours but then I got hungry so I ate some of my kids veggie chips for a snack. These are not the healthiest thing but 50% better than regular chips and are made with natural ingredients. I only ate a handful because I started feeling guilty about eating them after I realized they did not even taste that great. I just liked the salty crunch they had so I stopped at what I had already eaten. I just drank some more water until lunch to get by.
For lunch I made some Lentils and Rice with sauteed onions on top. This is such a simple dish but to me it is really delicious and so filling. Plus, lentils are a really a great thing for your colon and keep things moving well. I ate quite a bit of these because I wanted to get by until dinner since I was going out for dinner and you never know if you will find enough to eat when going out.
My husband and I went out to dinner to meet some new potential business associates for his courier company. He opened up his business, www.xpsdelivers.com here in AZ 18 months ago and we are working hard to make it a success. It has better technology than any of the other couriers in town (with GPS package tracking that even Fed-X and UPS do not have). He has so many years experience running a courier company that it was just a logical step to open our own once the economy made a big shift.
Now of course most people that we know are meat and potato kind of people and many would not even know what a vegan was if you asked them. I usually don’t want to make a big deal about my eating differently when we first meet people so I was fine with their choice of going to a steak house. I can always have a nice salad and baked potato almost anywhere. That is exactly what I had, a salad with a very good but pretty spicy balsamic vinegar dressing and a dry baked potato. I added the left over salad dressing to the potato with and a little salt and it was good.
People are always so curious about why I don’t eat meat and always ask that same old question, “well where do you get your protein from if you don’t eat meat?”. I usually give a basic explanation similar to the one I posted here on this website about us not really needing as much protein as most people think and that the foods I eat provide more than enough protein and calcium. I would say that a good 70% of people have a look on their face that says “yeah right” but just nod and say “oh really, I did not know that.” Also, most people ask but more than half way through my talking you can tell their are not really interested so I end it there. If they are interested I could talk about it for hours but like religion I do not want to push my beliefs on others unless they want to know. But watch out if you ask 
Strangely after dinner I had pretty bad gas and I wondered if the dressing was not as simple as balsamic vinegar like they said it was but a bunch of other ingredients. They assured me that it did not have dairy or animal products in it but you never know unless you read the bottle yourself. I did not eat anything else for the night and other than the gas felt fine from my day of eating. I decided that tomorrow I would challenge wheat which is another big one that I wonder about and is a problem for many people. I’m excited to have pasta with marinara sauce on it again.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
For breakfast I bought some fruit sweetened rice crispy type cereal and ate it with some rice milk, it was nice to have that cold crunchy meal again. I did get hungry pretty quick after that so I ate a banana.
For lunch I ate some left over Split Pea Soup. That soup kept me going for hours and I was feeling pretty good about the foods I have eaten so far and was debating what to make for dinner since I want to push it but don’t want to go too fast.
I have been dying to make some homemade sushi and tonight my daughter finally talked me into it. I could not make it and watch everyone else eat it so I bought some wheat free soy sauce and made a vegan sushi with a tofu and veggie stir fry. It was completely delicious and satisfying. I watched a movie and felt fine during that time and then went to bed. With in 5 minutes of laying down I started to feel horrible. I had a headache, my stomach was very bloated and felt like I had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner, I also had painful ankle and knee joints. It was pretty sudden and made for a an uncomfortable night. I also had weird dreams all night and slept poorly.
I will not eat soy for about a week and then try it again just to be sure it was not some other weird thing that might have happened. I will be sad if I have to stay away from soy since it is in so many thing and I love soy sauce and soy ice cream!
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
For breakfast I drank some water and ate an apple and felt pretty great. For lunch I decided I would challenge corn so I put some refried beans on a corn tortilla with a little Daiya cheese and dry fried it to make a quesadilla. I also sliced some yams and made more baked chips with them to go along with my quesadilla. YUM
Oh boy I gained 1.2 lbs from those chips yesterday! I did not eat many of them but obviously my body had a reaction to the oils in the chips by swelling. I don’t mind not eating those again because after not eating for a while the oil was too much anyway and the fact that I had to wipe my hands of the excess oil was and indicator of the excess in the chips.
I decided that since I had been a bit naughty yesterday with the chips that I would eat soup and salad to clean it all out. I made some Split Pea Soup and a great garden salad. It was so filling and kept me full until I went to bed. I think I will challenge another big one so I can get back to normal eating soon.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
Today I started my day off with water and a banana. I got hungry pretty quick this time so I ended up eating a salad with most of the vegetables I have tested so far early in the afternoon as my snack. At this point I have only gained back 0.4 lbs of the 9.6 that I have lost which is really pretty good. Usually it is about 1-3 lbs of gained weight but it could still be coming. I am hoping once I stable out I will actually lose just a few more but I really need to get off my lazy butt and exercise more for those last 10!
Today I was out running errands so I stopped at a store and saw some hummus and really wanted it but have not challenged corn or wheat so I wanted to see if I could find some rice chips but no luck. I decided to get some baked potato chips since I wanted to challenge potatoes and with them being baked they would be low fat and I made sure there was not soy or any other ingredient I did not want to challenge yet in them. The hummus was terrific and I chose the low fat version with minimal oil added and no Tahiti added. I was disappointed with the chips because even though the they were baked they were so greasy. I was starving so I ate them anyway, big mistake! I got a pretty good headache and felt a little sick to my stomach within 20-30 minutes. I’m glad it happened though because I know that my body does not naturally want added oils and I have just made it become accustom to the feeling of eating them.
I am going to try harder to keep oils even lower than I have in the past. I consume probably 70% less fat than the average American but I need to get that number up to closer to 90-93% less. The only fat I should consume is in the way of natural fats that come in the nature packaged nuts, seeds and fruits and vegetables such as avocados. I have been trying to reduce my oil in baking but need to push that further. I am great about not using it while cooking on the stove so I am getting much better. I cheat a bit with tortilla chips when out and other processed foods. For those of you who wonder why I would want to reduce fat almost completely read this article by Dr. John McDougall. Vegetable (and Fish) Oils
I had the headache for several hours and felt pretty tired for the remainder of the day. I did not feel that hungry so I did not eat a snack or dinner. Later I felt really hungry so I sliced up some red potatoes and sweet potatoes and baked them until they were slightly crispy and then sprinkled them with a little sea salt. That is such simple thing but so completely delicious! Tomorrow I will challenge potatoes more to make sure it was not the potato but the oil that gave me the headache. Good learning day!
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
Today I ate pretty simple trying to not push it as far as I did yesterday and eat well. I drank a glass of water after waking up like I did yesterday, thirty minutes later I ate an apple which was surprisingly really good. I am not a huge fan of apples but it was really delicious and satisfying.
A couple of hours later I had some raspberries as a snack. I am going to eat a few fruits that I normally put in a smoothie to make sure they are ok and then make a smoothie in a couple of days. The raspberries were amazing! I love raspberries and they bring back childhood memories. When I was a kid we were very poor so my sister and I used to venture out into the neighborhood during the summer time. We would go to all the yards that had fruit trees, bushes and plants in them and eat their food. (I did not realize at the time that is was stealing until I got caught by an old woman who yelled at us and by then I was hooked and learned to be sneaky at stealing fruits and vegetables. I know, bad kid but it is what we did and I would never do it now unless a tree is hanging over a fence or something!) Those hot summer days filled with wonderful tree, bush and vine ripened fruits and vegetables is what opened up my eyes to the tastes for natural food instead of hamburger helper and tuna sandwiches that my mom would make at home (she made what she could afford to make and what she was taught to make by her mom).
For lunch I had a salad with different veggies than I did yesterday to test them out. I put broccoli, cauliflower, green onions and avocado with the rice vinegar and sea salt. I was able to eat the whole thing today. For dinner I ate another salad with the left over veggie from the afternoon salad I had already cut up and I added some garbanzo beans to start getting some more protein in. I did fine with all of those foods. I felt like today was a good food day and I have not yet had any serious reactions to foods so I will push on and test more. I’m very anxious to try some of the big boys but am going to put it off just a little longer.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
Today was my first day with food. I drank a big glass when I woke up to keep up with the fluids. I am usually so bad about drinking enough so I will try and drink enough. I waited about 30 minutes after the water and then ate a pear. I had read in many books and Online about how that first food will have so much flavor and they are all right. It tasted so good and so sweet and I was completely full and satisfied after eating just one pear. I was not hungry again for about 3 hours and I then drank a lot of water again and then had a big bowl of grapes. I decided to stick with the fruit as introduction for the morning half of the day. The grapes also tasted amazing and filled me up.
For lunch I had made my kids a goulash type dish with cooked brown rice, beans, sauteed onions and steamed green peppers and carrots all cooked together in a sauced of canned fire roasted tomatoes. It smelled so good and looked so good that I ate a bowl of it. I then had a little bit of a stomach ache and a mild headache. I’m not sure if I was actually sensitive to one particular food item in the mixture of it I just pushed it too fast. I’m guessing that I pushed it too fast but wow it was really good. I was also slightly bloated after eating such a big meal.
For dinner I decided to eat a light salad for dinner to hopefully fix what I had done at lunch. The salad just had a nice mixture of greens and spinach along with chopped carrots, cucumber and some sprouts topped with a little rice vinegar and sea salt. I decided to stay away from tomatoes because they can be a trigger for a lot of people and could have been mine at lunch. I will keep them out for a few more days and then try them again and see what happens. The salad was very filling, I could not even eat it all and I felt good after eating it with no problems.
I went to bed feeling pretty good and slept well (no including my toddler waking me up UGH). In 9 days of fasting I lost 9.6 lbs and several inches all over my body. My acne cleared up considerably (not completely but may take longer with eating pure, whole foods) and I felt really great the majority of the time. I am glad I decided to do this and feel like I am going to make good food choices.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
I now only have 1 day to go but I am going to end the fast a day early so today I am drinking the orange juice in preparation for food tomorrow. I feel like it is my time to end this and I feel like I am truly hungry and ready to eat.
This fast has been amazing for the cold I had. Yes I said HAD! I only had it for 2 days and really only one for the bad part. I am usually one of those people who has a cold for a long time and it turns into a cough. Since going vegan I have shortened my cold duration considerably and it stopped going into bronchitis and the need for meds but it still was miserable and longer lasting than I want. This time I felt like something was coming on one day, the next day I was completely congested with a runny/stuffy nose and felt pretty bad. Today I am 99%. My nose is very slightly stuffy in one side but so mild it feels like allergies which since going vegan I don’t have any more. I had read that you should fast during a cold or flu and it would speed up the recovery and it is true.
Maybe the cold passing is why I feel so hungry but it does not matter I am ready. The orange juice this morning tasted pretty good although not as sweet as the lemon drink because of the maple syrup. It definitely gave me some energy and affected my stomach just a little. I felt like my stomach churned a little bit when it has been completely calm otherwise. I feel like I have been able to clean myself pretty well and hopefully am going to do well with my transition to foods again and stay away from sugar and other offenders for a while. I am definitely going to keep away from the sensitive 8 foods that most people are sensitive to. I of course already stay away from dairy, eggs, fish, meat, but now I need to stay away from the other 4 which are soy, wheat (gluten), nuts and corn. I will stay away for those 4 while introducing all other foods a couple at a time at first with the least sensitive foods then one at a time with the more sensitive ones like tomatoes and potatoes then every 2 days for those last 4. Of course I hope I am not sensitive to any of them but really wonder about the soy mostly and the wheat a little bit.
Prior to this fast I still had some acne issues which is so annoying at 40 years old. I sometimes had more acne than my 15 and 18 year old! I also had easy inflammation with things like popping a pimple or even plucking a eye brown hair. It would leave the area red and swollen for hours. I had never had swelling after plucking my eyebrows before. Since about day 3 of the fast that swelling is non existent after either so I know the offending problem has been taken away. Also my skin is clearing up nicely. I just hope the offending food(s) are obvious when I reintroduce it. I will post what I introduce for a while until I feel like it is time to stop and it is too boring.
Back to Top
Tags: Master Cleanse, Vegan
