What I Learned From Cleansing

After a long 14 days, I'm so excited to have my first official cleanse under my belt. I've always wanted to try a week long health kick, but I never had enough motivation to last more than a day (pathetic, I know). Doing it with a friend definitely helped in terms of motivation to not get near the dessert at lunch at school, plus a built in workout buddy wasn't too bad either! I learned several things after following pretty strict restrictions for two weeks, so I thought I would share all of my thoughts with you. (Here is my original post talking about my cleanse as well as what I did to work out!)

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+ If you're not hungry, don't eat
One of the main things this cleanse taught me is the difference between being hungry vs. being bored. At night while I'm doing homework, I'll often wander down to the kitchen to find a snack to put off the things on my agenda for the next day. While on this cleanse, though, I somehow had this epiphany that I wasn't actually hungry, but just wanted the delicious taste rather than the nourishment. Now, I mostly only eat when I'm hungry and need to satisfy my hunger instead of to procrastinate (we've all been there).

+ Healthy foods taste so much better
Now that I'm officially "off" the cleanse, I literally crave whole foods like fruit, lean meat, fish, veggies, etc. Sugar obviously tastes good, but it's so sweet and I get sick of it so much easier. Processed food tastes so chemical-ly to me now and it's so strange how much I prefer natural food.

+ Everything is good in moderation
While I felt better eating all whole foods, there were some days where I just needed a tiny piece of chocolate or a little bit of pasta to satisfy my cravings. The first week my friend and I both went slightly nuts wanting chocolate so badly, and we learned that cutting out entire food groups completely is not healthy for long amounts of time. Our new idea is to eat 90% healthy and then have one "cheat" food a day, whether it be an ice cream cone, a small slice of pizza or a little bit of diet coke. You start to go crazy if you don't have a little sugar once and a while, so allowing yourself a 10% unhealthy percentage every day seems like the perfect solution.

+ Fruit is more sugary than you think
Going off the moderation idea, at night, I always crave sweets. So since I couldn't eat chocolate or any other kind of dessert, I would have fruit. This sounds good, but in actuality, I would have to eat a ton of it to really feel satisfied. If I would instead have a small piece of chocolate at night, I would consume a lot less sugar and fulfill my craving a lot quicker. Everyone needs a little chocolate here and there, right?!

All in all, I am pretty proud of myself for actually sticking to this plan for 14 days and although I won't be doing it again any time soon, it definitely taught me some great healthy habits for the new year! If you do a similar one, make sure to load up on sugar the day after... I can't tell you how good it felt to eat ice cream after 2 weeks! 

Are you wanting to do any sort of cleanse to jumpstart 2016?

xoxo