10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse: Lose Up to 15 Pounds in 10 Days! (5 page)

If the detox symptoms are too strong, simply follow these guidelines:

1. Change the ratio of fruit to vegetables
   . Start with 30% greens to 70% fruit and work your way up to more greens and less fruit over time.
   
2. Hydrate.
   Drink lots of water to help with the cleansing process.
   
3. Ease gradually into the full cleanse.
   On your first day, have a green smoothie for breakfast and eat light, healthy meals for lunch and dinner (big salads). Remember to still avoid sugar, meats, dairy, etc. On your second day, have green smoothies for breakfast and lunch but a light healthy meal, such as a salad, for dinner. By the third day, you should be ready to resume with green smoothies all day. If not, just switch to the modified cleanse for the remainder of the cleanse period.
   

Chapter 6
How to Continue Losing Weight After the 10-Day Cleanse

Congratulations on taking control of your health by caring for your body and feeding it what it needs to be slim, healthy, and vibrant! You will reap the rewards now and continue to enjoy a lifestyle of optimal health and happiness. Be sure to always make time to nourish your inner spirit and soul by giving your body the rest and relaxation it needs to stay strong and healthy. You have given yourself a wonderful gift of optimal health and wellness.

Breaking the Cleanse

Do not go right back into eating whole foods right after the cleanse!

Now that you have not been eating your normal diet for a time and your body has been cleansing, it is of utmost importance that you slowly begin adding whole foods back into your diet. You may feel tempted to eat a lot, but this can be very damaging to your system. Take at least three days to reintroduce whole foods. Salads are a good way to start. Make delightful salad dressings to please your palate. Continue drinking your smoothies and listen to your body to see what foods work well for you.

In the first two days after the cleanse, drink a green smoothie for breakfast and have a salad or sautéed veggies for lunch and dinner. The goal is to eat very light. Going back to eating whole foods too quickly can make you feel bloated and nauseous. Trust me! This happened to me—I was really bloated! Ugh!

The third day after the cleanse, you should be able to have one green smoothie for breakfast and light meals (salads and lean, healthy meats such as fish or chicken) for lunch and dinner. By the fourth day, you should be able to eat whole foods easily, but keep your meals light and healthy. You won’t crave unhealthy foods at this point, so it should be fairly easy to do. It’s a good habit to always start your day with a green smoothie for breakfast to maintain weight loss.

Even one green smoothie a day used as a replacement meal will put you on the road to permanent weight loss and better health. It will reawaken your metabolism and give you more energy.

You deserve to be happy, healthy, and fit! Whatever happened in the past, whatever bad eating choices you might have made, those need to remain in the past. Look to your future, keep moving forward, and make food choices that make you feel good inside.

Continuing to Lose Weight After the Cleanse

Normal weight loss of about one to two pounds per week is very healthy! This cleanse should give you a ten- to fifteen-pound jumpstart on your weight loss to get you motivated to continue!

To continue weight loss at about two pounds per week, drink two green smoothies a day and eat one clean, high-protein meal. To continue weight loss at about one pound per week, drink one green smoothie and have two clean, high-protein meals per day. See the appendix for a list of clean, high-protein recipes.

“Clean” foods are natural, whole, raw, or organic foods that the body can effectively digest and utilize for energy without leaving excess waste or toxins in the body. “Clean” foods include lean proteins, good carbs, and healthy fats.

Why have protein every time you eat? Protein counteracts the body’s overreaction to carbohydrates, which causes insulin spikes and fat storage. Protein will help you feel full longer and thus help prevent overeating and food cravings. Protein will also help you build and maintain muscle mass, and we’ve learned that muscle naturally burns more calories than fat.

Following are ten examples of clean, high-protein meals:

1. Grilled salmon with a garden salad
   
2. Lean steak with sweet potatoes and veggies
   
3. Grilled salmon with quinoa and veggies
   
4. Tuna on a garden salad
   
5. Chicken or lean steak in a Caesar salad
   
6. Grilled halibut with stir-fried veggies
   
7. Baked chicken with baked sweet potato and sautéed veggies
   
8. Chicken stir-fry with brown rice
   
9. Lean sirloin steak with lima beans
   
10. Turkey chili
    

I don’t recommend that anyone stay on the full cleanse for longer than two weeks straight. You should always give your body a break after a detox cleanse. This also keeps your metabolism revved up by mixing up the foods you eat each week. Although I don’t recommend it, if you choose to do the full cleanse longer than two weeks, you have to deliberately add more protein to your diet and be sure to rotate or use different greens each week!

A diet of two smoothies plus a high-protein meal per day is very healthy and can be done every day for life. And don’t be rigid about your smoothie ritual or you’ll get bored. Some days you may feel like eating a hearty breakfast, so have your smoothies for lunch and dinner. Mix it up!

I would also encourage that you "get moving" even if you can’t get to a gym. Examples would be to take the stairs instead of elevators, walk to get lunch, park as far as you can from the grocery store or mall and walk the remaining distance, etc. Exercise is great for overall health, and we should all do it! If you become more active, you will enhance both your weight-loss efforts and your overall health. And getting moving does not necessarily mean going to the gym.

If Weight Loss Stalls

If you begin to plateau and weight loss stalls (if two weeks have gone by and you’ve not lost any more weight), I know exactly what you have to do next: Check your hormones. If you have stubborn body fat that is not responding to healthy eating, then hormones are the likely culprit! In my bestseller
Lose Weight Without Dieting or Working Out,
I have two chapters titled “Correct Hormonal Imbalances” and “Stop Weight Gain During Perimenopause and Menopause” that explain the six hormones that cause weight gain by slowing your metabolism and preventing your body from losing weight.

It is essential to understand the role hormones play in how we gain and lose weight. Some hormones tell you you’re hungry, some tell you you’re full; some tell your body what to do with the food that is eaten, whether to use it as fuel for energy or store it as fat, which causes us to gain weight. Hormones are responsible for metabolizing fat. By controlling your hormones, you can control your weight.

Hormones affect how you feel, how you look, and, most important, how you maintain your weight and health. When your hormones are balanced properly, you will have great health, beauty, and vibrancy. When your hormones are imbalanced, you have mood swings, you crave unhealthy foods, and you feel sluggish and lethargic. Hormones are critical to weight loss, and balancing them will help you stay slim and healthy.

Weight Loss Tips: Weight Loss the Healthy, Natural Way

Eat a big salad daily.
Include dark leafy greens and lots of colorful vegetables every single day.

Drink at least one green smoothie daily.
This along with the salad will really add a lot of nutrition to your body and will stave off unhealthy cravings. You can add some protein, flaxseeds, spirulina, coconut oil, and bee pollen to it for an extra health boost.

Choose nutrient-rich foods, not empty calories.
Eat foods high in vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, and omega-3 fatty acids. Junk foods contain only nutritionally empty calories. You want your calories to provide you with nutritional benefits that will help you heal your body and maintain a permanently healthy weight.

Eat protein with every meal
. Eat the protein before the carbohydrates or fats. You can also eat protein by itself. Protein-rich foods do not cause insulin spikes, and so are important clean and balanced foods. Whenever you eat a carbohydrate, eat some protein along with it. As a general guideline, the protein should be about half the amount of the carbohydrates. For example, if you have 30 grams of carbohydrates, then eat about 15 grams of protein along with it to prevent insulin spikes that cause excess fat to be stored in the body.

Avoid sugar, salt, and trans fat.
These are the top three ingredients that cause weight gain. Try to avoid them at all costs. They have no nutritional value and are simply bad for your health. Salt causes bloating, swelling, and fluid retention. The good news on trans fat is that the FDA regulates it, and food manufacturers now have to list how much is in each serving when trans fat exceeds 0.5 grams per serving.

Limit red meat to two or three times per week.
Red meat contains a lot of saturated fat, so try to limit your intake to two or three times a week. Instead, eat more protein from fish, poultry, and vegetables, such as brown rice, beans, and nuts, which contain good essential fats.

Eat at least 30 grams of fiber per day.
Numerous studies have shown that high-fiber diets help you lose weight and protect against heart disease, stroke, and certain kinds of cancer.

Eat four to five times a day.
You will lose weight more quickly if you eat four or five times a day as opposed to only three times. Try to eat every three to four hours and think in terms of three meals and two healthy snacks. Each time you eat, you stimulate your metabolism for a short period of time; thus, the more often you eat, the more you speed up your metabolism. Eating every two to three hours feeds your muscles and starves fat.

Buy organic as much as possible
. Buy organic foods, which don’t have chemical preservatives, food additives, hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics. Fresh organic foods are far less toxic than highly processed and packaged/frozen foods and leave less residue and waste in the body.

Drink more pure water
. Water does an amazing job of detoxifying your body. The trick though is to not drink water with your meals. This will dilute your digestive juices and make digestion less efficient. Do not drink anything thirty minutes before you eat a meal, and then wait two hours after a meal to have a drink. It is amazing how much energy you will get from doing this. Also, sometimes thirst is disguised as hunger. So there is a good chance that when you drink water, that hungry feeling will go away.

Drink green tea.
Try to make the switch from coffee to green tea, ideally a non-caffeinated brand if possible. Green tea is particularly helpful for reducing body fat and weight, stimulating digestion, and preventing high blood pressure. There are many wonderful benefits of drinking green tea, but as far as weight loss goes, it simply helps the body burn fat faster and more efficiently. Green tea is better than black tea or coffee because its caffeine works in a different way. Green tea makes the body’s own energy use more efficient, thereby improving vitality and stamina without your having to experience the up-and-down effect typically experienced with caffeine. This is due to the large amount of tannins in green tea that ensure that the caffeine is taken to the brain in only small amounts, which harmonizes the energies in the body.

Don’t give in to emotional hunger.
You have to learn the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. If you feel the desire to eat, but you have just eaten within the last two hours, you may actually be looking for a way to change your mood. See if you can find something to occupy yourself for at least one hour. Set a timer and drink some water. Tell yourself that you will eat in one hour. This will set your mind at ease. Then find a way to stay occupied or a way to feel fulfilled for that hour.

Best and Worst Foods to Eat if You’re Trying to Lose Weight

The information below will help you understand what foods to eat and which to avoid to help you reach your weight loss goals.

TYPE: Meats:

FOODS TO EAT (support weight loss): Bass, Calamari, Clams, Crabmeat, Catfish, Cod, Cornish hen, Flounder, Haddock, Halibut, Herring, Lobster, Oysters, Sardines, Scallops, Shrimp, Skinless Chicken, Turkey breast, Sole, Tilapia, Trout, Tuna, Turkey bacon, Wild Salmon

FOODS TO AVOID (cause weight gain): Bacon, Beef jerky, High fat meats like Prime rib, Porterhouse, Hot dogs, Pepperoni, Salami, Sausage

TYPE: Veggies:

FOODS TO EAT (support weight loss): All dark greens, Asparagus, Avocados, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Carrots, Celery, Cucumbers, Collards, Garlic, Green Beans, Kale, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Olives, Onions, Parsley, Peas, Radishes, Red Peppers, Squashes, Sweet Potatoes, Spinach, Tomatoes, Yams, Zucchini

FOODS TO AVOID (cause weight gain): All vegetables are generally good for you; however if you’re trying to lose weight, try to avoid eating white potatoes, red potatoes, corn, and plantains

TYPE: Fruits:

FOODS TO EAT (support weight loss): In general, all fruits are healthy for you. However, if you’re trying to lose weight (or are diabetic), the best fruits to eat are low-sugar fruits, which include Blackberries, Blueberries, Cranberries, Grapefruits, Lemons, Limes, Passion Fruit, Raspberries, Strawberries

FOODS TO AVOID (cause weight gain): Canned fruits, dried fruits, and fruit snacks

TYPE: Grains (breads, pasta, rice):

FOODS TO EAT (support weight loss): Barley, Brown rice, Bulgur, Buckwheat, Coconut Flour, Oats (steel-cut oats), Quinoa, Wild rice

FOODS TO AVOID (cause weight gain): Bagels, Donuts, White rice, White pasta, White bread, White flour

TYPE: Beans/Legumes:

FOODS TO EAT (support weight loss): Black-eye peas, Black beans, Butter beans, Fava beans, Garbanzo beans /Chickpeas, Green beans Kidney beans, Peas, Lentils, Lima beans, Navy beans /Pinto beans, White beans