Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself (21 page)

Envision a different you. Close your eyes and picture your life today. How do you look and feel daily? What aspects of your well-being are you disappointed with?

What would it mean to you to look and feel younger? How might that feel?

What would it mean to your loved ones if the health issues that limit you disappeared?

How would it benefit you socially, financially, spiritually, and emotionally to live in a state of vibrant energy and mental clarity?

Visualize these possibilities; sense what they feel like. Notice how the spark of desire turns into a wildfire when you begin to feel the possibility of change. Set the intention to begin the program with commitment and to complete three weeks of it; make sure you have a strong idea of why you are doing it.

Make a Clean log. For added impact, take notes on your Clean experience. I recommend you start a Clean log to record your intentions, your current state of well-being, and your experiences and progress as you follow the Program. You will also want to take notes about the effects of foods on your system when you reintroduce them in the Completing Clean phase. This doesn’t have to be a paper journal—you can make a single document on your computer to keep notes.

Note down what you visualized in the first exercise. Brief comments will be enough.

Then make a list of the results you would like to achieve by the end of the program, both physically and mentally.

This list should also include any new habits, especially around eating and drinking, that you would like to substitute for old habits that are simply not working for you anymore or are holding you back from expressing your full potential. Most people know what these are for them.

As you proceed on the program, make notes daily or every few days about how you are feeling and what is changing. Keeping a record of daily experiences is always helpful in life. But it’s particularly interesting during times of accelerated transformation. Noting what is happening in your appearance, body functions, energy levels, mood, and outlook, and noting changes in any symptoms or conditions you tend to have will be useful as a point of reference in the future as you continue on the long-term journey of living healthfully. It can motivate you to embark on a future Clean program and help as you try to figure out what diet and lifestyle choices work best for you.

Take a photo of yourself. Memory is tricky—especially visual memory. Take a picture of yourself when you start the program and then at the end. You will get a kick out of seeing the transformation. Make sure both pictures are taken from the same distance and angle. Choose a simple background without too many things to distract your eyes.

Establish your support system. We are social creatures and work best when supported by others. Make sure the key people in your life know what you are up to and request their support. Enrolling a friend or partner to do Clean with you not only is fun but also will increase your chances of success.

Complete the Clean Audit in chapter 1 when you start and finish the program. A more detailed account to refresh your memory of why you were moved to do the program to begin with will help you stay on track in the future. Many of us have selective memory and filter out our bad memories. This is one of the reasons why we find ourselves dealing with the same issues over and over again. Noting what you look and feel like before you start, and then again at the end, will be your hard evidence that change happens when you commit to a program.

YOUR INSTRUCTIONS

The Clean program requires that you do two essential things every day:

Eat and drink only food that is part of the Clean meals.

Support your body’s detoxification process through simple methods and practices.

In addition, there are a few optional practices to add for maximum results. Do what your time and your natural enthusiasm allow. If you simply follow the two essentials without anything extra, you will still have excellent results.

Aim to do the full three weeks of Clean. If you do less than this, you will still benefit, and will be in a good place to go further on your next attempt.

The Clean recipes were designed by Jill Pettijohn, a nurse, raw foods chef, and cleansing expert. A valued friend and trusted colleague, Jill is passionate about guiding individuals to higher levels of health and has become famous for her juice cleanses, which she delivers to her clients’ doors in New York City. We have spent countless hours broadening our knowledge of cleansing and detoxification and between us we have guided many hundreds of people through detoxification programs. When I asked Jill to create a set of new recipes especially for this book, she more than met the challenge. Her forty-two recipes are not only delicious and simple for anyone to follow but also laser accurate in their supply of the key nutrients needed for detoxification.

The Strategy

Every day you will have one solid meal and two drinks or “liquid meals,” a smoothie, a juice, or a soup. Plan to have the liquid meals for breakfast and dinner and the solid meal for lunch. Eating the food meal at night will be less effective, because the twelve-hour “fast” that your body will experience overnight will be most effective after a liquid dinner, as this frees up the most energy and extends the window of time for detoxification. However, if you have a business dinner or a social plan that can’t get rearranged, just have the solid meal for dinner that day, with the two smoothies, juices, or soups as breakfast and lunch. The next day, return to having your solid meal at lunchtime.

Remember the twelve-hour window: the detox signal is given approximately eight hours after your last meal, and requires at least four hours to function well. If you fill up your belly late at night and eat early again the next day, you are denying the body its full detox mode. It is better to go on a little fast each night as you sleep. This is why the ritual called breakfast exists. We are literally “breaking the fast” that occurred since the previous evening. (If you do nothing more in your life than start to eat lighter in the evening and leave twelve hours between dinner one night and breakfast the next day, you will find that you have more energy and improve your overall health.) During Clean you will be required to eat liquid meals for your dinner and then not eat again until breakfast, at least twelve hours later, to let the deep cleaning happen. If dinner is at 7 p.m., breakfast should be at 7 a.m. or later; if dinner is at 11 p.m., the next meal will be at 11 a.m.

You will be making all the liquid meals yourself, choosing from the recipes in chapter 11. You have a total of twenty-one recipes to pick from: seven juices, seven smoothies, and seven blended soups. All these drinks use raw ingredients for maximum nutrition and enzyme content—even the soups, which are blended vegetable drinks that are not cooked (some can be warmed, however). If eating this way is a first for you, do not be nervous. These meals-in-a-cup are custom-designed to do the following:

Provide the body with all the nutrients it needs.

Deliver the nutrients in a fuel-injected way. Because they require less energy to break down, the ingredients in liquid meals can be absorbed into the bloodstream easily without much effort.

Intelligently combine nutrients in each meal to shift your metabolism so that you feel less hungry.

To ensure that you get the right kind of nutrition in your one solid meal of the day, there are also twenty-one simple lunch recipes to choose from, some raw and some cooked: seven fish, seven meat (chicken and lamb), and seven vegetarian recipes.

You will decide which two liquid meals and which one food meal to have each day by mixing and matching the recipes as you like. The only rule is that you always follow the basic formula of two liquid meals and one solid meal per day, with the solid meal eaten at lunchtime.

You may snack in between as needed. Raw vegetables and some tart, fresh fruits such as blueberries and raspberries are best for this purpose because berries are low in sugar. A few raw almonds or brazil nuts are also good. You can even have an extra smoothie or juice if you feel extremely hungry (please read the section called “Dealing with Hunger”). Remember, however, that you want to avoid putting solid or liquid foods in your stomach late at night. If you want a snack after dinner, see if you can do without it and get through the night until the morning meal.

These liquid and solid meal recipes have been designed as a complete package. They will give you the full spectrum of nutrients you need for successful detoxification over the three weeks. This means that the more variety of recipes you include each week, the better. Your body will be consistently supplied with a wide array of nutrients, and you’ll be sure to get the benefits of certain recipes that are engineered to supercharge you with one or two key nutrients. Variation will also make the program more fun, and it will introduce you to new ingredients and flavors that are important components of a healthy diet over the long term.

No doubt about it, though, the program will have to fit into your busy life, and it is adaptable to your needs. The following suggestions will help you tailor the program to your own lifestyle, and get the most out of Clean.

If your time is limited, or you prefer to keep things very simple, selecting a few liquid meals and a few food meals and rotating them throughout the week will still work well.

You do not have to always use the Clean recipes for lunch. You can create a lunch from the same simple foods you’ve been eating on the Elimination Diet. This might include premade items from a supermarket or a restaurant meal. Keep in mind that one of the basic principles of Clean is to avoid exposure to chemicals, so be smart about where you buy your food and buy organic for everything you can afford. Remember that all lunches should comprise basic foods without sauces, commercial dressings, or toppings. (Use the Elimination Diet list of allowed condiments and spices, as well as olive oil and lemon juice, to flavor store-bought foods.) And look at the Clean recipes to guide your portion sizes. Eating a meal for lunch that is not one of the Clean recipes should not be seen as a free pass to supersize your plate.

The fresher the foods you eat, the more potent their nutrients. However, you won’t lose out too much if you make your meals at night in order to take them to work the next day. You can also make a double portion of one liquid meal and use it for both breakfast and dinner. If you do this, keep everything in the fridge and use within two days. Juices should only be kept for one day. Note that all of the food meals can be taken with you wherever you go and eaten cold.

As with the Elimination Diet, organic ingredients are preferable whenever possible. Even if you buy nonorganic, the combination of raw ingredients used for Clean will boost your body, especially if you are shifting from a diet that was high in cooked and or processed foods. Again, just do the best that you and your wallet can and wash everything well.

Canned fruits and vegetables usually contain preservatives and sometimes high fructose corn syrup and salt, so avoid them at all costs. Frozen fruits are acceptable for the liquid meals, especially if they are organic.

Your personal preferences and your environment will dictate which recipes you choose. Be adaptable. For example, the thicker, blended soups may be more appealing on cold winter mornings than the fruit smoothies, which contain ice. Remember that the thinner the liquid, the more intense the detox. Juices will promote detoxification slightly more than blended soups.

If you don’t feel a hunger for your liquid or food meal when the time for it comes, please still make and consume it, or at the very least have a half-size portion. The nutrients are necessary to keep your detoxification process supported.

Keep the Elimination Diet “Include/Exclude List” on your fridge for the days when you are making your own lunch and refer back to it to stay on track in both eating and drinking.

Fluids

In addition to the liquid and food meals, you must drink plenty of pure water each day to enhance the detoxification work by increasing the kidney’s elimination of toxins. A good estimate of how much to drink is the amount it takes to cause you to pee hourly. A typical total daily water intake is two quarts. You may add fresh lemon, cucumber, or mint to the water for flavor. During the program, avoid all caffeinated beverages. Do not drink decaffeinated coffee. Herbal teas and hot water with lemon are fine, but have them in addition to the full amount of pure water, not in place of it. Do not drink commercial fruit juices, low-calorie sodas, “natural” sodas, or energy drinks. Carbonated water adds to the acidity in the body so it is wise to exclude this also. If you’re not sure what you can drink, go by the general rule that if it’s not hot or cold water, and if it’s in a bottle with a name on it, it’s probably to be avoided. It’s only for a few days of your life, so for now, keep it simple and pure.

Day 1

Breakfast: Green Smoothie. Hot water and lemon, or herbal tea

Mid-morning: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Lunch: Steamed Bass with Fennel, Parsley, and Capers

Mid-afternoon: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Dinner: Chilled Cucumber Soup with Mint

Drink plenty of pure water all day.

Day 2

Breakfast: Carrot, Beet, Cabbage, and Watercress Juice; hot water with lemon, or herbal tea

Mid-morning: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Lunch: Stir-Fry Vegetables with Buckwheat Noodles

Mid-afternoon: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Dinner: Fennel and Apple Juice

Drink plenty of pure water all day.

Day 3

Breakfast: Energy Smoothie with Almond Butter and Cardamom

Mid-morning: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Lunch: Plain roast chicken and salad from supermarket

Mid-afternoon: Snack or herbal tea (optional)

Dinner: Energy Smoothie with Almond Butter and Cardamom

Drink plenty of pure water all day.

Day 4

Breakfast: Easy Pineapple and Avocado Gazpacho

Mid-morning: Snack or herbal tea (optional)