HOW MUCH CLEAN IS ENOUGH

So I am 10 days into my 21 days cleanse and I am NOT loving it. I am not eating gluten, processed sugar, animal products and not drinking alcohol. I am supposed to not have any caffeine but no can do- that would kill me- do you mind- this is tough enough. And 2 demi cups of French roast in the morning with frothed almond milk is not really cutting it so it is like giving up my morning coffee- it's certainly giving up delicious morning coffee- good enough.

I have  to blame credit Mr. Lovely for getting me into this. He had been out to Vancouver to visit his brothers and had partaken (he says once, but I bet more than once in his 3 day visit) of some Chinese food (politically incorrect  maybe - but I mean no harm - it's just that this way everyone knows what I'm talking about) and was on a mission to find some similar quality CF here in our small Ontario city. Good luck! In the past 30 years we had already tried 3 of the 5 places in town and I'm sorry to say they were not up to Mr. Lovely's standards. So here we were chomping down on yet another attempt at spring rolls, beef with snow pea pods, singapore noodles, and lemon chicken, all mostly smothered in miscellaneous goop -ok not the spring rolls but man were they greasy-yeesh. I got to thinking- hey I don't have a clue what I am eating and how smart is that? Not so! I also had spent quite a few nights having my cocktail- (a delicious Spanish wine called Garnacha Centenaria) standing at the counter and devouring about 1/2 large size bag of Miss Vickies (Jalapeno flavour mostly- though the sweet chili  and sour cream is also pretty darn good and I do like to shake it up sometimes). So I had told myself- yup tonight after work I'm not going to have a drink or any junk fude (that's the way Gary Larsen's animals spell food- cause you know they are animals so can't spell right).  But guess what- I have no will power and I was always putting that resolve off to the next day. But that Chinese food meal put me over the top. So I decided to go all out and hence the 14 day cleanse.

Here is  some of what I have been eating:

organic beet humus;

sweet potato and kale peanut soup;

the banana cream part of a banana cream pie (no pie crust cause of no gluten) made with silken tofu, bananas, crushed cashews and medjool dates (for added sweetness- not that it needed it) YUM- you can tell it's nearly gone;

no it's not chopped liver- it's a quinoa burger made with quinoa, sautéed onion and sundried tomatoes, and black beans- actually very tasty though a bit messy.

HOLY CRAP BATMAN, right? Are you so impressed? Ya me too! I have been cooking- (though the humus was from the store and the soup was c/o my buddy Kate) the rest is yours truly-that part is good- I suppose.

And although Mr. Lovely has also given up the booze and processed sugar for his "cleanse"- it is pretty darn hard to watch him chowing down on Jesse's country bread (Jesse makes his fantastic bread in his outdoor oven and it is amazing (I may miss that the most!) with  4 yr. old Balderson chedda cheese and then lace into a perfectly BBQ'd (just slightly bloody) steak.

And my friends?  Well-they are as supportive as they can be given they have lost a drinking buddy- Dani PB said "what?- this is a terrible idea!"  My book club pals called me "boring" (ok they were hooting it up not even discussing the book anymore and I wasn't drinking so I had to go- it was no fun) and LL said - 10 days- surely you will get enough benefit from that.

So I am thinking how cleansed do I want to be? Surely 12 days is clean enough!