Fit Fare

Do you often find yourself tired or fatigued? Do you often eat fast, fried or refined foods? Do you suffer from headaches or chronic aches and pains? Are you constipated or having problems with digestion? Are you feeling bloated and puffy? Do you drink a lot of alcohol and/or caffeine? Are you looking to jump-start into a better diet?

If you answered “yes” to more than one of the above questions, you’re in need of a spring cleanse! Don’t be alarmed, doing a spring cleanse doesn’t have to mean living on water or spending hours in the kitchen. You can get huge benefits out of doing a mild cleanse focused on foods, just not the foods you’ve probably been eating.

To do this simple spring cleanse, cut out sugar, caffeine, dairy, red meat and artificial sweeteners. If it sounds intense, that’s a hint that you’re in need of this kind of diet.

Wondering what you’ll eat? You can have all fruits and vegetables, tofu, tempeh, chicken, fish, nuts, whole grains, dried fruits and eggs. Start every morning with a glass of hot water with lemon to start the cleansing process, and continue your day eating lovingly prepared meals and healthy snacks and drinking lots of water.

A typical day on this cleanse might look like this:

Pre-Breakfast: Hot water with lemon

Breakfast: Raw oatmeal soaked overnight with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, served with cinnamon, raisins, almonds and agave nectar

Lunch: Huge salad with chicken, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, carrots, walnuts and dried cranberries. Top with fresh lemon juice.

Snack: Fresh strawberries and a handful of raw almonds

Dinner: Broiled salmon with sauteed greens with garlic

After 10 days of this kind of diet, you might find that your energy is up, your digestion is running more smoothly and you’ve lost a couple pounds.

Photo courtesy of MorgueFile.com