Clean Program: Clean Gut

At least I'll be able to eat these things

Anyone who has been around me during January (and April last year) knows that Ryan and I do the Clean Program Cleanse every year as a way to detox and remind ourselves to eat more real, healthy foods. The reason they know is because I won't shut up about it...mostly because I am in awe that I'm capable of avoiding pizza and cookies for any amount of time. Also, because it's really tough and it's all I can think about while I'm on it. So what would be better than that? Making it EVEN harder on myself for 2014 by trying the Clean Gut Cleanse! No, I do not want to be miserable but I need to seriously address the amount of sugar I consume on a daily basis. Like diabeetus-causing levels of sugar.

So what's different? I'm still in the research and planning stages but here's what I can tell so far: we can have eggs and tomatoes! I really like both of these items. But, we can't have ANY grains (sorry Basmati) and NO fruit, except for berries. Fruit was my major crutch during the Clean Program, it got me through some hard times...specifically times when I wanted to cram a gallon of ice cream down my throat. We can't have chickpeas, which I'm pretty okay with because "it gives me the wind something terrible" (10 points to anyone who knows what movie that is from) and no to beans and soy too. Other than that, it's fairly similar to the Clean Program in that we cannot have dairy, peanuts, processed foods, alcohol, coffee, sugar, etc. We get to have a solid lunch and dinner (instead of liquid dinner like on Clean) and the liquid breakfast is the same. The supplements are different but we never do the supplements (cheaters!) so I am not sure if we will do them with this or not. A probiotic, B Complex and magnesium will probably be on our shopping list, but I'm going to look into the others a bit more before I decide.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little scared. One the one hand, I get to eat solids for dinner which is awesome because drinking your dinner is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. On the other hand, no cookies....not even the Clean ones. Also, no apples, kiwi's or other snack fruits to get me through the day. How many cut veggies can I eat before I dive headfirst into a vat of chocolate pudding?! Only time will tell...