Day 8 – 11: Cottaging and cleansing don’t mix

   Holy Mackerel, I can’t believe I’m already on Day 11 of this cleanse! Wowzers. Not going to lie though, the long weekend was tough. I cheated. I felt guilty. I got back on track. But I hope it didn’t completely derail all the benefits of the detox! Here’s a brief summary and some things I would do differently.

   So, first reco – maybe don’t plan to do this detox around a cottage long weekend. Duh. I did do my due diligence to plan ahead, but it was still really hard. I went shopping the night before I left and packed a bag full of rice cakes, pre-cooked rosemary rice, rice cakes, almond butter, fruit, guacamole, cherries, etc. Luckily, cottages mean BBQs so I was able to rely on eating fish, chicken and beef like all the other ‘normal’ people, but I did cave to some birthday cake and sugary snacks, I just couldn’t resist! And it was like, a legitimate cheat, not just a couple bites of a bagel, unfortunately. (Side note: unlike some reviews I have read, I didn’t have any major adverse effects to eating a bit of junk food.)

   Aside from resisting temptation at a cottage, it is also difficult if you are a guest because you don’t want to be rude by always having to prepare a special meal for yourself or turn down food your host has cooked. This weekend, there were about 30 people up at my friend’s cottage, so I didn’t want to always be the lame ‘detox girl’ constantly requiring special food or off preparing their own meal like a loner. So timing of your detox I think is key – if you know delicious food will be spread out before you or you’ll be at a social gathering of some sort, just postpone it to a time when you have a less full social calendar.

   Another ‘timing’ issue I had was, well, timing it to overlap with ‘that time of the month’. Ummm, hello…not being allowed to eat chocolate while on your period?! Torturous! So I am telling myself my cottage cake cheat was basically needed in order to quell my PMS. Still not an excuse, but hey, at least I didn’t eat like, a full Deep ‘n Delicious or something completely crazy.

   With 1.5 days to go, I am starting to think about the things I’ve done on this cleanse that I’d like to keep up, things I probably won’t keep doing, and overall evaluating what worked and didn’t work for me. Hoping to make my last blog post a good one!

Might look serene...but is a danger zone for detox-ers!