The 21 Day Wrap Up

Well, I said I was going to write this post last night, but the truth is, I was in bed by 8 PM watching The Breakfast Club for my first time ever. Sorry I’m not sorry.

My 21-Day Sugar Detox is over. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but somehow it flew by. The first week felt like a month, and the second two weeks felt like two days. No joke.

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Let me start by prefacing with this: I learned a lot. A lot about my body, food and the way my body responds to certain foods. I learned a lot about the Paleo Diet in general and the thought process behind it.

Let me clarify a few things. The 21-Day Sugar Detox (Level 1) is not 100% Paleo, as I was ‘allowed’ to eat full-fat dairy, and not allowed to eat most fruits. However, for the final week I tried to phase out most dairy, and slowly phase in a bit more fruit towards the end.

 This could get incredibly lengthy if I let it, so I won’t. But just know I'm passionate about this. I do want to share some final takeaways from these past three weeks, and reasons why I’m glad that I tried it out.

1. The #1 reason why I enjoyed it is, I knew exactly what I was putting into my body, on a daily basis. I literally knew just about every single ingredient that I was consuming, as it’s all about eating whole, real foods. None of that chemical processed crap.

2. Because of this, I didn’t really have to worry about ‘watching what I ate’ the past 3 weeks. I mean sure I was working out and running a lot, but it wasn’t about worrying over the calories in my meals/snacks, it was more about the content of what I was fueling with. And guess what? Without even trying, or wanting to, I lost weight following the detox rules.

My plantain paleo pancakes on the deck yesterday morning.
 Chocolate sauce & coconut as toppings.
SO.GOOD.

3. I wasn’t 100% perfect, and I’m not upset about it. The first week I caved and ate a mini cheesecake with my roommate at WholeFoods. Week 2 I had ice cream, and Week 3 I had a handful of m&m’s. See the pattern here? While these 3 weeks have definitely changed the way I see my diet, chocolate will never die out of my life. Ever. HOWEVER, discovering the fact that I can mix unsweetened cocoa with coconut oil for ‘clean chocolate sauce’ may have changed my life.

4. I missed my fruits. I LOVE fruit, and am excited to have that option again. I already ate a carton of raspberries today alone. However speaking of fruit, plantains have reached the top of my list of favorites. I’m so glad I discovered them as an option during the cleanse, and see them sticking around as a staple.

5. If you are an athlete/runner/competitor looking to try out the 21 Day Sugar Detox, make sure that you check out the ‘Athlete Modifications’ section. This was a life saver – once I discovered I could be eating more of the dense carbs listed in there, my training was able to return to its normal intensity levels.

 Moral of the story? I really, really like the paleo style of eating. I don’t love referring to it as the Paleo Diet because the word diet can have such a bad connotation. It’s far from a ‘diet’ because it’s really just a simplified way of eating. These diagrams helped me to see the differences between Paleo and clean eating:

                                

 I’m not looking to become some die-hard paleo phene. Technically paleo = no alcohol, no dairy, no grains. I would say on my average day to day, I would love to stay leaning more towards the paleo side of things, as it seemed to make my body happy doing so the past three weeks. Am I going to stop eating nachos and drinking beers on game day? No. Am I going to forever avoid cheese and ice cream and pizza? Absolutely not. I’m not going to be uptight at restaurants and ask what kind of oil my meat was cooked in, as this just isn’t a life or death matter for me.

But if it’s up to me, on a normal week day when I’m cooking for myself, I’ll stick to the paleo plan.

The paleo jalapeno poppers I made on Saturday...

I realize I’m a little out of the ordinary, and thinking that food experiments like this are ‘fun’ isn’t necessarily the norm… but if you’re looking to clean up your diet, trying to change the way you see food, and even make some positive changes to your body, I would honestly considering giving the 21 Day Sugar Detox a try. It definitely positively impacted me.

Would love to answer any questions or address any comments out there, feel free to ask away!

This girl's off to celebratory sushi with friends.

Cheers to good health!

Kait