My seven-day detox diet

COLUMN

By Sarah Baker Hansen / World-Herald staff writer

* * * Watch Sarah's detox video diary * * *

Picture a group of friends eating dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Indian place.

Picture a table, covered with food: Garlic naan. Savory bowls of spiced chickpea dal. Plates of lamb curry spooned over yellow saffron rice. Giant, steaming hot servings of vegetable biryani and vegetable masala.

The friends share richly scented dishes. They tear pieces of naan off the same plates, chewing contentedly.

But there's no food in front of me. I sip umpteen glasses of room-temperature tap water out of a cheap plastic cup.

The dinner seemed to last forever. My friends ate slowly, then asked for boxes, then everyone paid separately while I stood between tables of happy people devouring their dinners. The air was rich with the aroma of food. Glorious, fragrant, curry-laden food.

I was on a seven-day detox diet. This was day two.

Detox diets, or cleanse diets, are all the rage. Celebrities are doing them. Regular people I know are doing them.

Cleanses are supposed to rid your body of toxins and promote weight loss. Many people try the diet at the start of a new year, after the holidays, when we've all guzzled gravy and free-based festive sugars.

I figured if I was going to write about detox diets, I'd better try one myself.

For seven days, I was off caffeine, alcohol and processed foods. I couldn't have dairy, grains with gluten, soy, red meat, shellfish, fatty nuts, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, condiments, sugar or soda.

This meant no glasses of red wine. No cheese plates. No Sunday brunch. No coffee from my friendly Blue Line baristas every morning. No after-work cocktails.

No fun.

I made a list of goals before I started the diet, because cleanse veterans say that's supposed to help along the way. If I felt like quitting, I could look at these goals for motivation. (I doubted this would work, but I decided to put "no cynicism" on my cleanse list.)

My goals included to get in shape before I start training for a half-marathon this spring, to quit drinking Diet Coke and to lose a few pounds I'd gained over the holidays. I also wanted to adopt some healthier habits so that my restaurant reviewing doesn't make me gain weight over the long-term.

Before I started, I decided to use the power of the press to score myself a couple of experts.

Alanna Stang, editor-in-chief of Whole Living magazine, told me that cooking your own food during a cleanse helps you stick to the plan. That sounded good, because that's what I planned to do.

"You have to use exact ingredients, and you have to get in the habit of cooking," she said. "It's hard. You can't just go out and buy something. It's a big shift for people."

She also recommended starting on the weekend, but my schedule only allowed me to begin on a Thursday and end the following Wednesday.

I also sent the diet plan I was on to Kristyn Lassek, the clinical nutrition manager at Alegent Health, for her opinion.

Detox diets fall into a spectrum, the most severe being the "Master Cleanse," also known as the lemonade diet, where people survive on water spiked with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for ten days or more. (Beyonce famously did this diet and dropped 20 pounds before she starred in the movie "Dreamgirls.") Lassek does not recommend this plan, ever.

The diet I chose looked much tamer, and included soup, salad, smoothies made with fruit and protein powder, lean meats and fish.

Lassek liked that the diet included lots of whole foods, like fruits and vegetables. And the last two days included brown rice and quinoa, both "good" carbs. She estimated that each day on the diet, I'd be eating no more than 800 calories. Some days, closer to 600.

"I look at this diet," she said, "and I think 'I would be starving.'"

I looked at it and thought the same thing.

But I'd already promised my editor a story. It felt like most of the newsroom knew I was cleansing. I had to do it.

My typical day went sort of like this: Wake up and drink a big glass of room-temperature lemon water.

Follow that with a travel mug of hot herbal tea.

Around 10 a.m., I drank a smoothie that included almond milk, berries, a scoop of whey powder (for protein) and ice.

Lunch was usually a salad with a carrot ginger dressing that I made at home or soup made with broccoli and arugula or beets and leeks. I got a small afternoon snack — the one I liked best was a handful of pepitas and sunflower seeds.

By dinnertime, I was starving, just like Lassek predicted.

I usually ate dinner around 6 p.m. because I couldn't wait any longer. Some nights I devoured a sauteed chicken breast. On other nights, the cleanse called for more soup (groan.) On two nights, I got a treat: steamed salmon (obviously, no hollandaise. Or butter. Or salt.)

Then the long hours passed between "after dinner" and "bed" and I tried not to think about eating a bowl of cereal, a cracker, a cookie, a piece of candy or anything else that sounded delicious in comparison to the steamed greens I was allowed.

The weekend was by far the hardest part of the cleanse.

During the day, I didn't have much of a problem. Things got harder once the evening rolled around.

On Friday night, I watched my friends eat Indian food.

I'd already eaten by the time we got to that Indian place. I had a chicken breast and green beans at home, so hunger wasn't what I felt.

"You can feel superior to us," one friend told me jokingly during the dinner. But I didn't. I felt left out.

I watched them drink cocktails after dinner. A few of them drank a dark beer that the salesman at the store had described as "the beer of the year." Needless to say, I don't have an opinion on whether it was good or not.

One friend offered, with a sympathetic tone, to make me a cup of tea or get me a glass of water. But I'd already downed more than 80 ounces of liquid that day, and even though I didn't drink a drop that evening, I used the bathroom four times.

Though I didn't want to feel sorry for myself — I was the one who got myself into this mess — it was hard to resist. I caved to it, but just a little bit.

On Saturday night, the end of day three, I seriously considered throwing in the towel. I wanted a soda. A glass of wine. To sit at a table in a restaurant covered with food and talk and eat with people I like.

The target of my ire became Gwyneth Paltrow, who co-created the diet plan I was on. I hated her perfect body. Her macrobiotic habits. Her golden hair and her stupid website. Her diet with its bland food and recipes that sometimes were really gross.

"(Expletive) you, Gwyneth," I said, and my husband laughed, and reminded me that I did, in fact, sign up for this diet of my own free will.

We went to a movie that night, and I drank water out of a white paper cup printed over and over with the words "courtesy cup." It reminded me of the rinse cup at the dentist's office.

After the movie, we went to a new bar in our neighborhood. I guzzled down more water.

"You're a cheap date," my husband said.

"At least until next Wednesday I am," I replied.

People had strong reactions when I told them I was on a detox. Some supported it wholeheartedly, while others told me it was an awful idea, and dangerous. Many people asked questions: Why was I doing it? What was the point? Was it hard?

My answers didn't vary: I was doing the cleanse for a newspaper story. The point is to rid the body of toxins and though I wasn't sure, I might lose some weight.

Yes. It was hard.

Sunday rolled around, and I went back to the grocery store. I felt a little superior in the checkout line with my cart full of healthy food. The person in front of me bought towers of canned soup. The shopper behind me took home many bags of chips and a few 12-packs of orange soda.

I bought kale, beets and baggies of unusual grains out of the bulk bin.

It wasn't until later, when I had to actually eat that food, that I felt glum.

During the last three days of the cleanse, I was back at work, and the diet began to feel routine. I also noticed some changes.

I realized that my skin looked better. It wasn't as dry. My face seemed to glow.

I felt good in my regular Monday night weight class at the gym, and I easily completed 35 minutes on the elliptical machine.

I started to actually enjoy drinking water. I realized I can live without a midday Diet Coke.

On the final day of the diet, I weighed myself after work.

I'd lost eight pounds.

I was shocked.

That night for dinner, I ate a piece of steamed salmon, steamed kale and brown rice. After dinner, I ate an apple. I wasn't tempted to cheat. I wanted to finish, and I was proud of myself for making it.

After the diet was over, I asked Lassek about the weight loss: Was it real? She wasn't surprised I'd lost weight, but she also wasn't sure if I'd keep it off.

"Some of it will come back on," she said. "But it depends on what you go back to eating and how much of the weight loss was water weight."

She said I should try to keep drinking the amount of water I'd been drinking during the cleanse — 64 to 80 ounces a day — if I could.

After the cleanse, I couldn't eat as much. At many meals, I could only eat half of a sandwich or part of an entree. Lassek said this was also normal, and that the stomach would shrink during and after any kind of a restricted diet.

She said there's still no scientific proof that cleanse diets work, and that she wouldn't recommend buying the often expensive packaged cleanse or detox diets full of powders and vitamins.

"If you're on a daily health regiment of eating good, whole foods and lean meats, you don't need it," she said.

Lassek said some of the restrictions — not eating gluten, dairy or soy — aren't necessary if you're not allergic to those things. She said I could do this type of diet on a quarterly basis if I wanted to.

"People in America are not used to eating this way," she said. "If we all could take a couple of things off this diet and make them habits, everyone will be better off overall."

I heard what Lassek is saying. I agreed with her.

But I also realized during the cleanse that most of my social life revolves around two things: eating at restaurants and hanging out at bars.

Sure, I missed those things. But what I really missed was the camaraderie with my friends and family. The time spent talking and relaxing that often happens at a dinner table or over a well-composed cocktail or a glass of dry red wine.

I still had good conversation and important people in my life while I was detoxing.

But I found that life is definitely better when it comes with a good meal.

« Living

Share