Crazy Sexy Diet Kick-Off!

Today was the first day of my 21-day Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse. Each January, I do some sort of cleanse to reset my system and get my healthy eating habits back on track after the holidays. This time, I'd also like to lose six pounds that I've packed on in the months that I've been recovering from the world's stupidest stress fracture.

It's not my first Crazy Sexy rodeo. I've done this cleanse twice before, once back in the old Adventure Cleanse Tune-Up days (2010) and another time after Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet book came out (2012). Basically, the goal is to eat a mostly alkaline diet filled with raw and cooked whole, plant foods. There's no sugar, no booze, no processed food, no coffee (but a little tea and a tad bit of chocolate are okay), and for the most part, no gluten (though I am allowing myself to have sprouted grain bread this time around). Oh, and there's lots and lots of green juice!

I started my morning with yoga, a daily meditation, and a big ole glass of Morning Glorious Juice from Crazy Sexy Kitchen. I made this juice of cucumber, kale, lemon, celery, green apple, romaine, and broccoli stems in my new Breville juice fountain that my parents gave me for Christmas! Thanks mama and daddy!

In her book, Crazy Sexy Diet, Kris Carr suggests only drinking juice until noon if you can stand it. But I need to be creative at my job as soon as I get there, especially on deadline day Mondays, so starving is out of the question. But I will be drinking juice at home before work and having my small breakfasts at my desk as a mid-morning snack. This morning, I had Avo Toasts — avocado, crushed red pepper, black pepper, and sea salt on Ezekial bread.

Lunch was the Chopped Salad from Crazy Sexy Kitchen — a simple and very satisfying salad of chickpeas, romaine hearts, sunflower and sesame seeds, and a dressing of flax oil and balsamic vinegar. Throughout this cleanse, I'll be making all of my meals from Crazy Sexy Kitchen. Last go round, I used the recipes in the back of Crazy Sexy Diet (Kris Carr's book all about this cleanse), but I think I tried nearly everything in that small sampling of recipes. So I ordered Crazy Sexy Kitchen (Kris Carr's cookbook, a supplement to Crazy Sexy Diet) just for this cleanse.

I'll be packing afternoon snacks to enjoy at work as well. Today I had a Lundberg Brown Rice Cake with Cedar's Roasted Garlic and Chive Hummus and some raw mini peppers and carrots.

That held me over until my massive and delicious dinner — Asian Stir-Raw with Miso-Ginger Sauce Over Zucchini Noodles.

This was a totally raw "stir-fry" in which broccoli, red pepper, sprouts (that I grew myself!), cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, snow peas, and carrots are tossed in a sauce made with fresh ginger, miso, sesame oil, and hot peppers (I used habanero to make it extra spicy).

I picked the coldest day on record (10 degrees in Memphis! It isn't supposed to do that in the South!) to eat a mostly raw (and cold!) diet. But fortunately, the spicy peppers in my stir-raw made me sweat.

I'm feeling great so far! I just had a lovely glass of kombucha for a night-cap, and I'm ready to do it all over tomorrow.