Today is my final update on my Eat To Live cleanse. I'll be honest, I definitely didn't follow it as strictly as I could have. But you know what? I'm totally okay with that because I haven't felt this good about what I put into my body in a really long time. 

First things first, I could never be a vegetarian, I just love meat way too much. That being said, I haven't missed eating meat as much as I thought I would. It's only been about three weeks and the only type of animal that I can remember eating (besides milk and eggs) is one fish at a restaurant. Other than that I've been getting super creative with my salads and eating about a bag of spinach a day (I'm not even kidding you, I really go through about one large bag per day). To supplement the veggies and to just switch it up a little bit, I have been blending my own fruit smoothies every day as well. In order to keep full, I allowed myself to finish the entire blender throughout the day- each blender holds about 3 full glasses. 

Unfortunately during the cleanse I caught the flu. I was leveled on my couch for four days and wasn't really eating much of anything. This was probably my biggest struggle while cleansing because I was eating a lot of toast (BRAT diet always makes me feel better when I'm sick). I thought that this would send me completely off track but it actually didn't. I was able to hop right back on the fruit and veggie train about three days into the flu and everything fell back into place with ease. 

I think my biggest take-away from doing this cleanse is that my body was starved of nutrients. I found that even though I was not necessarily eating unhealthily, I was relying too much on processed foods like power bars, and neglecting fresh, clean and natural foods. Going forward my goal is to continue eating as many fruits and vegetables as I want, drinking at least two Nalgenes of water a day, and to slowly add back in meat and cheese. I'm also going to try hard to find other creative ways to get protein into my diet and other creative ways to cook following Eat To Live as closely as I can. 

Hopefully my experience with Eat To Live has helped some of you re-evaluate the food that you are consuming. If you take anything away from my cleanse I hope that you realize it is not about limiting what you eat or restricting calories. It is about feeling healthy, listening to what your body needs, and feeding it accordingly. Add some exercise to the equation and you're on your way to feeling your best and feeling confident and that is what really matters.