Can you cut out sugar, wheat, dairy, alcohol, soy, corn, vinegar, fatty meat, caffeine, and all starches for 30 days? No, you wouldn’t die of starvation… you would be cleansing. I took on the Arbonne challenge by staying away from all those ingredients for 30 days. The Arbonne challenge is a unique way of detoxing your body from the toxins you eat everyday. The Arbonne cleanse is not a diet, it just incorporates a lot of the ingredients you should be eating to live a healthier lifestyle.
So you’re probably thinking, “what is there to eat?” There are tons of things you can eat, you just have to think outside of the box. Replace pasta with brown rice, white rice with quinoa, bread with rice cakes, cereal for a hard boiled egg, milk with almond milk or coconut milk, and drinks lots and lots of water. When you fill your plate, half of it should be veggies and you should always pay attention to the darker greens like kale, chard, mustard greens, spinach, broccoli, and asparagus. A quarter of your plate should be meat, your choice of chicken, lean steak, lean ham, ground turkey, or fish. One eighth of your plate is your complex carbohydrates: brown rice, quinoa, beets, sweet potatoes, and carrots. Another one eighth of your plate is your good fats that consists of sunflower seeds, nuts, olive oil, avocado, flax, grape seed oil, and coconut oil. Every major meal should be eaten before 7 o’clock at night and if you are hungry just eat light, little snacks. Those are suggested meals but with the Arbonne challenge comes other ingredients.
You start your day with a digestive pack. Honestly, it’s not that bad because it doesn’t taste like anything and you mix it with water; then you boil water and have detox tea. The tea is very refreshing and I personally think it is delicious, and I usually don’t even drink tea. You are allowed to add agave, which is a natural sweetener that is similar to honey. At lunch time I always had rice cakes with hummus and a piece of turkey on top, with a protein shake on the side. The protein shake consists of coconut milk or almond milk, (personally I would do almond milk: it’s tastier) then you can get fancy and add fruit or vegetables to make it more appetizing. The protein powder and digestive powder come with it so the only ingredients you have to worry about are the additional fruit, vegetables, and the milk. My favorite shake is vanilla protein powder, almond milk, strawberries, and spinach. Spinach is great for you and it complements the strawberries very nicely. You will have two protein shakes a day. Let’s say that it is the late afternoon and you are starting to fall asleep; you get some water and pour a fizz stick into it and there is your “caffeine,” the fizz sticks are delicious and they come in pomegranate and citrus flavors so that it tastes like Gatorade.
Dinner is an interesting meal because you have to be creative while doing this or you will go nuts! Grilled chicken with sautéed garlic over quinoa was my favorite meal. You have quinoa pasta by itself with olive oil and garlic, you could make a salad with olive oil and seasoning, or you could have ground turkey meatloaf with a side of sweet potatoes. The main idea is, you can have a lot of food, but you have to prepare and shop ahead of time. For a treat, a nice and lean piece of meat with brown rice was another favorite of mine. The hardest part is the 30 days. When someone is eating a burger in front of you, you will want to scream, but at the end you feel like a million bucks and you look like a million bucks! Boys will be doing a double take and you will feel more confident about yourself knowing you finished the Arbonne challenge.