No more master cleanse... FOOOOOOOOOOD!

So, I completed 16 days on the master cleanse! I lost 10 lbs, not as much as previous times, due to the time of the month, but I lost 2 inches from my waist, an inch from my hips, an inch from each thigh and an inch and a half from my boobs (bit gutted about that last one!). Feel a lot trimmer and my jeans are now too big!
I had been planning on doing 20 days, but I got up on the morning of day 17 and could not face one more lemon/ cayenne/ maple drink. So I made fresh orange juice and damn it was GOOD! I haven't put any weight back on since I came off the cleanse (5 or 6 days now I think), in fact I've lost another pound and I am eating tons! All raw of course. I feel amazing, so much better than I was before the cleanse and am so glad I did it. And it feels so great to be eating raw again. I've had loads of delicious stuff.

The first couple of days I stuck to juice then eased my way back into raw. Last night I had a friend round for dinner and made courgette pasta with my spiraliser and fresh raw vegan pesto.

Courgette pasta and pesto

I put loads of fresh basil, a clove of garlic, olive oil and pine nuts in the food processor, blitzed it all up and mixed it in with the courgette. It was lovely! I also made loads of salads to go with it, as well as flax crackers, macademia cheese, and chocolate mousse for dessert.

I kind of made up the recipe for the flax crackers, based on the ingredients from a packet of crackers I bought from Inspiral the other day. I soaked 250 g of flax seeds in a litre of water for 12 hours. Then I processed up a 225g punnet of baby plum tomatoes, a red pepper, 1/2 cup of sundried tomatoes, a clove of garlic, a scotch bonnet chilli, loads of fresh parsley and 1/4 teaspoon of himalayan crystal salt. I put the gloopy seed mixture in, whizzed it all up then spread it over 4 dehydrator sheets and dehydrated it for about 12 hours. Then I flipped it over and did it for another 6 or so hours. And they turned out pretty good!


Flax crackers, mashed avocado,
macademia cheese & alfafa sprouts

The macademia cheese was amazing! I got the recipe from Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow, and I really recommend this. You wouldn't believe a mix of macademia nuts, peppers, lemon, a pinch of salt and nutritional yeast would taste so amazing. This is dehydrated too, and comes out with a great texture. I just had some more of it now for my dinner, on flax crackers with mashed avocado and alfafa sprouts and it was gorgeous.

Chocolate mousse

The chocolate mousse is an old favourite from Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People. It's so quick and easy and tastes delicious. It's made with avocados but you would never know, it just tastes really rich and creamy and chocolatey but is totally dairy free! As well as the avocado I put in some medjool dates, raw honey, vanilla extract and raw cacao. The photo is never going to do it justice as it just looks like a dollop of brown stuff but it is soooooo good. I had the leftovers for lunch today which is why it's in a tupperware!



Today's packed lunch

So with all the leftovers from last night, I had the best ever packed lunch today! The yellow/orange stuff round the outside of the salad (picture on the left) is carrot and ginger dressing from Natalia Rose's The Raw Food Detox Diet: The Five-Step Plan for Vibrant Health and Maximum Weight Loss. The salad has red cabbage, mixed bean sprouts, yellow peppers, pea shoots, spinach, grated carrot and marinated mushrooms.
I am so delighted to be eating real fresh raw food again! I've been having green juices for breakfasts too- this morning it was apples, cucumber, celery and ginger. Beautiful!

I'll try and keep this blog more up-to-date now, as I am totally re-set and back into the raw for good. I promise you I feel really amazing and will continue to keep it up!