When most people begin diets, the primary motivation is to lose weight. If at the end of your diet you see that you haven’t made any progress, it can discourage you from wanting to continue or try a new diet. The reason a lot of diets don’t work is because they tell you to eat foods that don’t help you lose weight. We found a great diet that can help you lose up to ten pounds in just one week!
One disclaimer that we have to make is that this diet is plant-based. It isn’t a raw diet, which is required while taking part in our cleanses. You can have legumes, whole grains, and other vegetarian options that you can’t eat while cleansing. A plant-based diet ensures that you are: a) getting a lot of essential nutrients that your body needs; and b) giving your body foods that help to flush toxins and waste from the body.
Let’s Start With Breakfast
Despite what you may believe, it is important to eat breakfast. You have to do one thing before breakfast, though. Start your day by squeezing the juice of one lemon in one cup of filtered water and drink that before you eat anything. This helps to detox your body and boost your metabolism right out of the gate. You can eat a bowl of fresh fruit or make a nutrient-dense smoothie thirty minutes after drinking that lemon water.
It is best to have your fruits earlier in the day, so that the natural sugars can be evenly distributed throughout your body. You can eat two apples with almond butter, a large grapefruit, two pears, or make a smoothie with banana, spinach, apples, and strawberries. You can also make some overnight oats and add fresh berries in the morning.
What’s For Lunch?
Lunch should actually be your largest meal of the day. The typical American makes dinner the largest meal of the day, but that can be hard on your digestive system. Your lunch should be a large salad. You can add things like chickpeas, black beans, kale, carrots, bell peppers, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, radish slices, beets, or walnuts to make some great filling salads. Again, use whatever ingredients you like, but vary your salads every day.
A Little Snack
People always like a little snack after lunch. Snacks don’t have to be bad, though. Leave the bag of chips or cookies alone and reach for some carrot sticks or a handful of almonds, cashews, walnuts, or pecans. You can snack a couple hours after you eat lunch.
It’s Dinner Time
Dinner should ideally be consumed between 5-7pm. The later you eat dinner, the worse it is for your digestive system. Your digestive system can actually digest the food you eat for dinner when you eat in that ideal time period. You can eat another salad with different ingredients, or you can have some zucchini noodles with homemade pesto. There are many delicious entrees to make in our entrée recipe section.
After you eat dinner you can prepare a little turmeric tea or ginger tea. This will help decrease the amount of inflammation in your body. If you want to relax, brew a cup of chamomile tea and drink that a little more than an hour before bed.
In conclusion, it is important to drink a lot of water while you are on this diet. Drink at least 8-10 eight-ounce glasses of water each day to stay sufficiently hydrated. You can also drink half your bodyweight in ounces of water as a better measurement. If you weigh 150lbs and divide that by two to get 75, you should drink 75oz of water every day.
The ideal time period to see results on this diet is between 7-14 days.
