[Update: The winner of the Kaeng Raeng giveaway was reader Haley from CA! Thank you everyone for participating — and we will have more great giveaways coming soon, stay tuned!]
I’m pretty happy with my body, although that wasn’t always the case. In my early twenties, I got this idea that making over my body will prove to the world (okay, boys) that I’m sooo hardcore and you know, hot. I worked out 5-6 days a week and actually ate under what I needed, which just seems so incredible to me now. Fast forward 5 years–I’ve long since given up counting calories, weighing myself, or working out with anything close to that level of determined ferocity. And I’ve not ballooned up enormously following this long-term lapse. But a couple of recent incidents made me think a short-term tune up was in order.
Incident 1 (back in December, my sister calls me while shopping): Hey, there’s a huge 7 jeans sale going on. What size are you?
Me: Um, get 27!
Sister: Are you sure about that?
Me: Yes, the other day I got 28s, they keep falling down.
Sister (skeptical silence): Um, okay.
Incident 2: Boyfriend keeps dropping hints that now that I have a more flexible schedule, I can become a fitness junkie.
Incident 3: The occasion of my 5-year college reunion looming excitedly/dreadfully around the corner.
Last time I saw most of my class of 2009 friends, I wore size 27s comfortably, sometimes with a belt. Heck, I even have a 26 hiding in my closet somewhere. These are desperate times. So it was just perfect timing that Kaeng Raeng sent me their 3-Day Cleanse Program, the same week Boyfriend was gone for a business trip. Stars were aligning.
Kaeng Raeng is all vegan, gluten-free, probiotic, plant-based detox program that allows your body to rest from digestive stress and eliminate toxins. Unlike most other cleanses, you are allowed to have raw vegan snacks and meals during the program (yipee!) I tried their soy-free program.
“Joyful” breakfast
Day 1 Tuesday
7:00 a.m. I wake up excited to start my first day of detox. I choose “joyful” (strawberry, raspberry, pineapple) flavor for breakfast. It’s super easy to blend up with a couple cubes of ice and plenty of water–which turns it creamy and thick. It tastes very fruity and not too sweet–and a bit tangy, like yogurt. That makes sense since each pack contains 1 billion live cultures. I eat a banana on the side.
2:00 p.m. Truth be told, I’m not all that hungry after the breakfast, but I mix up “Into the blue” (blueberry banana) and fall in love with it. It’s sort of like your favorite blueberry banana muffin in a shake form. So far, so good!
Blueberry Banana lunch
3:00 p.m. I eat a banana with some raw almond butter, not so much because I’m hungry, but because I crave the feeling of chewing something. Then I eat a few more spoonfuls of almond butter. Oops.
7:30 p.m. I try the “Daybreak” flavor (mango, peach, pineapple). I realize I haven’t been hungry all day–this is something new, since I like to go into dinner time feeling somewhat hollow (it makes me feel like I’ve done something. Don’t ask). I almost don’t even need the “dinner” smoothie, but I drink it anyway.
Day 2 Wednesday
8:oo a.m. Still not really hungry! This time I try replacing about 1/2 cup of water with almond milk since non-dairy milk is allowed in the program. Eureka! The strawberry flavor tastes so much sweeter and more fun, like strawberry shake. I go to my cafe for my usual morning work session, and order a jasmine green tea instead of soy chai latte–it’s not nearly as much fun for my mouth, but sharpens my focus.
Noon The blueberry banana shake is even better with almond milk. Yum!
2:30 p.m. I decide to make myself a raw fennel and grapefruit salad. I even make the dressing with raw almond butter as to not eat anything un-raw (oil). I have a dessert of 1 banana.
3:00 p.m. In a fit of productivity, I make a raw vegan “spinach casserole” for tomorrow’s lunch and put it in the fridge. It’s freezing cold outside, but I go out for a run anyway–and feel surprised by my energy. Usually when I do a detox, I can barely stay up past 9 p.m. I even go all the way out to Queens to volunteer at an arts center.
9:00 p.m. By the time I come back from Queens I’m not hungry enough to actually do another shake…but I eat one raw vegan gluten-free brownie (it was tiny, okay?) while working. I keep plugging away all focused for another 4 hours (!) while Vikings plays on in the background.
Day 3 Thursday
9:00 a.m. Last day of cleanse! I automatically reach for the strawberry flavor. Oddly, I am forgetting what it’s even like to have regular food.
Noon I have a blueberry banana shake, followed by the raw vegan spinach casserole I made yesterday. It feels like too much food.
6:00 p.m. Last shake is the mango one–it still tastes good, but I’m admittedly thinking about what I’ll have for breakfast tomorrow and excited that I’ll be allowed to have chai latte again.
Day 4 Friday
I wake up energized and light. I measure myself and hooray! Inches have been lost. I feel so jazzy I decide to pull out my junior prom dress. Can I really fit into something that was tight on me 10 years ago? Oh yes, I can! I feel vindicated in keeping it all this time.
Feeling like you still got it? Priceless.
Results
Day 1: no, I’m not sticking my tummy out.
After 2 weeks
I measured my waist, hips, and thighs on Day 1 and Day 4. I lost 1 inch off my waist, zero off my hips, and 1/2 inch from each thigh. That’s not too crazy, as far as cleanses go–but Kaeng Raeng isn’t meant to be crazy, lose-10-lbs-in-3-days type of program. Rather, it’s meant to jump start your weight loss and set your appetite on a more regular pattern. The most significant benefits I experienced were the reduction of food cravings, especially for sugar and carbs, loss of bloating, and the increased energy. In fact, I wanted to exercise more while doing Kaeng Raeng, which is so different than how I usually feel during cleanses. After the program, I felt more inclined to eat healthy and workout more intensely–which might be why I kept those 2 inches’ loss. 🙂
Try Kaeng Raeng – Reader Giveaway!
Peaceful Dumpling readers will get 15% off all Kaeng Raeng cleanse programs – just use promo code PEACE15 (from 3/11-3/15). If you order a Veteran or Master level program with the code, you’ll even receive a free reusable bottle! 🙂
Kaeng Raeng also just launched a free Ebook that is all about cleaning eating for better health, which is on my iPad as we speak.
Last but not least, one lucky reader will receive a free Kaeng Raeng 3-day Beginner level program (same one I did). Click here to enter the Giveaway!
__
Photo: Peaceful Dumpling
