Forget to « DETOX », try a 5-Day Reset Experience
Stop Dieting to Question your Food Relationship and your Eating Habits.
What does a 5-Day Reset Experience mean?
A 5-DAY RESET Experience is not a usual Detox or Cleanse program. It is a simple and easy experiment to learn about your relationship with foods and question your eating habits. This experience is a self-exploration journey from your current eating habits to a Whole Food Plant-Based eating pattern by eliminating day by day certain categories of foods. It’s important to slow down, relax during this reset experience. As you eliminate certain foods and simplify day by day your eating pattern, you get to question and self-reflect about your relationship to eating. It’s a well-eating experience, nothing to win, no medals, no finisher diploma, just a better self-awareness. It is also NOT about losing weight quickly, but exploring plant-based mindful eating.
During this 5-day experiencet, you will simply question: WHEN (preferably daytime eating) and WHAT you eat (toward whole-food plant-based).
- WHEN? you try to eat during daytime (between sunrise and sunset), looking for an eating window of 10 hours. It is a simplified version of TRE « Time Restricted Eating » in which your don’t eat when its dark to re-sync with natural daylight, to reduce your eating window to give a break to your organism and give enough time to your digestive system to rest, recover and regenerate. You can read a detailed article on TRE « What did I learn from 2 years of practicing Time Restricted Eating ? ».
- Facilitate Well-Eating by Relaxing, resting & sleep well: Plan wisely your experience. It is easier to go through this experience during an extended weekend, week of holidays or in a low stress environment. Finding the right moment in your life will greatly help during the experience itself and after to reflect on it. Sleep is key to your wellbeing as well as essential for well-eating. During this experience, make sure you get your 7 to 8 hours of good night sleep.
- KEEP MOVING: this experience is not a usual detox, it should not stop you from being physically active at moderate intensity like walking, swimming, jogging, cycling, whatever helps you to relax.
- HYDRATE WELL: Fresh fruits and veggies contain 70 to 90% of naturally filtered water, so they are good options to stay well hydrated. Drink water based on your habits.
- WHAT NOT to eat: The 5-Day Reset Experience explore the eating spectrum from your usual diet to vegetarian diet, gluten-free, S.O.S free (no added salt, no added refined sugar or no refined oil), plant-based eating all the way to WholeFood Plant-Based Well-Eating.
100% plant-based includes everything edible in plants: fruits, nuts, seeds, vegetables, leafy greens, leaves, herbs, spices, flowers, micro-greens, sprouts, mushrooms… 100% plant-based foods are prepared with all cooking techniques with a preference for soft cooking methods like steaming, stir-frying, dehydrating, marinating, baking.
The goal of this experience is to explore eating patterns, question your current habits or cravings. By trying things out, you can see what works best for you, what are you enjoying and you can then find where you want to stabilise your diet around plant-based eating. The experience works by eliminating one food category each day. Once you complete the 5-Day Reset, you will preferable comeback slowly to your desire eating pattern.
Why experimenting?
We learn in practice. You are unique, what works for someone else won’t necessarily work for you. When people talk about a plant-based diet, it includes a wide range of very different diets from eating mostly out of convenience junk/fast processed foods or mock foods to more conscious eating like whole food plant-based, SOS free, raw, fruitarian… This experience is not to judge nor to rank eating patterns based on a personal belief, but simply discover what you enjoy and therefore what you are more likely to commit to on the long term.
When it comes to Nutrition, I prefer to keep it simple: Whole-Food Plant Based. Preferably Fresh, Local and in Season. I am looking for nutrient density and getting a wide diversity of micro-nutrients while making sure to keep my micro-biome well (thank you plant fibers and good bacterias). I am not a nutritionist, certainly not a diet guru nor a doctor. I prefer open questions, evidence based facts and a scientific approach based on replicable experimentations. So I follow the work of a limited number of trusted sources like Sachin Panda, from the Salk Institute, on Time Restricted Eating and like Dr Michael Greger (Nutrition Facts & « Daily Dozen » ) for Evidence Based Nutrition.
My small piece of advise: try to find out what works well for you! If you feel great, energized and motivated, you are most probably going in the right direction.
How to do the 5-DAY Reset Experience?
- WHEN to EAT? From sunrise to sunset.
- WHAT to EAT: Reset and Simplify your Eating Habits all the way to Whole Food Plant-based.
BEFORE: Coming from your usual eating pattern, switch to vegetarian or a 100% plant-based diet. Eliminate drinking stimulating substances like caffeine (so no coffee, tea, coke, energy drinks, alcohol…). These will mess up the experience, as they tend to interfere with your appetite sensations and your cravings. Warning for caffeine addicted, which I happen to be. If you stop caffeine all of a sudden, you are very likely to go through 12 hours of headaches. It’s better to go through it before starting the Reser Experience, as caffeine addiction has pretty much nothing to do with your eating pattern.
DAY 1: Eat 100% plant-based. Eliminate legumes (chickpea, pulse, lentil, peanut, bean…) to ease your digestion.
DAY 2: Eat almost Whole Food 100% Plant-Based! (or WFPB) by eliminating most refined foods or processed foods (with additives or preservatives). Meaning eat colorful sweet potatoes or black rice instead of white rice or binge potatoes. Also try to limite your eating window around 10 hours during daylight like from 8am to 6pm.
DAY 3: Eat 100% WFPB and Go Gluten-free by eliminating sources of gluten (like pasta, bread, wheat flour).
DAY 4: Eat 100% WFPB and Go S. O. S. free (SOS from Salt, Oil and Added Refined Sugar). An Apple is fine. A nut butter for salad dressing instead of refined Oil.
DAY 5: Eat mostly WFPB and Go back to your favourite day.
AFTER: Congrats! Reset Completed. Go back slowly to your desire eating pattern, something that you enjoy and can easily commit on the long term.
What I appreciate with the 5-DAY Reset Experience:
- Ok, I like to experiment. I usually do it whole eating only twice daily so that it becomes very simple and I have more time for other things.
- This experience is my answer to the recurring « What should I eat?», question that I keep getting during my 18 years as of eating plant-based. Close second after the « Where do you get your proteins? My simple answer being that you have to figure out it by yourself.
- It helps realise that you are unique. Copying someone else is not always your best option, you are likely to be better of trying out what works for you.
- Habits are highly dependent of your environment, their convenience and the social acceptance (work, friends and family). So have fun, go easy on yourself and explore mindful eating or well-eating playfully.
- I feel like eTRE plays a big role in feeling well, that’s why it’s embedded.
- A temporary struggle, short term efforts can be good for you. It’s a learning experience.
For more listen the Blue Lotus Café PODCAST on the 5-DAYTOX Challenge. Find all my articles on plant-based lifestyle and eating.
