{"id":10008,"date":"2010-06-28T14:20:35","date_gmt":"2010-06-28T18:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=10008"},"modified":"2020-02-26T16:03:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T21:03:50","slug":"alkaline-cleanse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/alkaline-cleanse\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Days of Water, Green Vegetable Juice, and Urine Testing: Does It Get Any Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it post-race blues if you like.\u00a0 It happened after qualifying for Boston<\/a>, and now it’s happening after running my first 50-mile ultramarathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story is the same: A planned week off of running turns into two (or three) weeks. And then I get into watching television shows, like the important Bachelorette. <\/em>This all opens the door to some crummy eating.<\/p>\n

\"Glass<\/p>\n

More junk food, fewer salads.\u00a0\u00a0 More coffee, fewer smoothies. More beer, more beer.<\/p>\n

Last time I broke that funk with a challenge: Run every single day for a month.\u00a0 This time the challenge is nutrition-related, and a little bit weird. Consume only fluids for seven days.<\/p>\n

Why Would Anyone Want to Do This?<\/h3>\n

Because I like experimenting, and giving things a fair shake.\u00a0 Because I’m obsessed with the idea of maximizing my energy, so that I can run better, sleep less and live more.\u00a0 And because everywhere I turn for answers about how to have more energy, people are pointing me towards an alkaline diet<\/a> (more on this below).<\/p>\n

And an alkaline diet, it seems, starts with a cleanse.\u00a0 Not a Super Colon Blow-type cleanse, but a way of giving your body a break from difficult digestion, to free it up to flush acids, yeasts, and toxins out of the bloodstream.<\/p>\n

The Details of the Cleanse<\/h3>\n

The specifics of the cleanse are pretty simple: Drink at least four liters of fluid per day, mostly water with lemon or lime, plus six to twelve glasses of freshly-juiced green vegetables.\u00a0 Raw, liquid soups made from pureed green vegetables plus a few tablespoons of oil are allowed too, as are occasional carrot and beet juice.\u00a0 Depending on how much running I do over the next week, I may allow fruit juices in moderation as well.<\/p>\n

The cleanse isn’t required to last for seven days; that’s an average.\u00a0 If I decide I want to stop after three or four, I’ll stop.\u00a0 And if I start losing a lot of weight—my biggest concern—I’ll curtail the cleanse at that point.<\/p>\n

This isn’t supposed to kill me or be some religious test of mental strength.\u00a0 It’s supposed to be a jump-start toward a cleaner diet and increased energy.\u00a0 If there’s any sign that it’s doing the opposite, I’ll jump ship faster than that bad guy in Titanic<\/em> who goes ahead of the women and children (i.e., fast).<\/p>\n

Isn’t This Alkaline Diet Thing Just Pseudo-Science?<\/h3>\n

Maybe.\u00a0 But I like to try things before I decide whether or not they work for me.<\/p>\n

The alkaline diet is certainly “alternative,” and I don’t know that there’s a lot of evidence to support it (yet?).\u00a0 I do know that several people whom I trust and who have incredible energy levels—Brendan Brazier<\/a>, Stu Mittleman<\/a> (the guy who ran 1000 miles in 11 days), and Tony Robbins<\/a> (not an athlete, but one of the most energetic and passionate guys you’ll ever see)—all endorse paying attention to the acid\/alkaline balance.<\/p>\n

On the downside, Wikipedia<\/a> tells me that the guy whose book I’ve been reading, Robert Young, has been under scrutiny by the National Council Against Health Fraud.\u00a0 And as a commenter pointed out, his website<\/a> sure feels kinda creepy.<\/p>\n

But the way I see it, there’s not much risk in giving it a whirl.\u00a0 If you look at a chart of the acid and alkaline foods, you’ll see that the alkaline foods and neutral foods are pretty much what we know to be good anyway—vegetables (the greener the better), certain seeds, nuts and grains, and some fruits.\u00a0 And the bad stuff is what most vegetarians and vegans agree is unhealthy—meats, dairy, sugars.\u00a0 (There does seem to be some variation across different charts, another red flag.)<\/p>\n

As I do more research about the alkaline diet, I’ll write a post summarizing what I see as the major tenets, and that research along with my results will help me judge its validity. In the meantime, I’ll just be over here drinking a whole lot of water and vegetable juice, as the cleanse starts tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I’m interested to hear what you, the NMA readers of the world, think of the alkaline diet—I know it’s a polarizing topic. What do you think, is there something to it?\u00a0 Or is it just an ingenious ploy to get me to waste my money on greens powders and pH strips to test my urine?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it post-race blues if you like.\u00a0 It happened after qualifying for Boston, and now it’s happening after running my first 50-mile ultramarathon. The story is the same: A planned week off of running turns into two (or three) weeks. And then I get into watching television shows, like the important Bachelorette. This all opens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n7-Day Liquid Cleanse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The details of a 7-day cleanse designed to give your digestive system a rest and allow your body to alkalize and cleanse itself of toxins.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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