I’ve been doing a cleanse. I haven’t written about it because “Let me tell you about this cleanse” is second to “You won’t believe the dream I had last night” on the list of things people don’t want to hear about.

It’s this cleanse. You know, this one. Conscious eating. And I feel pretty dang good. I’ve eaten vegan for the past two weeks as well as abstained from sugar/gluten/caffeine/alcohol/artificial sweeteners. I am more aware of everything I eat.

Luckily I’ve gotten through it without many cravings. It was difficult sometimes, not because I disliked the food I ate (in fact there are vegetables I still haven’t eaten) but because breaking habits is hard. There were days when I was exhausted and couldn’t try to fix that with some simple carbs and coffee. But I didn’t have a late-afternoon crash either.

If this is the kind of thing you’d like to do, I think you should try it. I’m listening to my body more, giving it food for energy but not lacking energy when I’m done eating. Buying a few vegan cookbooks helped me, especially Veganomicon because it includes gluten-free recipes. The vegetarianism was a good lesson and I feel like I’ve reset my tolerance for how much meat I should eat — a lot less.

As for the gluten thing, yeah, I do feel better and I think not eating gluten is a major factor. So I’m going to lay off a lot of flours and bread products. Once I found out I could eat wheat again, I wanted to eat it. Daily. And it makes me feel sluggish, I’m certain.

All that said, I’m looking forward to eating a poached egg. And drinking an Amstel Light. But for now mmm hummus!