Envision a washing machine. The washing machine only cleans your clothes really well if you add soap, right? Well, throughout the week, I was slowly adding the "soap" (read: cutting out the bad foods) bit by bit. When the machine (read: my body) was loaded with soap (read: healthy foods), I expected to feel totally clean. Clear-headed. Fab-tastic. The catch: although I did feel less bloated, I felt cranky. I had headaches. I had eliminated unnecessary sugar from my diet (as well as meats, including chicken) and began to feel more lethargic than usual come 4 p.m. It's something I knew could happen, but I was ill-prepared for it, especially leading into a long weekend run. The run didn't go so well. By the end of it, I was drained. I sat down afterward with a friend in front of a salad toting chickpeas for days, when all I really wanted was a pizza.
