When I started my yoga teacher training I never felt like doing a diet… actually I never did any kind of diet in my life and that was something I couldn’t even imagine, so I made a conscious choice not to do the recommended diet during the training. It was not the right time, the right moment and, most important, I wasn’t ready for it.

Back then I realized, however I always thought I did not, that food was a problem. Not being able to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted just drove me crazy… So I just let it go and accepted my state of mind.

Here we are a few months later, spring is coming, there is green all around me, I thought… ok now I am ready for it and I feel like doing the green diet and I decided to challenge myself for ten days… and here we go!!!

When I went shopping the first day and put only green in my basket, I felt very excited and really liked this variety of fruits and vegetables you can eat. This is really amazing how much green stuff you can find in the supermarket. But I encountered an ethical problem!!! If I want to eat local vegetables, then the choice will be very limited. Am I ready for that??? Right now the answer is no, because of my personal challenge of the diet itself and once again I made a conscious choice to go for the non local and to be ok with that.

My personal experience is that the first two days I felt a bit down with no energy, mentally my negative mind was working hard (I think that’s the sugar withdrawal). Days 3 to 5 were great, I felt healthy, light and I did not realized 5 days were gone already. As on the 6th day I start to crave sweets and I often think of it, of course instead I am eating pistachio nuts and pumpkin seeds.

So far it is a very nice & healthy feeling  doing that diet. I do not starve, I eat a lot always have a nice feeling of being light. I have a clearer mind and I can focus more during my meditation. And last but not least, I discover new vegetables and smoothie… I even eat celery that I always hated!

My personal tips before doing a green diet would be:

• Define how long you would like to go for it
• Be sure that during that period you do not have business diner, lunch, etc
• Organize and plan your meals in advance
• Avoid having to much social appointment (that’s my experience, I prefer to stay home and not being stressed around with questions like what can I eat if I am outside)
• If you go out, bring some prepared food with you in case you all of a sudden starve
• Always have pistache & pumpkin seeds in your pocket

Green smoothie for the morning break or afternoon one, or even as a full meal:

• 2 or 3 leaves of Romaine
• 1 branch celery
• 1 stalk of mint
• 2 cups of home made green tea
• 1 pear
• 1 apple
• 1 kiwi (optional)
• lemon juice (optional)

Put the vegetables in the blender with the tea and blend together until all leafy chunks are gone, next add the fruits and blend again.

Of course you can put any kind of green vegetables or fruits you like. There is a magical formula to respect (in order to avoid nasty taste) when preparing smoothies, which is the following: 2 cups leafy greens + 2 cups liquid + 3 cups ripe fruits.

With all my green energy (I should do some 4th chakra kriya:-)) I am wishing you a good try!