Welcome To The 7 Day Refresh
It’s time to make this year your best ever! Filled with 7 days of easy, tasty, and filling recipes, we guarantee you’ll never go hungry or feel deprived during this experience. Getting insanely healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Get ready for fun and delicious recipes, a simple step-by-step plan and a wonderful community to experience this Refresh with!
This Prep Week page is available to Refresh members only. Simply login if you’ve already joined or join today. Once you’re logged in, this page and every page in the Refresh will become available.
See you inside!
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Welcome To The 7 Day Refresh
It’s time to make this year your best ever! Filled with 7 days of easy, tasty, and filling recipes, we guarantee you’ll never go hungry or feel deprived during this experience. Getting insanely healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Get ready for fun and delicious recipes, a simple step-by-step plan and a wonderful community to experience this Refresh with!
This Prep Week page is available to Refresh members only. Simply login if you’ve already joined or join today. Once you’re logged in, this page and every page in the Refresh will become available.
See you inside!
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Welcome to the 7-Day Fresh Prep Week
This section will cover what to do before your Refresh begins to ensure you’re 100% ready to start in a peaceful state of mind.
Prep week is designed to make the first day of your Refresh a great experience. While not mandatory, it will give you everything you need to feel mentally and physically prepared.
Follow each step below as best you can—that’s all that matters.
The best start day is the one the feels great and fits within your schedule. We suggest scheduling your start day after a break; for instance, if you have weekends (Saturday-Sunday) off, make Monday your Day 1. Then you will be able to prep your base meals (like hummus, dressings and energy bites) the day before so you’re ready to go when it starts.
Two Things To Check BEFORE Choosing Your Start Day:
- Make sure that you have all the necessary basic equipment and ingredients. Based on where you live, you might have to order some online but most should be fine with a grocery store. Equipment and Staple Ingredients are covered below in Step 2.
- If you’re a fan of soda, sugar, coffee, or fast food (meaning you consume them two or more times a week), we recommend taking a week to wean yourself off by replacing these foods and beverages with a smoothie. Go to Smoothie Week for more details.
If you have everything you need and you’re ready to begin, then by all means, go ahead. If you aren’t sure about getting ready on time, we suggest taking a week (or waiting till the start of next week) to prep and enjoy some smoothies.
Once you’ve chosen a start date, grab a calendar and draw a big smiley face on your official start day.
Here’s the basic equipment list you will need to complete the 21-Day Raw Food Refresh.
If you don’t have something on this list, borrow it from a friend or purchase your own. If you need to order something, we have links to the best deals. Most of these items may also be found at second-hand shops or your local classifieds.
[unordered_list style=”tick”]- Cutting knife
- Cutting board
- High-powered blender (or any blender, you could also use a food processor if you don’t have a blender)
- Food processor (some high-powered blenders work as food processors)
- Sealable containers and ziplock bags
- Mason jars (or similar glass jars)
- Large bowl
- Masking tape & marker
- Vegetable spiral slicer (optional)
- Coffee grinder (optional)
- Mandolin slicer with V-slicer (optional)
Below is a brief description of each item along with a link to a quality option you can order online.
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A quality chef’s knife. Kitchen gadgets are useful for chopping and cutting, but basic knife skills will be a huge asset when it comes to food prep.
Great deal for a chef’s knife online
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A decent cutting board is crucial for preparing fresh fruits and vegetables. Wood is a classic choice, but flexible cutting boards allow you to funnel your choppings directly into a plate, bowl, or blender.
Great deal on flexible cutting boards
Great deal on bamboo cutting boards
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A high-powered blender is helpful but by no means required. A consumer blender will do the trick for these 21 days, but a Vitamix or Blendtec can make a world of difference with food prep. A bit of Internet research can land you a high-powered blender for less than $300. Until then, make the most of the equipment you have (a $30-$50 blender is plenty for Refresh purposes). If you want to purchase or upgrade to a high-powered blender, three options are listed below.
Great deal on Blendtec (offers plenty of options and is remarkably intuitive when it comes to blending exactly what you need)
Great deal on Vitamix (the most powerful blender available; serves as a food processor as well)
Great deal on KitchenAid (while it isn’t high-powered, it is a great option for the 7-Day Refresh)
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A food processor is a must-have for making cheeses, spreads, and even desserts. These are easy to find at any store that sells small kitchen appliances or through resale shops and online classifieds.
Great deal on a food processor
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Sealable containers come in a variety of sizes, from smaller options for dressings, dips, and hummus to larger containers for spreads, marinated veggies, and entrées. Be sure to buy sturdy containers for to-go meals, as flimsy varieties are notorious for popping open in backpacks or lunch boxes.
Great deal on cheap, decent containers
More expensive but better-quality containers
Most expensive but optimal-quality glass containers
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Mason jars are great for smoothies and nut milks and for soaking nuts, seeds, oats, and chia puddings. Glass is easy to clean, doesn’t leach chemicals when heated (unlike plastic) and seals nicely. The downside, obviously, is its break-ability. We suggest purchasing three to five 32-ounce jars for smoothies, nut milks, puddings, and water. An economically and environmentally friendly option is reusing pickle, pasta sauce, and apple sauce jars.
Great deal on a four-pack of mason jars
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A large bowl is critical for your salads and noodle dishes. Because raw food meals contain far fewer calories than your usual diet, you’ll need to fill your bowl to the brim. Any large bowl works, although a wooden option is our preferred choice.
Great deal on large wooden bowl
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Mastering your labelling skills will radically simplify your Refresh experience. All you need is masking tape and a marker. The two critical pieces of information to include: what’s inside the container and the date by which it should be consumed. You can also note the meal or day of the week for which it was prepared. If you’re feeling particularly territorial, label it with misnomers like “Dog Food” or “Science Experiment” to keep fridge-grazers at bay.
Optional Equipment
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A coffee grinder is optional but helpful for grinding nuts and seeds for salad and pasta toppings.
Great deal on a coffee grinder
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A vegetable spiral slicer is great for making noodles from zucchini. A knife can do the same trick, but the slicer is essential if you want your noodles to be especially delicate and thin. (These are awesome!)
Great deal on a vegetable spiral slicer
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A mandolin slicer with V-slicer is another optional tool, great for slicing up veggies for chips and salads. When you add the V-slicer, it makes noodles, much like the vegetable spiral slicer listed above. The V-slicer is also useful for making long, straight noodles for collard and nori wraps.
One of the best ways to move the junk out is to take that term literally and move it out.
When you get your blood moving, your body has a much better way to flush out toxins. You will also be activating your metabolism to increase weight loss. Don’t forget moving is also a major mood booster and lets be honest here, having a good mood and feel good about things is a great place to be. Overall adding movement with improve this entire Refresh experience.
Add 3 days of movement to your week or more.
Movement Ideas:
- Walk in the park
- Hike outdoors
- Yoga – sign up for a month of yoga somewhere near you or get a punch pass (this will help you commit more to doing it)
- Swim in a pool
- Join athletic club and sign up for group exercises like zumba, cycle class, core training, palates etc…
- Jump on a rebounder (aka little trampoline)
- Laugh – meet up with people you love and LAUGH 🙂
- Go to meetup.com and see the group activities going on in your area and join one of them.
Pick one or add your own ideas. Invite a friend to some of the activities to make it more communal and motivating to do it. Just remember to put it on the calendar and get your move on… it will do wonders to your experience these next 7 days and on.
Social support will help you enjoy your Refresh in a variety of ways. Your Refresh buddy can help you prepare meals and clean dishes, provide emotional support, relate with your experience, and keep you on track.
There are plenty of ways to create a support system. Your Refresh buddy can be an online friend, a family member or neighbor, even a group or club that will cheer you on toward your Refresh goals.
Some people find that friends and family aren’t supportive when it comes to personal change and transformation, especially if it’s a lifestyle outside of their comfort zone. With this in mind, remember to respect those close to you during the Refresh. Do it for you and don’t expect or demand them to change with you. Let your results speak for themselves.
Finding a Refresh buddy is not a mandatory step, but it is nice to find people who will understand and support what you’re doing.
Make Your Kitchen, Fridge and Pantry Refresh-Friendly
We are creatures of habit, and our routines extend to the kitchen as well. By removing, replacing, and reorganizing your kitchen to support this Refresh, you greatly increase your chance of success. Your kitchen should say, “I support you and your desire to do this Refresh. Look how easy I have made it for you to complete this amazing process!”
Below are three ways to transform your kitchen into a Refresh-Friendly environment:
1. Remove Refresh-deterring foods and ingredients: Use up, give away, or store (far away) any foods that do not support your Refresh. Get temptation out of the way, out of access, and out of sight. If the risk of temptation is still present, continue making little changes until your kitchen is completely raw food-friendly.
2. Reorganize the kitchen to be clutter-free: Clutter and chaos can sap your resolve and make this Refresh more challenging than it needs to be. Throw away or store rags, appliances, random ingredients, bottles, old food, food-encrusted containers—any and all clutter. Clearing out this junk not only promotes a happy Refresh, but also stimulates productivity.
3. Replace “traditional” foods with Refresh foods: Now that your kitchen is free of processed snacks, fill it back up with your new Refresh foods. Put a fruit bowl out in the center of your table, have your quick raw food snack containers ready to fill and grab on-the-go. A breath of fresh air will fill your soul as you look around and see that you’ve created the environment you want for yourself.
Jamie from Seattle wrote in about this topic, saying: “This is the first time in over 30 years that I have organized my kitchen to support eating healthy. I feel free from my food addictions.”
[box type=”info” style=”rounded” border=”full” icon=”none”]COMMON Q&A’s
Question: What if I am in a house with other people who are not doing the Refresh?
Answer: Sharing a living space with someone who has their own passions, desires, and food habits is very common. Most of us will have to set up the kitchen with other people in the house. We suggest talking to those with whom you share the space to let them know about your honest desire for completing the Refresh and discuss options for creating a system over the next 7 days.
There are countless options for compromising on your food prep spaces, from dedicating certain kitchen areas to the Refresh to making an entire raw-food-friendly area of the house (remember, you don’t need cooking appliances for this Refresh; you just need a fridge and a small area for your kitchen equipment). The key is respecting other individuals’ desires and being open to all the options. Who knows: maybe they’ll join you! [/box]
It’s a great idea to get all the ingredients the day or two before your start date. This way you can prepare your base recipes and be ready to go when it begins.
We included the exact amount you need of each item to complete the Refresh. Check your pantry & fridge before shopping because you may already have enough of many of these items on hand.
Where to find the shopping list:
In the sidebar, navigate to “MEAL PLAN” where you will see a tab titled “Intro” (it should be the first page you see), scroll to the bottom and you will see the shopping list.
To make the start of this Refresh even easier, we have a few delicious base raw food recipes to prepare the day before it begins. Base recipes include hummus, dressings, and energy bites: they’re the foods that make raw food taste amazing and save you time later in the week.
In the sidebar, navigate to “MEAL PLAN” where you will see a tab titled “Day 1”; click on that tab to find drop-downs for “Prep for Day 1-4.” Follow the steps.
The base recipes will be last three to four days. Most of the recipes will last five to seven days in the fridge. You can even freeze some recipes to enjoy them days and weeks later.
[box type=”info” style=”rounded” border=”full” icon=”none”]The Power Of Preparing and the “20 Second Rule”
If you want to break an old habit, we suggest to prepare for a new habit by making it easier to do.
Just recently we were reading a book called “The Happiness Advantage”, it talked about a study they did and how they were able to get people to create new habits. One of the easiest ways they found was by making the old habit harder to do and the new habit easier to do. For example, if someone wanted to play the guitar more all they would need to do was move the remote to the TV (their old habit) in another room in a tuff spot to get the remote and then put the guitar (their new habit) right next to their favorite chair. This was more powerful at changing habit then most of their other studies. They called it the “20 Second Rule”. Meaning, if you want to make a change, move the old habit 20 seconds harder to do and the new one 20 seconds easier to do. If it doesn’t work, add another 20 second till the new habits starts happening more.
In our own survey, many of the finishers of the 21 Day Reset said they couldn’t have completed it and stayed on track with out the prep sessions. In fact, many of them have written in months later saying they are still doing some of their new habits from the 21 Day Reset.
20 seconds and a little prep is all you might need to make a drastic difference in your health and life.[/box]
In conclusion, we strongly suggest to utilize the 2 prep sessions in the week and to use your mornings and evenings to prep food for the day. It’s mostly about finding a flow that works for you and building some consistency into it.
Join the Transition Smoothie Week!
Before diving into the Refresh, we recommend preparing by giving your gut a week to transition to raw food. Smoothies are a quick way to make this transition. Delicious and fully raw, these smoothies are packed with nutrition and already broken down for easy digestion.
The challenge is simple: for the next seven days, have at least one smoothie a day. That’s it! Even with this simple change you will start to see health benefits.
This week will also give you time to prepare for the Raw Food Refresh. If you feel your gut is ready and you need to jump into the refresh ASAP, then by all means you can start tomorrow. It’s up to you.
[button link=”http://www.rawfoodmagazine.com/21-day-raw-food-cleanse/smoothie-week/” size=”large” bg_color=”#6b9a18″ border=”#6b9a18″ window=”yes”]Join The Smoothie Week[/button]We just wanted to end off this prep session by saying how grateful we are for you. It might sound cheesy but you’re making a difference in your life and others. Being more conscious about how you live, makes this world a better place.
Remember, to make this a time to connect with others. If you know anyone who might want a little more energy in their life, double your smoothie and share it. If it feels right to you, make a point to share your new favorite raw snacks, share your experience or simply take a walk outside with someone you love and tell them how you appreciate them.
You’ve chosen to give yourself an amazing gift and you will emerge from this experience with new energy, clarity and happiness. We are so excited for you and we will be here for you all along the way.
Sending you a big hug,
Sara & Tyson
p.s. you have a great smile:)