What I Loathed, Learned (and the Weight I Lost) on a 5-Day Reset

I said no to solid foods for less than a week and lived to tell the tale

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I love food. I love the ritual of making a cup of coffee. I love the satisfying snap that comes with removing the end of a stalk of asparagus. I love smacking my knife over a head of garlic to remove its skin and then chopping it as finely as possible to throw in to my beloved, 20-year-old Le Creuset Dutch oven.

I also love to dine out, particularly when I’m traveling. In 2024, I had Nanaimo bars in Vancouver, lemon pepper wet wings in Atlanta, Juicy Lucys in Minneapolis. Oysters cloaked in the most decadent combination of butter, garlic, and black truffles you can ever imagine at L’Abattoir in British Columbia. Oatmeal baked into a piping hot soufflé and drenched in warm raspberry compote at The Lafayette in D.C. A popcorn drenched in “butter” (or, at least, chemicals made to mimic butter) with a cherry Coke during a matinee showing of Wicked at the local AMC theatre.

Some of what I’ve eaten in recent months (from L to R): lobster ceviche at Miku in Vancouver; a Black Forest croissant, chocolate-cashew cookie and hojicha maple latte at Nemesis Coffee; hot dogs at a Canuks game; a white chocolate White House upon arrival at the Hay-Adams hotel; a display of confections at the actual White House; yellowtail jalapeño at Nobu; oysters at L’Abattoir; smoked salmon Benedict at Azur Hotel; a Nanaimo bar

Life is all about balance. When I’m at home, I cook 90% of the meals I eat. I try to keep things healthy. I don’t eat a lot of processed foods, I try not to eat too much red meat (or dairy as it frankly doesn't make me feel great), and I try to consume a lot of vegetables. I also don’t do soda, other than the occasional movie theatre cherry Coke (that’s my tradition with myself and it makes me happy).

Some days, I have a delicious homemade kale salad with roasted sweet potatoes and mustard dressing. And some days, I have Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets. I am very aware of what’s actually healthy and what is simply a dietary fad. If you follow nutrition even a little bit, you’ll notice that every few years, we get a new villain: Carbs! Saturated fats! Seed oils! and then a few years after that, we discover that, oh, actually not all carbs are bad. Or, oh wait, saturated fats from avocados are different than those from red meat … And for every villain, there’s a new hero — kale! cauliflower! — and now (weirdly, though I am fairly convinced the American Cattleman’s Association is behind it): red meat.

the five-day Reset I completed last week

I try to tune out the noise and the pseudo-science from podcasters and just eat whole, delicious foods as often as I can. I don’t make special requests at restaurants (like “cook this in a specific type of oil, please” or “make this with half the sugar”) and if I want a piece of chocolate cake, I’ll either look for the best slice I can at a local bakery, or I’ll make a healthier version myself, to scratch the itch.

Still, there come moments when I know I have overdone it. When I spent months going on vacations, and stuffing myself full of every single dessert on offer at the White House Christmas party, and making bowls brimming with Ina Garten’s absolutely perfect caramelized onion dip to serve with salty, ridged potato chips for no reason other than I wanted it.

And at these moments, I have to reel it in and get back on track.

Which brings me to last week. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that I did a five-day reset! Five days with very little solid food — but a lot of liquid — and lots of nutritionally dense smoothies and broths, all in the name of wellness.

Now, to be clear: I did not do this in order to lose weight, though I did lose weight. And I am not a medical professional, nor am I recommending everyone also do this five-day reset. If you want to, great. If not, that’s cool, too.

Also: this is not an ad and the company who produced the reset (which is $100 off for the month of January, btw) did not ask nor pay me to write this! I simply wanted to do it, and figured I’d share the results here.

With that, I’ve rounded up all the deets (including how much weight I lost and how I eased back into normalcy), below.