Spring cleaning

I went to a great detox class the other night with Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well. She talked about ways to use nutrition to support your liver and why spring is the best and most natural time to do detox. I hadn't realized that a "cleanse" is the most intense thing you can do -- and shouldn't unless you're in great health and have support to live very low key while you undertake it. A "flush" is the next level of cleansing -- maybe a special liver-cleansing drink the morning and eat nothing for a 4 hrs. Again, this could result in headaches and other yucky symptoms if you're particularly toxic or too run-down for your body to handle the dumping well.

So really, what I did last spring was not a cleanse but a gentle "detox." I thought detox was a more intense term, but apparently it's the mildest of the three processes.

This spring I was hoping to step it up, now that my son has weaned. But I began from a chubby, chocolate-addicted, mildly-caffeine-addicted and sugar-happy place.

On March 31, I ate a ton of cake a friend gave me -- really gorged on it knowing the next day was April and I was going off sugar. So I made myself really feel plenty sugared up and ready to kiss it goodbye when I flipped the calendar.

Since then, I've had only minimal fruit, no refined sugar and only a little honey. I'm keeping the carbs to a minimum -- trying to do only real-food carbs, as in veggies and rice cooked in stock. I'm cutting back on meat, giving up the nut butter again but not soaked & roasted nuts and (store-bought) sprouts; I hope to start sprouting nuts and seeds myself.

I'm eating lots of salad with added dandelion greens. I'm starting the morning with lemon & turmeric in hot water and am turning to my parsley-lemon-celery juice for snacks during the day. I did have half a Lara bar today between breakfast and lunch, and I ate a salad at Corner Bakery tonight, including some dressing and currants. So I'm not a purist. But I have made changes that have resulted in having already lost 2 lbs. I'm generally feeling pretty good. I ran 9.5 miles on Saturday. I did snack more that night on coconut milk and sprouted sunflower seeds with a few raisins. But that's not bad.

Oh, and chocolate? After eating most of half a bag of chips in conjunction with decorating my son's bday cake a few weeks ago, I'm now off. The sole source for the past week has been unsweetened, raw, organic cacao nibs from Wilderness Family Naturals with a spoon of their centrifuged coconut oil and maybe some almonds or apricot kernals.

One goal is indeed to lose a little pudge but mostly I want to get my liver and the rest of my body happy and healthy (my dry skin is back a little on my knees) and generally break some unhealthy habits so that I can eventually get back to a place of more moderation and a happy relationship with my body.