Do any of you feel overwhelmed and like things spin out of control in the holiday season? I really try to keep Christmas simple and not plan many extras. But somehow the extras tend to plan themselves. Two trips out of town (which were wonderful!!) plus Christmas decorating added into my regularly busy schedule have derailed me for the past few weeks. So my blog has fallen by the wayside. Despite that, friends keep telling me they're sharing my blog with others and my numbers soared to their highest ever on Dec 4. I have no idea why! But thank you!!
So...I have actually written several awesome blogs in my head. Doesn't do you guys much good when it gets trapped in space and never makes it through my fingers and into Internet ink. My apologies! This morning I was reading the January/February 2011 issue of Experiencing Life magazine and came across this little side-column article that was titled simply: "How to eat simply and well". I thought that would be a great article to share while I pull my thoughts and photos together for my next post. I hope these tips will help you through the overwhelming season of parties, cookies, chocolate, hot coco and a million other temptations that are nearly impossible to resist.
So now that I've tempted you with those luscious words, do I dare confess that my great plans and intentions regarding food have gotten tossed out along with the laundry and dishes, vacuuming and... (I'm afraid to even think what else has been derailed the past few weeks.) I haven't totally gone back to my unhealthy eating but enough to feel really guilty and rather yuck around the tummy. Then my littlest got sick with strep a week ago. Before I knew it was strep I was slightly freaked by his swollen lymph nodes, which looked like someone had cut a golf ball in 1/2 and jammed it under his skin on both sides of his neck. All I could think was Lymphoma and that THIS was why we were eating healthy. Talk about a kick-in-the-pants! Optimal Health! Optimal Health! Optimal Health! If I were ever to get a tattoo, I would probably get those two words branded into the backs of my hands. Whatever it takes to keep me on the straight-and-narrow!
So...Here are the 10 Tips/Reminders to help you through the Holiday Temptation Season and carry you into the New Year, compliments of Experience Life.
- Embrace a wide variety of whole foods. All of them are good for you in balance and moderation.
- Aim to maximize your intake of brightly colored, high-fiber veggies.
- Don't eliminate whole foods rich in healthy fats, complex carbs and phytonutrients.
- Do moderate your intake of foods high in sugars (added or otherwise) and minimize your intake of processed flours, sugars, starches and fried foods.
- Replace some of the grains and starchy foods in your diet with leafy plants and legumes.
- When you do eat grains, substitute whole, intact grains for refined grains and flours.
- When possible, opt for locally and organically grown whole foods.
- Drink plenty of water, less of most other beverages.
- Emphasize quality over quantity, and invest the majority of your food budget in nutritious choices.
- Learn to cook well enough that you can prepare healthy, satisfying dishes you enjoy.
Please forgive the crassness of my title - but really, could I have said anything more true? I was going to title this "Detox = NO FUN" which is true too, but really...it just plain sucks so why not get the truth, the whole true and nothin' but the truth right out there in the open?
What is detox? In my simplistic understanding of things, detox is getting the toxins (i.e. poisons) we've ingested into our bodies, out of our bodies. We most commonly think of detox as being related to drugs. We've probably seen it on TV shows with someone isolated in a white hospital room sweating and vomiting for 24 hrs, in total misery, trying to purge their bodies of the drugs. That would be an extreme example. What most people don't realize is that we ingest toxins and poisons everyday into our bodies simply by eating processed foods. Our kidneys and liver do an incredible job of trying to clean up the mess we make, but they can only clean up so much. Toxins get stored inside our cells, our organs...really, inside the entirety of our bodies. Unless we do something to get rid of it, it just keeps building. I believe (again, don't quote me) these stored toxins have a lot to do with the increase of cancer and other debilitating diseases (like diabetes) that are running rampant in our nation today.
When I first attended a class on eating raw foods, Living Raw by Grace's Haley Turney explained about detoxing and that no one should ever go raw overnight because the detox would be so intense you might not be able to endure it...and it would last up to 2 weeks. I listened to her say that several different times but it basically went in one ear and out the other. I'd been eating partially raw for a few months when my husband took a 2 week trip to Korea. The day he left I got this brainchild AH~HA moment, thinking it was the perfect time to go 100% raw while he was gone...i.e. no one around to influence my eating in a negative way. So I did. 3 days into eating raw and I literally thought I was going to die. I was depressed, angry, snappy, impatient with the kids, horrible stomach pain, achy, lying in bed and wondering if I was going insane or dying or both. Oh - and we won't even mention the toilet. We don't need that much truth!
That's when I suddenly remembered Haley saying "I don't recommend anyone going raw overnight." UGH! NOW I remember? So immediately I contacted her on-line and told her what was going on. She thought it was a rather extreme detox but said yes, that's probably what it was and as sugar was an addictive drug, I might want to add some back into my diet and go off it a little slower next time. Lovely. At least I knew the reason behind the horribleness, though. I looked on-line and found this site called Natural Therapy and this is what it said (and I think I had all but 2):
Common Detox Symptoms
Detox can create a number of symptoms in your body as your body goes through the process of purifying itself and eliminating toxins. Some common detox symptoms include:
- headaches
- lethargy
- temporary muscle aches
- mucus or other discharge
- a coated, pasty tongue
- flu-like symptoms
- irritability
- difficulty sleeping
- weakness
- cravings
- nausea
- constipation
- diarrhea
- gas
You may even find that the detoxing process causes you to suffer the old symptoms that you have had that the body has suppressed. You may think that you are becoming ill but it is important that you continue with the detox and don’t take any medications to help with the symptoms. The aim to flush chemicals from the body, not introduce more!
Since that initial horrible introduction into detoxing, I've gone through it a dozen more times at least, but none to the same degree. It's funny that, still, I don't attribute how I'm feeling to detox. Just last week I started a new therapy called FSM (or Frequency Specific Microcurrent) to help with my inflammation on a cellular level. It basically cleans out your cells, getting rid of the toxins that have attached themselves to the cells and allows for healing to happen. Later the day I started FSM I thought I had the flu. I felt so horrible I laid my head on the kitchen table and cried. My little boy said, "Where's my mommy? What happened to you??" I felt terrible for making him feel sad. I told my sister that I didn't think the therapy was working because now I was sick with the flu. And she said "You're Detoxing Dummy!" (minus the "dummy" part but it WAS implied! lol).
So, I write all this for anyone who is starting to eat clean, go Raw or do a Cleanse. You WILL experience detox and you might not know what's going on or may easily become discouraged. Hopefully this will help you not be discouraged. Know that this too will pass and you'll be a lot healthier for it!
