Cleansing and the Whole Body Transformation

The book that inspired the cleanse

Amie Valpone and I at the 1440 Multiversity demonstration kitchen

Two years ago I went on a 21-day cleanse inspired by Amie Valpone's book, 

Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation, and Reset Your Body.

I wrote a blog post about it called Consider a Cleanse.

The cleanse eliminates:

Caffeine (even decaf coffee)
Alcohol
Added sugar
Gluten
Soy
Dairy
Citrus (except lemons)
Night Shade Vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant)
Preservatives
Pre-packaged foods

Eggs

Meat

I made it almost to Day 21 this time and overall it was easier the second time than the first because I was already eating pretty clean.  

The main thing I struggled with this time was withdrawal from caffeine.  I thought I was only drinking 1-2 cups of coffee/day before the cleanse, but I must have been drinking more because I went through awful withdrawal symptoms. My advice to anyone trying to stop caffeine is to taper instead of going cold turkey.  Taper with fewer cups per day, then to black tea, then green tea, then to herbal caffeine-free tea. You and anyone living with you will be grateful you tapered instead of going cold turkey.

While on the cleanse this year, I noticed the author of the book, Amie Valpone, was giving a workshop at 1440 Multiversity. (I love that venue near Santa Cruz, CA.) I decided to attend, thinking I'd learn a whole lot more about food and cleansing, and get to meet my favorite cookbook author. Double Yay!!

My friend Tracy and I at 1440 Multiversity

The workshop, called Whole Body Transformation, went deeper than just talking about food and cleansing. Amie will be writing a book in the future on this topic and the workshop was a sneak peek at her upcoming book.  

In the workshop, Amie led us through an exercise of how our past trapped emotions are still affecting our health today.  When I go back and review this, these are the recurring feelings that came up for me: fear, shame, anger, embarrassment, insecurity, hurt, anxiety, regret, worry.  Most often these emotions were felt in my gut and sometimes my upper back.

Amie taught us a rewiring technique to use when we get triggered in our daily lives.  It involves listening to deep theta music and going through a sensory exercise that helps to eliminate the feelings that arise from the trigger.  I'm confident her next book will explain this in-depth.

One of the main takeaways from the workshop was - you can fix your food issues by eating and drinking differently, but you may still feel stuck or sick, and your body may still feel unwell.  If that's the case, it's time to go deeper into your past and start doing the work to ease the traumas that have built up in your life and have been held in your body in various forms causing pain and unease. It's time to rewire those neural pathways that have been causing you so much pain.

I've been doing this type of work pretty regularly since my divorce.  The work is different for everyone, but for me, these are the tools that continue to help me:

yoga

meditation

reiki

sound healing 

self-help books

self-help workshops

self-help podcasts

music

watercolor painting

collage 

photography

journaling

blogging

therapy

talking to friends and family

eating and drinking well

regular exercise

allowing only healthy relationships

gardening

being in nature

traveling

being spontaneous

meeting new friends

revisiting inspirational quotes

Here are some current favorites:

It didn't happen TO you, it happened FOR you.

Hurt people hurt people.

What is the story you are telling yourself?

Beliefs are not true.

Get out of your own way.

You can't control others, but you can control your reaction to others.

When faced with something ask yourself, Is this a Tonic or a Toxin?

If you want ease, align yourself with ease.

Consider a Cleanse

I'm 8 days into a 21 day cleanse.  This cleanse is a variation that comes from the book: Eating Clean: the 21 Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation and Reset your Body by Valpone.  You can also check out the Netflix documentary called What's With Wheat? on a similar topic.

Through the years I've seen friends and family members try different cleanses and I always thought they seemed too difficult or too weird to try.  Or, I just wasn't interested (read: I was threatened). But then recently all the signs were telling me to try one.

What the heck?  I gave birth to my second son WITHOUT ANY MEDS so I can do just about anything, really.

The cleanse I'm doing for 21 days is basically this.

Avoid:
Caffeine (even decaf coffee)
Alcohol
Added sugar
Gluten
Soy
Dairy
Citrus (except lemons)
Night Shade Vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant)
Preservatives
Pre-packaged foods

Include:
1 tblsp of organic apple cider vinegar diluted in 8 oz water with honey/day
Fresh, organic fruits and vegetables
Eggs (I added this)
All nuts (except peanuts)
Seeds
Organic chicken, turkey, fish and beef once/week
Brown rice & Quinoa
Beans
Lots of water
Herbal tea
Mineral water
Organic maple syrup, honey

Then, after 21 days I can gradually add in the foods I miss and see how my body reacts. Based on that, I decide if I want to add them in again, and to what degree.

After 8 days I've noticed some changes.  At day 3 all the inflammation left my body, especially my face, fingers and even toes.  At day 3 I started sleeping better.  I have more energy after I eat a healthy meal and don't feel sluggish.  Sometimes I feel too amped, like I'm seeing crisper around the edges of things.  (No, I'm not also on acid.)  Sometimes I feel just odd, and wait for it to pass.  Some days my eyes have dark circles under them, but I'm thinking this will go away.

When I tell people I'm on a cleanse they laugh and say it sounds boring and some even get defensive and say they don't want to do one.  I never asked them to do it with me, but they still feel like I'm challenging them or something.  I'm not.  Really.  It's just something I wanted to try and now I'm trying it.

What does this have to do with yoga?  Well, many of the yoga passages I've been reading lately have forced me to rethink some of my daily and nightly habits.

This yoga thing isn't just about what happens on the mat.  In fact, it's really about what happens off the mat,  and we are forced to ask ourselves - can we carry our yoga with us as we go out into the world, or onto the couch with our nightly habit of red wine, dark chocolate and Netflix?  Our yogic teachings may be telling us to consider a cleanse every now and then and just see what happens. Notice, without judgment.  That's what I'm trying to do, and so far, so good.