Detox me baby!

Photo courtesy of Toa55 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I am always a bit conflicted in my views on detox. I always thought I was totally against them, because I all I knew about them was starvation combined with pills, and it made no sense. Although on my health journey I’ve learned a few things that has made me see more value in de-stressing and relaxing the digestive system to allow for healing and recovery. Most of my views were informed by my time at the Gawler Foundation Life and Living Cancer Retreat which I attended for 10 days around 5 years ago. I also embraced a new appreciation of the concept of juicing, but then learned about the power of juicing for cancer sufferers – particularly vegie juicing rather than fruit. I am still of the mind that a fruit juice is really only a treat (and what a treat it is, a Boost Juice is like gold to my 20 month old) given the fructose content and lack of fibre.

Confusion Reigns

There are so many different products out there branded as “detoxes”. 12 million Google results in a search, to be exact. Most of the commercially marketed ones (ie. Lemon detox springs to mind because of those awful radio ads) seem to be targeted at weight loss, which reads starvation to me! One thing I really don’t want out of a detox is to feel like I’m starving all the time. I’m just not good at it! I’m all for weight loss mind you, it’s just that I need a deeper reason to keep me motivated…and so keep coming back to health.

Detox 101

At its most simplest definition, a detox is a diet that you follow with the purpose of removing toxins from the body – a toxin being any accumulated harmful substance that you don’t want in your body, ie. pesticides, additives, chemicals, etc. There’s different ways to approach a detox, the most common are dieting, fasting, eating only certain foods, cutting out a series of foods, colon cleansing and taking supplements.

I have been inspired towards detox for January by Sarah B at My New Roots, check out her talking simple detoxes here.

I remember a story Ian Gawler told us at the retreat – he was once on a cancer drug that changed the colour of his urine. A few years later he did one of his more extreme detoxes (exclusively eating only grapes or only brown rice for 2 weeks minimum) and his urine changed to that colour – he believed it was his body finally ejecting what of the drug remained in his system. As someone who has been on lots of drugs for cancer and auto immune conditions, I kind of get the desire to try and rid the bod of stuff that might be hanging around. And it does hang around. I stopped a drug a year ago, and my blood tests only returned to normal a year later, so the effect of the drug was still happening.

Colourful food! Yum!

Month 1: Detox

So…as I’ve said, I’ve decided to attempt a 28 day detox/cleanse for my first month’s challenge. 28 days…that’s a seriously long time!! I have a wedding and a birthday celebration smack bang in the middle of this…this is not going to be easy. But I can’t fall at the first challenge hurdle, so I march on.

I’m going to follow the Whole Living 28 Day Cleanse, which Sarah B has written Week 1 for. I’m not starting till Monday, so I think I’m a week, maybe 2, behind everyone else – but the recipes and tips are all up on website, which is so generous and fab.

Anyone want to join me?