Category Archives: Detox

Eating Out

There’s something great about eating out: ordering from a menu, having a cocktail, choosing a dessert. And the whole thing about having someone else cook your meal, bring it to you, then whisk away the dishes, leaving you to linger over your wine, or a coffee? Yeah. I’m all about it.

So tonight G suggested we eat out.

I didn’t teach today, her game was postponed until Sunday, and we both are going to be spending a lot of time in Crazy Town in April, so this might be our last chance for a nice dinner out for at least a month.

But where to go? That was the question.

The local brewpub where we usually go? Or to the place where we used to go, before the brewpub opened.

It was a hard call because the local brewpub serves locally sourced meat, but I was in the mood for a martini and a nice dessert, and I couldn’t get either of those things there.

So we went to the place where we used to go. I am about to go back on the Clean program starting Sunday, but even if I wasn’t, I’m still concerned about where my food comes from and how it’s prepared. That’s why it’s often hard for me to eat out.

I am never really happy with any place we go. I want a place that will make me a delicious meal with locally sourced meat and produce. I want a place where I am confident that the chef is conscientious about getting fresh ingredients, and preparing them with care and attention. I don’t need to have as much info as these guys from Portlandia did, but I need some reassurance that things in the kitchen are cool.

So tonight we went to the Nest and I had a martini and the crabcakes, and we got the chocolate peanut butter mousse pie to take home.

It was lovely. But I wish we had a restaurant like this one around here. If we did, I would be eating out a lot more, methinks.

Cleanse: Day 7

I actually heard myself say today, “I don’t really strive to live my life; all I really want to do is create content– interesting content.”

Today I cooked. All day.  Homemade chicken soup and a tofu stirfry. Living “clean” is labor intensive.

I also sorted recyclables, walked the dog, did some laundry, washed dishes, and taught my class.

(So far, zip on the “interesting content” meter.)

I am on Day 7 of my cleanse.  It’s getting easier.  I’m taking supplements this time, lots of supplements, and I’m drinking this shake in the afternoon called “Nourish.”  I’m still hungry a lot, but it’s okay. The shake is good.  I put blueberries in it. It makes my whole mouth blue. Blue like when you’d eat a blue popsicle. (or a Smurf.)

(The interesting content needle has still not budged.)

A few months ago I bought a fancy scale that gives me not only my body weight, but also my body fat percentage and my hydration percentage.

It also tells me what percentage of of my body is muscle, and how much my bones weigh. (I don’t know about you, but I find this scintillating.)

As some of you may know,  I am not a water drinker by nature, preferring extra bold coffees from Africa in the morning, nothing in the afternoon, and a perfectly chilled glass of California red in the evening. But during this cleanse I have been sipping hot water by the gallon in order to “flush toxins” and today I am proud to announce that my water number climbed to 58% from a previous low of 51%.

(now, we’re talking!)

Oh, and there’s also been dry brushing! (Can’t forget the dry brushing.) Did you know that your skin eliminates a couple of pounds of material, including perspiration, daily? Brushing your skin with a dry brush before you shower removes large quantities of that waste material that would have to be carried by your blood for removal through the bowel or kidneys. So, I’ve been dry brushing up a storm!

(now it’s starting to getting good.)

And because I have Vata tendencies, I have also been slathering myself in sesame oil after the dry brushing in order to warm and soothe and ground myself as the weather turns windier and colder and my nervous system to starts to throw sparks.

(ooh, sparks!)

Showering follows, wherein all the oil (0r most of it) gets rinsed off, leaving me feeling clean and soft.

(the end.)

Tomorrow I go to Ithaca to write, and not a moment too soon methinks.  I really need a little more content added to my life of kale, bok choy, tofu, dry brushing, oil and crazy herbs.

 

Clean: Day 2

I forgot how hard this cleanse is.

Right now I’m sitting here, wanting something to CHEW!  But it will pass. I’ll go to bed, and in the morning wake up feeling light, and start all over again. Happy that I made it through Day 2.

But tomorrow is Friday, and I like my glass of Pinot on Friday.  This is when Clean gets sad. Happy Hour Yoga followed by no Happy Hour.

*sigh*

The first two weeks are the hardest on this thing.  It has to get sad before it gets glad.  It’s sorta the rule.  All my edges are sharp now; sharp and pointy and jagged.  I’m a little on the grouchy side.  I’ll be nice again.  In 2 weeks.  That’s how long it takes for me to detox.

And the thing is, I shouldn’t really be complaining because I have my one oh-so-wicked cup of coffee in the morning, and the last time I did this I didn’t even have that.  (That’s how pure as the fallen snow I was the first time.)  This time I am being totally bad.  (Though only with the coffee.)  In everything else I am  pure and good.

When it comes to Clean, that is.

Fire Hose vs. Lawn Sprinkler

I have decided to do another cleanse.  Same thing as last January (if you’re interested I wrote about it ad nauseam in the January 2010 archives.)

Now that I’m an old hand at this, it doesn’t have the same charge and excitement of last year.  I know the ropes. I know I can do it. I know what’s involved and what’s going to suck, and I’m ready.  The big difference is that this year I bought the “kit” with all the supplements, so that will be the “new experiment” this year.  I have a queasy stomach, so I hope I’ll be able to handle them.  But we’ll see, won’t we?

This week is the ED (the Elimination Diet) part of the program.  This is where I get rid of all the fun things that have snuck back into my diet.  Things like wine and beer and ice cream and bread and pasta and eggs and cheese and coffee.

Bye, Fun food that makes life worth living but which nevertheless depletes and dampens me!  Byyyyeeeee!!

I am not doing this  because my diet is so horrible–it’s not.  It’s pretty stellar when compared to the typical American diet these days.

**I just learned that there is now a Krispy Kreme hamburger sandwich.  Yeah, a Krispy Kreme donut functions as the bun around the hamburger.  ew.**

No, my incentive is to get back to feeling like a fire hose again instead of a lawn sprinkler.

Last year when the 3 weeks were done I felt like I could leap tall buildings with a single bound.  Seriously.  My vibe was so AMPED, I could hardly contain myself.

In yogic terms (it always has to come back to that, doesn’t it?) it’s called prana, aka: life force, personal vitality, va-va-va-voom!  And mine was at Fire Hose intensity.

Lately though?  Lawn sprinkler.  You know those ones that arc back and forth lazily over a 6 foot piece of lawn?  The ones you have to go out and physically move every few hours?

Yeah. That’s me now.  I’m kind of a drip.  And I want to get my force back, my prana pressure UP!  And the quickest most efficient way to do that, I know, is by tweaking my food.

So I have cleaned out the fridge and have started to reintroduce the 2 liquid meals and one solid meal concept back into my life.

I will not be having any wheat or dairy or sugar or alcohol for the next month  but I am allowing myself a single cup of coffee in the morning.  Last year I learned that I “sparkle” just a teensy bit brighter with a little caffeine. So my ritual “one cup a day” will stay.

I’m ready to be a force of nature again.  I really am.

 

The End Of The Cleanse

It’s officially over.  The Cleanse, that is.  And I made it all the way through.  21 whole days.  Here’s how it ended.

On Saturday night, after a liquid (Serious Green Juice) breakfast, and a liquid (Cream of Cauliflower soup) lunch, G and I decided to eat a (chewy) dinner out, and maybe have (gasp!) a glass of WINE! to celebrate.

Because this eating regimen was a pretty big deal for both of us.  No caffeine, which I completely did without for 3 whole weeks.  No sugar.  No wheat, not a single piece of bread, not even a cracker.  No dairy, not even soy milk, because guess what?  No soy!

No eggs. No bananas. No tomatoes. No pasta.

No alcohol.  This wasn’t a huge deal during the week, but on Friday night it was really sad.  Weekend evenings felt flat.  I hated them. But I sipped my tea, and made the best of it.

But in the end, it was all so very worth it.

We went to the Wren’s Nest.  I had a cream of crab soup, a dinner salad, the stuffed flounder.  No wine. No dessert.

And you know what?  It wasn’t all that great.  It wasn’t all nom, nom, nom this is yummy!  And I went home with a little bellyache from the cream in the soup, I think.  (Good discovery, though.  Dairy doesn’t agree with me.)

So the take-away from all this?

I’m not done. Not by a long shot.

I woke up on Sunday and had my juice, my Caffix, my lemon water. I am going on with it, with some variety from time to time, but I have decided that this is the way I will eat from now on because I feel flipping AMAZING! My energy is strong.  My insides feel light. My skin is pink and clear.  My eyes bright.  I would totally recommend this Clean program to anyone.  I think it’s a great way to raise one’s consciousness about food.  All your addictions show up.  All your cravings rear their ugly heads, then are vanquished by the food you are allowed to eat.

So here’s the plan from here on out:

Juice breakfast, big lunch, light dinner.  Wine on the weekend. No caffeine. Dessert rarely, only as a treat.

And hopefully, no more posts about this or FOOD!

(Thanks for bearing with me.)

Cleanse: Day 17

So, it’s day 17 of my cleanse.

Here is a list of what is going to stay:

“Serious” green juice for breakfast.  It may not be the “only” thing I eat for breakfast the way it is now, but it’s going to be a major player.

The big mid-day meal. This is so working for me.  Love this.  I usually  get home from the studio between 7:30 and 8 PM and then eat dinner.  Bed time is around 10.  See the problem?  No time to digest.  So just a very light snack for dinner so there can be a “fast” before “break-fast.”

Coffee as a treat.  I roll so much more serenely through life without that coffee buzz (though today I was incredibly tired and I really wanted a boost.)  Yerba Mate is allowed on the Elimination Diet, and that is naturally caffeinated, so I will try that when I need a lift.

Severely limit sugar. I already know what sugar does to my system, and it’s not good.  This won’t be hard.

Limit dairy.  I already do, and although I’ll miss cheese, this won’t be much of a hardship either.

Sprouted grain bread. I am not gluten intolerant, but bread just feels like a gastro burden that I don’t need.

What’s coming back:

Wine! But only on Friday night.  Oh wine, I have missed you. Friday nights have been soooo depressing.  Not only is there no good food to eat, there is no glass of Pinot to signal that I am entering a new time zone: the Weekend Zone.

More variety of food.  I really miss bananas (especially in smoothies) and tomatoes and eggs.  I miss strawberries and peanut butter and fake meat. I miss oatmeal.  It will be great to have my vegetarian chili again, and an omelette on Sunday morning.

What has been good is that I am feeling light inside, and I have a lot of energy.  According to the scale at the gym I have lost 5 lbs in the past 2 and half weeks.  And while that is good, I don’t put a lot of stock in the scale. Scales are all different,  so I depend on the tape measure, and how my clothes fit to tell me how I’m doing. Much to my dismay, there hasn’t been any big changes there–yet!  I am hoping by continuing with the Elimination Diet after the Cleanse, to become more lean.

All it takes is patience and persistence over time, and thankfully, I am good at that.

Cleanse: Day 8

I have finally turned the corner on this cleanse. So happy.

The weekend was hard, only because certain celebratory rituals involve food and drink.  One of the big revelations of this cleanse for me (so far), is how food is not just food.  It’s social. It’s symbolic. It’s comfort beyond physical hunger.  It functions as  amusement.

I feel as if inside my body there is this sun, this big, bursting ball of energy, and that certain things, including food, can either block that energy, or free it up.

So here’s what I’m thinking now.  I will probably not bring back caffeine.  (I cannot believe I just wrote that.)  A coffee might become a “treat” from now on, but not the beverage that ignites my day.  I’m  feeling  more focused and centered and relaxed without it. Caffeine, for me,  masks as a energy freer-upper, but it’s actually an energy blocker.  It produces a lot of static in my brain and in my body, and I prefer to have a clear signal.

The other thing I love, is having my main meal in the middle of the day, and then having only a smoothie or a bowl of (clear) soup for dinner.  I really like how it feels to go to bed with my gastro-intestinal tract quiet, done, finished, closed for business. My sleep these past few nights has been so soft and so very deep.  I don’t feel hungry at all at bedtime.  I just feel empty, and it feels good, and spacious.

So far I am not seeing anything dramatic in the mirror, which is weird, given how dramatically different I am feeling on the inside.  That’s okay though, I’m sure mirror changes will show eventually.

During the first week I did hardly any sweating.  I took walks, I did soft yoga, I did only one day of the yoga workout.  This week though, I am anxious to ramp up physically: run on the t-mill, do ashtanga, lift weights.  I also want to go take some saunas.  Tomorrow I am having a massage, and I am really, really looking forward to that.

So that’s it so far.  Week 2 begins today.

Cleanse: Day 6

The Cleanse is taking a toll on me today. I don’t know if it’s also the weather and its gloominess that’s contributing to my extreme ennui, but I was definitely running at very low RPMs today.

I resorted to my SAD light this morning and left it on for the entirety of my writing time, and it really did help.

(I have this one. FYI.)

But as the day wore on, and it was becoming clear that this was not going to be an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind kinda day, I started to doubt my ability to complete all 21 days of this cleanse program.

And this was disturbing.  Disheartening, even.  I was so loving this eating plan up until today, and now I was  cranky.  I missed my cup of Sumatra in the morning.  I wanted more than a smoothie for dinner.  I wanted something warm and toothsome. (Spaghetti?) It’s Friday night and I wanted my glass of Pinot Noir, dammit.  These are my rituals. These are sacred. They are written in my personal Torah.  Extra-Bold coffee in the morning. Wine on Friday night.  We cannot live in this higgeldy-piggeldy way, there have to be RULES, right??!!

(meep)

For almost the first time ever, I did not know how I was going extricate myself from this funk.  I did not know how to de-frag myself before my yoga class.   I knew I couldn’t very well go in and say, “Okay folks, the smoothies are really not cutting it for me today, and I miss my coffee in the morning, so it’s gonna be all savasana tonight.  Grab your blankets and eye bags and I’ll crank up the Syncronicity OMs and best of luck to you. See you on the flip side. Namaste.”

(Though, some of my students out there reading this might be thinking: Shit yeah!  I would pay good money for a 90-minute nap on a Friday afternoon after the hell week I’ve had!  Bring it, Yogamama!)

And if that’s the case I really need to know this, so I can make it into a 6-week session for February, so call me, k?)

But, I got to the studio and all my right people walked in: Jim and Bob and Mirium, and Linda, and Wolf!  my new person, and another new person, Brenna! who is a yoga teacher herself, and Fred and Lenore and Diane. And seeing them raised my spirits and my mood even better than the SAD light, so I let all my gunk go, and we rocked out: suns and variations and flow and backbends and forward bends and kapalabhati and warriors and, whew!

Yoga, for those of you who don’t know, is the best medicine.  It will cure what ails ya.  It’s going to get me through 21 days of this damn cleanse, that’s for sure.

Yoga, and my right people, that is.

Cleanse: Day 3

Still feeling all sattvic and sweet.  But smoothies are a cold thing to eat at night in this weather, which is why most people do these detoxes in the spring. But I need to do it when I’m motivated to do it, when I can be quiet and turn inward, when I can rest and reflect and take a nap if I need to. And that time is now, in deepest January.

In the spring, my life gets wackadoo and extremely rajasic with a training with Yoganand in March, the Yoga Challenge in April, and the birds and the trees and the flowers calling me in all directions in May.

So I am relishing these winter days when I can spend my mornings working on my “Project,” meditating with Holosync, and practicing my yoga, and then in the afternoon, prepping for, and teaching my classes.

In addition, this body cleanse has inspired me to clean up my living space, get a jump on my taxes, straighten out my files, pare down my wardrobe and thoroughly clean my kitchen.  For Xmas I got a book called Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin R. Doland (Srsly? One week??? Is she kidding??) but even if it takes longer than a week, it will be glorious to have everything in perfect order by spring.

That’s the plan, in any case. Stay tuned.