It’s the first of January. You wake up with a fresh-from-the-Holidays extra 5 pounds around your mid-section, and resolution-strength promise to yourself to swear off sugar, alcohol, wheat, dairy and caffeine. For at least a month.
The first few days go well. You’ve survived without sugar and caffeine by filling up on green smoothies and raw nuts. Then you stumble over some delectable home-baked morsel brought into the office by a well-meaning coworker, and one slip brings a lofty dietary plan crashing down to reality.
A week later, you try, again, to control your baser food instincts, growing more dictatorial with yourself with this attempt. You even consider the Master Cleanse* (lemon, maple syrup, cayenne) you’ve heard so much about, to really flush the fat cells out and toxins along with them. STOP.
*We do not advocate doing the Master Cleanse, as it can be very dangerous. Please seek out a licensed holistic nurse practitioner (like at Londonderry Whole Health), or try gentler cleansing and fasting techniques like those offered at Each Peach Café this spring.
Though the start of a new year may feel like the appropriate time to clean the ultimate house, A.K.A. your body, January is not the season for cleansing. Just like other living things, winter is the time for your body to rest – think the slumbering maple, bear and squirrel. Cleansing in winter is destined for failure.
Eastern medicine tells us fasts and cleanses are best undertaken in the spring, “when people have the sense that they’re coming out of the dark winter and into the light. They want to shed layers, literally and figuratively,” explains Marcy Balter, a board member at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Once a raw-food diet purist, Balter extols the benefits of “warming” foods during cold winter months. Like the soup from our January 12th Winter’s Day post.
Fasting and cleansing makes your liver work overtime, which is extra taxing during colder months. The best way to give your liver and digestive tract a rest this time of year is simply to eliminate the biggest inflammation-causing offenders – coffee, beer, red meat, processed sugars, and bread – and calming foods.
Curries – cinnamon, turmeric, coriander and ginger warm the system and move clogging compounds like mucus out of the body.
Garlic – fights fungus, the yeast candida and inflammation.
Cacao Nibs – has four times the antioxidants of green tea and is the most magnesium-rich food known. Perfect addition to a smoothie for a serotonin and endorphin boost to lift winter blahs.
Lemons – increases body temperature and circulation to clear toxins. Hot water with fresh squeezed lemon is perfect first thing in the morning and before each meal.
Water – lots of it. You can’t clean anything without sufficient amounts of water. The general rule is an ounce of water for every 2 pounds of body weight. Daily. It is difficult for me to drink cold water in the winter, so I leave my water out at room temperature or heat it up and add some lemon.
Still worried this won’t be enough to get you warm-weather-ready (shorts, tank tops and eeek, bikinis)? Each Peach Café is offering a variety of challenges (free), cleanses, and fasts this spring to help educate, motivate and provide support.
In the meantime, everyone is welcome to join me and Denise at Amoskeag Chiropractic this Wednesday, January 26 (weather permitting), for a FREE seminar all about the miraculous coconut. Learn why the coconut is so effective in supporting healthy thyroid function, enzyme systems like the pancreas, and removing excess weight!
In preparation, we opened a case of coconuts last night so everyone can try fresh coconut water (same electrolytic balance as our blood), and a delicious chocolate mousse made from the coconut meat and coconut oil.
Milk-Chocolate Mousse
2 C cashews, soaked 4 hours
1 C young Thai coconut meat (or avocado)
1/4 C raw cacao powder
2-1/2 t vanilla extract
1 pinch of sea salt
1/2 C agave nectar
1-3/4 C filtered water
1-1/2 C coconut oil, melted
In a high-speed blender, blend all ingredients except the coconut oil until completely smooth. With the blender running, slowly pour in the coconut oil. Continue to blend until oil is thoroughly incorporated. Transfer the mousse to a covered bowl and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight to set. Yum!
Next post: step-by-step instructions on how to EASILY open young Thai coconuts. Yourself. At home. With photos.
Augusta
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