Annual Spring Cleanse 2012
Happy New Year! Again! March 21 marks the first day of Spring and also the first day of “Norouz,” Persian New Year. My Persian friends tell me that in Iranian tradition, the house is cleaned top to bottom, new clothes are bought, and it is a time of fresh and wonderful beginnings.
I feel like spring-time is a time for cleaning inside and out.
I invite you to join me on a ten day long spring cleanse, starting March 15th to tidy up our insides as much as our homes. Stay tuned for my updates and feel free to post yours as well.
There are 5 main components to this cleanse: 1) Green drinks, 2) fiber and intestinal cleansing, 3) Lots of vegetables – 50% of your food, 4) Yoga or qi gong moves every morning, and 5) the Forgiveness meditation. While doing this cleanse, I would recommend that you stop dairy, sugar, gluten containing foods, and alcohol. If you have caffeine, I would suggest tea rather than coffee, with no milk or sugar in it.
1) Green Drink Recipe: Make a green drink every morning, using a blender, vitamixer, or other superblender. Take a small apple, 1/2 banana, some blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries and add 3-4 leaves of chard, spinach (a handfull in this case) or kale, and dandelion leaves, a piece of ginger (depending on your taste), a tablespoon of chia seeds or ground flax seeds, a tablespoon of sunflower seeds or 3 walnuts, and 1/2 a lemon. Pour water over the top, and some ice if you like, blend until everything is liquefied. Pour into mason jar. Drink a glass for breakfast and then sip it all day. Another option for a green drink is using Organic Raw Protein Powder from Garden of life, greens powder from Garden of life, water, blueberries, a handful of spinach or chard, and a date.
2) Options for fiber and intestinal cleansing: The easiest is to buy Yerba Prima all fiber capsules, beginning on the first day of the cleanse. Take 2 capsules twice a day, then increase to 3 the next day. 4 the day after that. On the 5th day of the cleanse, begin taking bentonite clay – 1 tablespoon twice a day, with lots of water. You will only do this for 3 days. Drink plenty of water with all this fiber. If you want to use liver cleansing herbs, Amazon herbs makes a product I like, Fiberzon, which has herbs for cleansing in it. You can just use 2 doses of that per day instead of the fiber and bentonite clay. The point of this cleanse is to make it easy for you to do, which will make it more likely that you’ll do it.
3) Diet: 50% vegetables, meaning that all day, everything you eat, half of it should be vegetables. You can steam, bake, boil, stir fry, whatever works for you. You can eat any protein you like, meat, fish, chicken, beans, whatever feels good. Toasted walnuts are another good source of protein/fat that you could have with your breakfast. You can also eat grains. Fruits are okay but I would only have them in the green drink for this diet.
The Dieting Don’t List: Don’t eat any white foods at all – ie bread, sugar, milk, dairy, cheese, even bananas aren’t great. Do not skip meals. Have at least 3 meals a day. You can have the green drink for a snack or you can have some veggies and protein for a snack.
4) Yoga or qi gong moves in the AM: Practice moving your body in a gentle way. You can take a class or find a dvd that has some poses. Or, if you know some yoga, practice what you know and make it your routine. You should do some form of slower movement for 20 minutes a day. If you decide to do some cardio, try to go outside and take walks. Be more reflective in your exercising this week. If you know the sun salutation, you can do it 12 times a day for the week.
5) The Forgiveness meditation: The liver is the organ that is most active in spring time. It has to do with the emotions of anger and frustration. The best way to heal anger is to find that place of forgiveness inside of ourselves. In the 5 elements system, the liver leads to the heart, which represents the emotion of joy. To find joy, you need to find forgiveness. For our cleanse, since we are focusing on the liver, I would like to have everyone do 5 minutes a day of forgiveness meditation.
Propel your mind, body, and spirit forward with this great experiment. Even if you can’t do every component, or last for a full week….
Soooo . I love the cleanse. I am on my moon cycle (menstrual cycle, Barry) and obsulivoy am exhausted and feel like a wounded animal and emotions I have no idea what to do with, but the posts are making me laugh- A LOT. I miss the coffee and feel the effects still, but its OK. I love how satisified I am by everything I eat and that I am truly full. What I have realized during this whole process is that Iam not even really hungry for food. WE ALL HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH AND NONE OF US ARE GOING TO STARVE. Something else has triggered. I realize the devistaing attachment to food that we as a family, my friends and a country are so victimized by. The glory of it, the advertising of it, the social networking, the amazing food combinations of rare and expensive ingredients are all right at our finger tips- and the convenience of it all is just killing us as a society. We become instant victims by the convenience of it- how it effects our mood, our schedule, our money, digestion, on and on The emotional and health side effects and how unnaware we are of something we are so attached to. Oh man I love fine dining experiences and having everything prepared for me and tasting things I would never think of creating at home but and am realizing that this experience is just as much a luxury that most will never partake in either, so even if doesn’t taste amazing, with awareness- IT DOES. I am humbled that I have this amazing food to be aware of and how it effects my being. We have too much and its so interesting to see how difficult it is for us to simplify. I just happy to be realizing my emotional connection and disfunction to food and how it effects my body. I am just trying to observe without judgement or expectation, but with accountability. Only I am responsible for what I put in this mouth and nourish this body with. The cleanse just makes me want to be responsible for my own self, health, pain, emotional attitude, etc. As of right now Iam content with keeping it simple and don’t need a 100 flavor variations in the week but love knowing I have options, always have and always will- that is pretty satisfying in itself and I am still looking foward to a piece of nice chocolate, a glass of wine and or a cup of jo! So proud of us all- we are so blessed.