Detox

Lately I've been feeling constantly tired and lethargic, my headaches are acting up, and my digestion has been off for a number of months now.  I hit a point last week where I realized I needed to clean my body up and try to adjust my life style to fix these constant ailments I have.  I always complain that my "body hates me", but after reading part of Alejandro Junger, M.D.'s book "Clean" about the body's ability to restore itself through detoxification, a lot of his comments about how our body works to energize us really struck home (good book - I highly recommend it).  The book is a bit preachy, but the overall ideas of it are truly fantastic and I have therefore decided to use them as the guidelines for an elimination and detoxification diet over the next 3 weeks to try to "realign" my body. 

I've done an elimination diet before when I was trying to determine what foods may have been causing my migraines (turned out to be egg yolks) and the results of that diet were immensely useful.  That diet lasted for 2 months and included a hodge podge of foods that I was "sensitive" to, thereby making it a huge imposition on my daily life.  The new diet I am embarking on is only 3 weeks long and the point of it is to reset my body, so I'm hoping it will fit in easily with my lifestyle.  Making it even easier, J has decided to embark on this dietary journey with me, which will reduce the presence of other food temptations in the house.

The list of "NO" foods is numerous, including dairy, red meat, shellfish, nightshades (includes potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers), sugar, alcohol, caffeine, oranges, strawberries, grapes, bananas, wheat, corn, barley, rye, oats, soybean products, peanuts, pistachios, and chocolate.  While this sounds intimidating, I've tried to concentrate more on the list of "YES" foods, which actually still provide a large list of options: fish, poultry, brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, almond milk (which I have been drinking for some time anyway), fresh fruits and vegetables excluding those in the "NO" list, legumes, nuts and seeds, cold pressed oils (like canola and olive), green and herbal teas, agave nectar (as a sugar substitute), and spices and herbs.

J and I have a fairly healthy diet already, so the main things that will affect us are the lack of red meat, tomatoes, and whole grains.  However, we're excited about the chance to extend our culinary abilities and try new things.  For example, tonight I am making spaghetti squash with turkey meatballs and pesto and we have plans to try a recipe for lemon thyme chicken this week as well.  Yum!  The diet also focuses a lot on fresh juices, and as J and I love our juicer this isn't at all a hardship for us.

After the first week on the elimination diet, I switch over to the Clean part of the detox which centers 2 meals around a liquid diet.  The fresh juices will play a big role once again as well as smoothies and soups.  The Clean book offers a bunch of liquid meal recipes and Gwyneth Paltrow covered this diet on her Goop blog a couple of years ago and she offers some great recipes there as well.  Variety is the key!

Well, here's hoping that my body starts to feel better and stops "hating me" soon.  I'll keep everyone updated!

(pictures from here and here)