Time for a Spring Cleaning - For your body and mind
Happy almost Easter everyone. For me Easter, while not only important for religious reasons, also signifies the end of winter and the beginning of spring. And what does spring bring, you ask? Spring cleaning of course. This year I am going to do some spring cleaning all right, to my body.
For the past few years my wife and I have been playing around with juice fasts/cleanses every 6 months or so. You know, a day here, two days. Nothing real structured and with no real plan other than to drink juice (usually lemon water with cayenne) for as long as we can. Three days is my record with most lasting only 24 - 36 hours. The last time I "juiced" a friend of mine turned me on to a site that changed the way I looked at these fasts/cleanses and upped my level understanding and in turn, my commitment to do a real spring cleaning of my body this year. (website will be at the bottom of this post)
There's really not much to these fasts/cleanses. Make some fresh juice each morning and drink it throughout the day. Don't ingest any solid food, caffeine, or alcohol. Also, drink a lot of water and either cut back your exercise to a moderate level or increase your exercise to a moderate level. (this depends on if you fall into the exercise fanatic or couch tater category) Pick your target number of days, usually between 3 and 15 days, and begin your fast/cleanse. It is easier on your body, and your mind, if you cut back on animal protein, caffeine, and alcohol a day or two before you start.
There are three main reasons I've found for doing a program such as this -- religious, cleanse/detox, and weight loss. I really don't have any religious purpose for doing this and I would certainly not recommend this for weight loss. I believe that if you want to loose weight, eat fewer calories than you expend and that any sort of extreme diet is, at best, a short term fix that will ultimately fail. (more on this in some future post) For me, I'm doing this simply to spring clean my body and get it back running on all cylinders. I know from past experience that the first couple of days are really, really, really hard. The good news is that, other than feeling really hungry, your body does feel very good.
Instead of going into all of the theories, benefits and other info about "juicing", I'm going to point you to a website that does a much better job than I could ever do. Please, watch this movie because it has some great information and also..... the dude is really funny. My program starts Monday 4/1/2013 and I'm shooting for 15 days. I'll post some recipes tomorrow and detail my plan in a little more detail.
Here's the site to check out:
For the past few years my wife and I have been playing around with juice fasts/cleanses every 6 months or so. You know, a day here, two days. Nothing real structured and with no real plan other than to drink juice (usually lemon water with cayenne) for as long as we can. Three days is my record with most lasting only 24 - 36 hours. The last time I "juiced" a friend of mine turned me on to a site that changed the way I looked at these fasts/cleanses and upped my level understanding and in turn, my commitment to do a real spring cleaning of my body this year. (website will be at the bottom of this post)
There's really not much to these fasts/cleanses. Make some fresh juice each morning and drink it throughout the day. Don't ingest any solid food, caffeine, or alcohol. Also, drink a lot of water and either cut back your exercise to a moderate level or increase your exercise to a moderate level. (this depends on if you fall into the exercise fanatic or couch tater category) Pick your target number of days, usually between 3 and 15 days, and begin your fast/cleanse. It is easier on your body, and your mind, if you cut back on animal protein, caffeine, and alcohol a day or two before you start.
There are three main reasons I've found for doing a program such as this -- religious, cleanse/detox, and weight loss. I really don't have any religious purpose for doing this and I would certainly not recommend this for weight loss. I believe that if you want to loose weight, eat fewer calories than you expend and that any sort of extreme diet is, at best, a short term fix that will ultimately fail. (more on this in some future post) For me, I'm doing this simply to spring clean my body and get it back running on all cylinders. I know from past experience that the first couple of days are really, really, really hard. The good news is that, other than feeling really hungry, your body does feel very good.
Instead of going into all of the theories, benefits and other info about "juicing", I'm going to point you to a website that does a much better job than I could ever do. Please, watch this movie because it has some great information and also..... the dude is really funny. My program starts Monday 4/1/2013 and I'm shooting for 15 days. I'll post some recipes tomorrow and detail my plan in a little more detail.
Here's the site to check out:
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