Detox Cleanse: a week long experience

I was visiting one of our theosophical lodge members in hospital yesterday – despite setbacks and mediocre (if not bad) treatment by the staff she was quite upbeat. She had angel cards there, and stimulated me to draw one. I drew the one about cleansing and detoxification. It said that it would be good for stress. Well, I have been stressful lately, finding it hard to relax.

So, this week, I’ll be doing my own version of detox – and reporting on my experiences here on All Considering.

Googling the topic, I find that there’s a lot of commercial stuff around detoxing. I advise you NOT to click on the advertisement around this post for instance. On the one hand detox is about getting back to nature, eating and drinking natural foods – on the other there are all kinds of products associated with it. Pills to avoid the need for an actual lifestyle change, for instance.

I’m not in this to loose weight. I’m quite happy with my weight, thank you. Juicing is nothing more than a not as unhealthy variation on a crash diet. However, crash diets don’t work long term – and I’m sure that’s true for juicing too.

I’m not in this to improve my skin – same story: my one skin complaint, redness on my cheeks and chin, is under control these days.

I’m more interested in dealing with that stress: as there doesn’t seem to be an objective reason behind it at this point, it ought to be possible to tackle it.

So, I’m going to go simple:

  • No English tea for a week (probably longer). I’ll be going back to my old preference: herbal teas. I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t have to cut back on that.
  • No chocolate for a week. I’m a bit of a chocoholic in recovery: but recently I’d been slipping into eating two candy bars a week. Well, not this week. Same thing here: I might manage to stick to this one longer, though honestly I don’t think there’s anything wrong with one bar of chocolate a week. However, no excuses: not this week.
  • A focus on fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruit juices (from the supermarket) in my fridge, fruit salads, other salads – all ready made from the supermarket. It’s a lot of work to make fruit juices yourself, and on a single person’s budget – the salads I can buy are just way better than what I could gather together.
  • Nuts and dried fruit in the salads. This is not really a change: I’ve been adding nuts to my salads for years. I’ve also been eating nuts as an after dinner snack. You know: the unsalted kind. Nice and healthy: the right kinds of oils, a variety of protein and of course fiber.
  • My breakfasts and lunches are going to be what they were: whole-wheat bread with toppings. The only change: fruit on the side.
  • Every detox program includes another don’t: no alcohol or mind altering drugs. However, I haven’t done the second ever, and it’s been decades since I last had any alcoholic beverage.
  • Vegetarian food. I’m already a vegetarian. If I wanted to go all out, I’d become a vegan for a week. However, I’m not convinced that will do me any good, so I’m sticking to my cheese and occasional egg.

The herbal tea versus English tea thing is a heritage from the time when I lived with my grandmother. She drank a LOT of English tea. She even lived in London for a year when she was young. I avoided drinking coffee with her, but she converted me back to drinking tea. It was just too hard to avoid.

However, I’m living by myself again, so there’s no reason to continue a habit she brought into my life.

That’s the diet part of the regimen. However, I’m also going to do a spiritual refocus.

I’ve done a LOT of stuff online over the past months that has nothing spiritual about it, but is merely commercial. It will help me stay on track financially, but this week I’m going to bring back my focus to my primary interest in online publishing: spirituality in all it’s manifestations.

Third in my regimen: a daily walk. In fact, I’m off right now!

4 thoughts on “Detox Cleanse: a week long experience”

  1. I’m a freelance web developer, meaning I get minimal sleep and live a very stressful lifestyle.
    I work on average 14hours per day, drink tons of coffee and red wine to keep me sane.
    I just finished a project and thought I might go a 1 week detox to get myself back on track.
    What do you think, are these on/off detox cycles good or bad?

    1. Well, the very fact that you asked the question tells me you know the answer already.

      I think the lifestyle you describe is very unhealthy. I do think it’s better to do detox every once in a while, but it would be more healthy to get into a rhythm of no more than 8 (perhaps 10) hours a day when you have a customer at most. That way you would not have to boost yourself up with coffee and red wine. Not that I think red wine is any help at all, btw.

      I mean: sure it’s healthier to get all of that out of your system every once in a while than to be on caffeine and red wine continually. Alcohol especially builds up in the liver and kidneys and giving your body a break about that is sure to be good for you. However, since you get right back into it as soon as a new job comes up, it’s probably no more than postponing your ‘sentence’ as it were.

      I know the stress of freelance work very well and am very happy to get out of that. What you’re doing is essentially adding to the stress to your body with the alcohol and caffeine and no-down time.

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