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!