A Bodily Cleansing :) part 2

After getting a bunch of feedback on Facebook (thank you everyone who posted) and doing a little bit of research online I was able to go to the grocery store and get some good organic veggies: spinach, carrots, onion, red pepper. I also bought some flax seed, organic prune juice and organic raw honey. And then some normal stuff for my guys :) Ben said he doesn't feel the need to participate in this cleansing even though I told him it would be good especially since he's eaten a lot of pizza and Cokes lately ;) As usual, I'm not very convincing, and I'm totally okay with that. I'm his wife, not his mother.

I went on my morning walk as usual. I was motivated to go extra far since they said exercise helps the cleanse. I brought along my water bottle and drank all of it as I looped our neighborhood, already feeling better about myself. We got home and I did some more research online. I went to my MIL's house and borrowed her juicer. I'm fortunate to have this resource available. Juicers can be expensive!

As I was feeding Levi his lunch I was pretty hungry so I decided that I would just try to stay as close to cleansing as possible :). Some of you cleansers are going to freak out when I say this, but I decided to make a green smoothie. I filled my blender with spinach, added about 1/4 cup of yogurt, a whole banana and some water. It was really good. Not as good as the times when I put milk and some honey in it, but it was good. I'm trying to do as little sugar as possible. Later when I was hungry I ate an apple. While I was researching I found a few different diets/cleansers/smoothies that I could use. I read about one extreme diet called the Master Cleanse. It has you drinking 6-12 glasses of lemon, maple syrup, salt, cayenne pepper, and water a day. At night you drink a laxative tea (so you will wake up and go in the middle of the night I guess?!?!) and then in the morning you take a salt water flush. Oh my goodness, I know me and there is no way I could keep that up for more than a few hours. I would rather do something moderate that I could keep up for a week or two than something that is so extreme.

Now, part of me, the old Jody would want to do the extreme thing. I was an extreme dieter. I was a failure at extreme dieting. So I'm thinking I need something more sustainable.

My goal in this is to just clean myself out, get things moving that haven't moved in a while. I've never struggled with constipation before, but I wonder if the prenatals I'm taking and the iron in them stops things up. Also, I haven't exercised as much this winter and my eating hasn't been as healthy as it should be.

The things I'm doing:
- drinking 10-12 glasses of water a day, sometimes with lemon in it. (I think I need to get a filter for our water :( I feel like I'm defeating my purpose in a way, but AR has awesome water, I just wonder if it has toxins I don't need). Also, with the water I'm starting to put a teaspoon of organic apple cider vinegar and raw honey. I'm still playing with a mixture that I won't choke on. I heated up a bit of the water with the honey and apple cider vinegar to mix it, then poured it over ice. I had to add more water to it, so we will see.
- Juicing 2-3 times a day. Tonight I had carrot juice, just plain, raw carrots and it was SO GOOD. I didn't know carrots were so sweet. My friend says I need to try celery and cucumbers and ginger to help calm the stomach.
- Drinking organic prune juice to help move things along
- If I get hungry I eat an apple or a salad, or fix myself a smoothie
- Taking a long walk every day
- Not taking naps

For dinner I had a salad with a little bit of olive oil and herbs on it. The weird part is that it's three hours later and I'm not that hungry. I am not very tired either, what a strange phenomenon.

I will post more tomorrow. We'll see if I still feel the same way.

A Bodily Cleansing :) part 1

Okay, well, I wasn't sure if I should include this in my "Redemption" series or what. As I said in those posts I am an avid anti-dieter. :) I cannot go on a strict diet because then it is more about my body and the food and controlling the food than it is about my heart. If I feel like I need to cut back on sugar I just try to keep that in mind when I am wanting dessert or something like that. I don't draw hard and fast lines that say DO NOT EAT SUGAR ... otherwise, I will want to eat it. It's a man made rule and it stinks. Whereas it's more like just keeping everything in moderation, foregoing things as much as the Holy Spirit empowers me to, taking it to God so that He can fulfill me better than any brownie or bowl of ice cream.

Okay, I posted about my sleep issues in an earlier post. Also, I've been getting a lot of headaches lately. Usually I just take some Advil and move on. Another thing I've been struggling with constipation. One at a time these are not huge deals in my life, but all together they are starting to wear on me. My insides just don't feel right. I just sort of feel like there is stuff that just needs to be flushed out.

I've been thinking about it for a while and I think I'm going to try a cleansing thing. (I don't use the word diet because that would be heresy :)). I think I'm going to go with this article and references more than anything. I don't want to take any pills, I just want to do juices, broth, flaxseed and lots of water.

Leaving out gorey details I will probably post about it in my next post. So, I'll let you know how it went.