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.