The Detox Journal: about the detox

     This is the introduction to a 7 day blog series I'm doing. Last week I did a 7 day detox. What kind of detox did I do exactly? You can say it was a combination of several, what makes sense to me and what doesn't. 

     Over the last 10 years, I've tried a lot of different ways to detox the body. I'm a firm believer that every once in a while, you gotta "clean the pipes", so to speak. I did the Mastercleanse in the past and believed that it went on for far too long. How can anyone just drink spicy lemonade for 30 days, let alone 7?! Nothing even comes out of you after the first few days! I've also done juice cleanses, which are great, but they literally stop the system from operating. My former student who worked for a popular NYC juicery explained that it was "giving your system a rest". By system Im talking about my bowels. Did I mention I'm going to talk a lot about my bowels and poop in this blog series? Just warning you.

     As an esthetician, I have suggested cleanses dozens of times to my clients with skin conditions. With skin being your largest organ, you are what you eat. So many people break out or have inflammatory conditions from foods like sugar, gluten, dairy, soy, alcohol, and meat. Yes, meat. Screw the popular Whole30 diet. Yeah, I said it! If you're doing a cleanse that offers you a "breadless BLT" recipe, there is something wrong with that cleanse. Pork can stay stuck in your colon for months! Nobody should be able to eat bacon on a cleanse. Nobody. 

     I myself stopped eating most meat 4 years ago, and I did it for a number of reasons. Ethical, environmental, but mostly because my body hates me when I do. This is the thing about me, I have a very weak digestive system. If I ate a hamburger my gas literally smells like a dead body. I still eat seafood once in a while because it doesn't effect me and there's that comfort factor for me (I'm from New England, I grew up with it). Long story short, there are other people like me out there who can't digest meat. There are also people with Anemia that have to eat it. I am not here to preach or judge anyone. What it comes down to is, we're all different in the way our bodies function. 

     Bringing it back to the matter at hand, my cleanse is an elimination diet of sorts, gradually eliminating certain foods reaching a peak of fasting, then introducing the foods back in. Here's how it's set up:

Day 1 +2: vegan + gluten-free (no alcohol or caffeine)

Day 3 +4: Auyurvedic Mastercleanse

Day 5 + 6: Smoothies + pureed soups (nuts + veggies only)

Day 7:  whole foods

So please join me for the next 7 days as I talk about food, recipes, and did I mention poop? I hope you enjoy it.