For the Health of it

After a recommendation from a trustworthy source, I finally made an appointment with an eastern medicine Physician (Acupuncture, Herbalist, etc).  When our western medical professionals come up short, I fully believe it's a good thing to have both sides of the coin working on your behalf.  So about ten days ago I met with this doctor for a consult, and guess what?  Yeah, supposedly I am lacking minerals in my diet and she thinks my liver could use a good "cleaning".  Great. I know most naturalists believe in cleansing the liver in the spring, so I wasn't that surprised when she recommended it for me.  What I was surprised at was the process.  Pills?  No.  Expensive pills?  No.  A recommended food list?  Restricted diet?  Nope, a juice cleanse.  And no, not along side a strict diet, just the juice.  More specifically, vegetable juice.  Three days, no food, just vegetable juice.  What do I do with this? I have no place in my head for even three hours without solid food let alone three days.  My consult quickly turned from thoughts of a massage and organic food plates into being drafted for the next round of Survivor. 

So, I've put it off until this weekend, when I went to my trusty computer and searched.  If you start a search for recipes for a liver cleanse, you will get some very informative websites and interesting YouTube videos of a health quack who believes he knows when the juice is right simply by the smell.  Lovely. Can you sense my excitement?  I guess I should also point out some of the vegetables you use for the above mentioned cleanse:

• Kale
• Beets
• Carrots
• Parsley
• Cucumbers
• Lemons

Why can I not get the visual of Steve Jobs on his carrot binge out of my head? And did I mention it was for three days?  Anyway, I did manage to remember that Booster Juice has a nice concoction of a beet, carrot and apple juice that I quite like, and with some further searching, turns out apples and pears are also OK to add to your concoction.  In fact, you can even have a full meal with apples.  Didn't know that would be possible, but....okey dokey.... 

I also remember reading an article in Goop about 18 months ago highlighting a mild cleanse.  Yup, here it is, a great, and much more suitable to those who enjoy food, cleanse to get you going: 

http://goop.com/newsletter/15/

I actually quite enjoy the Kale juice from this cleanse as well as the teriyaki chicken recipe.  The Smoothies highlighted are also very similar to the ones I make at home:

Smoothie

1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk
2 Tbsp. VEGA protein powder
1 cup berries (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or cantaloupe)
ice

Combine all ingredients into a blender, add a splenda if you'd like it a bit sweeter or if your berries are not at the peak of their season.

For those looking for some "cleansing" tips, here are a few things to consider:

•  Start your day off with a glass of lemon water - lemons are great for detox
•  Eat lots of vegetables as snacks, get away from your carbs and yummy sweet snacks
•  Juice!  Try a concoction of 1 - 2 beets, 4 - 6 carrots, 1 apple and a 1/2 lemon.  Adjust to taste!

Well, today was the day I had a pow wow with a heap of vegetables and my juicer in the kitchen and began the process.  After an hour of prepping, juicing, storing, cleaning and repeating, I have enough juice for a day!  No better day to start than tomorrow, so Tuesday it is.  I figure if it goes OK, I will juice more for Wednesday and then repeat for Thursday.  In actuality, my doctor recommended two to three days - might as well shoot for the stars, right?

So, if you are feeling a bit sluggish this spring or just lack energy, you might want to consider adding these to your routine, or better still, join me in my three day hiatus from glorious food for a juice cleanse!  I'm hoping it will a be good thing :-)