Let's Talk Detox

My little smoothie helper, ready to blend!

2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (NIV)

I DID IT!! 

I survived 3 days of green tea, fruits and vegetables blended together, and no solid foods!

Here are the main things I learned doing this detox:

• Fresh Mango is REALLY good
• Green Tea on an empty stomach makes me nauseous
• I really miss having a bathtub
• Flexible straws are the key to drinking gross smoothies
• I now know where to find items such as Flax seed, Coconut oil and water, and almond butter 
• I have more will power than I thought I did!

The reason I did this detox was to start over. I have a major sugar problem and after the holidays I just couldn't give it up completely. There was always a family function or birthday party where there was cake or sweets. Not to mention, we are potty-training my 3-year-old so we constantly have M&M's and Rolo's for when she pees and poops...and M&M's are my weakness. I swear they were taunting me from the bowl for the last three days. So I found this detox and decided to give it a shot. It's only 3 days, right? 

Three. long. days.

Day one was not too bad. The breakfast smoothie is pretty good once you get used to the taste of the Flax seed. It reminds me of wheat germ, which I ate as a kid, so that wasn't too bad. I went grocery shopping that morning so my mind was occupied half of the day. When I got home, I made the lunch smoothie...and that's where I began to doubt that I could go through with it. I'm not going to lie...that one is pretty tough to swallow...literally. But I forced my way through it. Then came dinner, and that one wasn't too bad either. I figured it HAD to be better than lunch! So I took a drink and...it burned my throat! 

What?? Why is this burning my throat? Is there something wrong with me? Have all the fruit juices caused acid reflux that has burned through my esophagus?? Maybe I shouldn't drink this...this was a bad idea...Then my husband says "Didn't you put Cayenne Pepper in it?" What? Oh...yeah...     

Day two wasn't as easy as the first day. The hunger really set in. Breakfast went down quickly because my taste buds knew it was the best tasting thing they would get all day. So by 10:30 I was HUNGRY. 

Drink water, drink more water, drink MORE WATER. 

I have never craved an apple and peanut butter as bad as when I made Jillian's lunch that day. They looked SO GOOD. When I made my lunch smoothie that day, I tweaked it a little. I put in slightly more of the things I liked and slightly less of the things that I didn't. It made it a little more tolerable. The real issue with the lunch shake is the consistency...I'd describe it as glop-ish. (Is that a word?) Since it took me about 2 hours to drink down all of the shake (it makes two full glasses) I didn't get too hungry until dinner. You want to learn about will power? Make your family dinner for three days while you are doing a detox. I threw frozen chicken pot pies in the oven because we had Awana that night (I know, those are so far from Clean...but it's a process)...normally they aren't anything special...but that night, they might as well have been Filet Mignon. But I sucked it up and drank my spicy shake. 

Day three was a lot like day two. Many temptations and thoughts of quitting, but I told myself it would be ridiculous to go through two days of this just to quit on the last day. So I toughed it out and drank my shakes and my water. 

And as I said before...I SURVIVED!

At the end of each day, you are supposed to take a HOT bath with lavendar oil and epsom salt. Well, I live in a 100 year old house that only has a 3/4 bathroom. So I took a really hot shower with no fan on, rubbed the salt and lavendar on my skin, and then stepped aside from the water and cranked up the heat, essentially making my own sauna. I stayed in the shower for a total of 15 minutes. 

The point of the bath is to get you sweating out the toxins so I figured as long as that happened in the shower it would get the same results. The shower was the thing I looked forward to every day. It was very relaxing. And when you get out of the shower, I read that you can put coconut oil on your skin like lotion. At first that was really strange, but man did I smell good!

So what did I gain from this detox? I have to be honest, I don't have any major revelations for you. But what I feel like I gained was faith in myself and my willpower, 3 whole days of putting nothing in my body but whole, healthy foods, and I did lose about 3.5 lbs. It helped me break off from processed sugar and it got me exercising daily again. I've been running a couple times a week, but I needed to get back to strength training and I was able to do that this week. 

Most of all, it helped me rely on my will to succeed and I had to find that will in God. Every time I felt like I was about to give up, I prayed that God would give me strength. Like the bible verse above says, God gave us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And we need to embrace that power and live the best life we can for Him.

Now I'm ready to go! I went running with a friend this morning, had a protein shake for breakfast, might whip up some eggs for a snack, and I haven't touched those evil M&M's (even though they are still taunting me). I'm very much looking forward to making a new clean recipe for dinner tonight...and being able to eat it, too!      
  
Turns out, an effort in cleansing my body also became a chance to cleanse my spirit. God works it wonderful ways!