21 Day Cleanse

Dan and I have started a 21 day cleanse called Clean. There's a book associated with it, and now a cook book if you're interested in checking it out. Also there's an associated website (https://www.cleanprogram.com/the-program). Although, there are a lot of ads for the clean program with smoothie packets and all that stuff... We're just doing it from scratch.

Basically, we don't eat any inflammatory foods or things that are common allergies. No dairy, gluten, nightshades, corn, peanuts, etc. No processed foods or sugars. The cool thing about this cleanse, is that there is a 12 hour fast every night. So from supper at 6 pm to breakfast at 6 am, you can only drink water and herbal teas. It is also a liquid breakfast, and liquid supper with your main meal being at lunch time. With a lot of the literature I've read on fasting recently, I thought this would be an interesting way to clean our bodies.

In China, a couple of times we did a meditation retreat with some fasting involved. We were allowed to eat small amounts of fresh fruit, and supplemented our food with cool herbal medicine balls made with honey and a lot of things that were out of my abilities to translate. They tasted terrible and had an interesting effect on the body, and I distinctly recall thinking how difficult it was to focus when my stomach was grumbling the whole time. But overall, a positive experience.

I generally eat pretty healthy, and so does Dan. But I can't see the harm in changing our eating habits this way for a few weeks and then slowly adding foods back in to our diet. It is an interesting experiment anyways, and it also feels a little like spring cleaning.

Houston+Cold

So, I got to spend 8 lovely days visiting my sister. I have to say, there is nothing better than the holidays I spend with her and my brother-in-law. We are great at holidaying together. We have some ideas of things we'd like to do, but no stress if any of the things don't happen or if plans change. We went to New Orleans for a couple of days, and spent most of our time just wandering around randomly and looking at things. The second day I probably walked a good 16 km.

Unfortunately, I've been fighting a cold for weeks. It's weird. Usually when I start to feel sick, I do everything I can think of to combat it. Eucalyptus oil, steaming, oregano oil, chicken broth, lots of green tea and water, lemon and honey, and dosing up on vitamins and lots of fruits and veggies. This time, I did all that stuff, and it didn't really work. I got a cold, got a little better, flew to Houston, got significantly worse, lost my voice for a couple of days, got better, flew home, got worse again. Now I'm stuck with some congestion and a really annoying cough.

I know part of my issue is I let myself get too stressed coming up on my vacation. But this thing has been making it very hard for me to recover. I'm more tired and therefore in itself, it's a struggle to beat it. Hopefully after this restful weekend, I'll kick it in the butt. I'm looking forward to being back in the groove of things this week.

Thanks

This week, I am thankful. I have had so many opportunities to teach, and to ask and answer questions. It has kept me mentally and physically engaged. I am so fortunate to have a group of people that is so open and receptive but at the same time, challenges me.

I listen to a lot of music with the theme of moving away from materialism, finding your true passions, doing your best to make a positive impact etc. Lately, when I hear these songs, I feel like I am taking the right steps, I'm on the path to becoming the person I really want to be.

I am also thankful to my cat Jax, who is being super helpful while I'm trying to write this blog... 😏