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Thursday, February 11, 2010

What does one eat and do during a three week detox?

During our seminar we gave out very detailed instructions on how to do a three week detox using only nutritious food.  Here are some questions that arised from that discussion.

Q: Uncooked dinner/lunch?
A: Yes, during the last two weeks of the detox you will have all raw meals; that means you want to get creative with fruits and veggies.  In the handout you have recipes for a morning smoothie and also for an energy soup which is a vegetable smoothie.  The solid uncooked meal can be anything from a salad (but no boring iceberg please, make it interesting for yourself) to a prepared raw meal (you can get these at Wholefoods) or you may want to experiment with some recipes for a raw meal.  Here is a video on how to make raw pasta marinara.  It is super easy and fast to prepare.





Q:  Exercise/water?
A: During the three weeks of the detox, the body will be working to push toxins out so it is normal for a person to feel a bit more tired than normal, however we highly recommend 15-30 minutes of gentle exercise (yoga, walking, Qi gong) but no strenuous excercise.  Drink 2-3 liters of water a day.

Q: Intense work schedule?
A: If your job is highly demanding and your work schedule is intense, you may consider 1) is this job really worth your health? 2) how can you make your schedule less intense so that you have time to take care of your body?  The beauty of the three week detox is that, for the last two weeks, you can blend your meals in the morning, put them in glass bottles and take them with you; there is no cooking, no preparing, no dishes to wash!!  Remeber that you can drink as many smoothies and as much soup as necessary to keep you satisfied.  No calorie counting, no carb counting, just enjoy your meals.

Q: What to do for caffeine/energy?
A:  The whole point of doing the detox is to kick the caffeine addiction.  You will feel much more energetic after you finish the detox, if you have followed the steps appropriately.  The body is not designed to get energy from caffeine or another substance, it is designed to get its energy from the food that we eat.  It is unfortunate that the foods available to us are so poor in real nutrients and so high in addictive substances.  Substitute a cup of coffee with a tall glass of energy soup!  If you really miss the taste and warmth of coffee, I sugegs you try Celestial Seasonings Roastaroma tea.  It smells like chocolate at first and if you let it brew a few minutes, it will resemble a cup of coffee.  This saved me personally from my own addiction to caffeine.

Q: Coffee substitute?
A. Roastaroma, like I mentioned.  There is also a tea called Yerba Mate.  It is less like coffee but it does have a bit of resemblance.

Q: Smoothie = how many oz.?  Ice?
A: Drink as much as it takes to satisfy you.  We don't recommend ice because it is best to keep the internal body temperature balanced, although if you are using frozen fruit in your smoothie you are getting a bit of a chill already.

Q: What is a blended meal?
A: A blended meal is a smoothie or a soup of blended vegetables.  Yes, you will need a powerful blender because carrots, beets and turnips don't blend so easy, but we managed to find a really good industrial type blender at Target for $60.00.  There are some pretty expensive machines out there, but for anyone doing the detox or just beginning to prepare raw food, we found the inexpensive blender works just fine.

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