When and Why I Cleanse

There is so much hype about cleanses out there.  And I completely understand why - I was absolutely fascinated with them for several years -- and I did a bunch of them.  

When you get into the cleansing world, you hear a lot of stories of miraculous change.  I have a friend who went to a cleansing clinic in Georgia and says it saved her life.  I have another friend who cleansed down in San Diego and attributes it to his recovery from stage 4 liver cancer.  Then there is, of course, the infamous Joe Cross who juice fasted and made the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” and keeps his auto-immune disease at bay without medication.

That being said I have done many-a-cleanse, including:

The Master Cleanse

General Juice Fasts

Green Smoothie Girl’s cleanse

The Arise and Shine cleanse

A Liver/Colon Cleanse

Which was my favorite?  The liver cleanse, which includes raw apple juice, olive oil and lemon juice and is often accompanied by coffee enemas (yes, I know, TMI, this cleanse is not for the faint of heart).  

Why is it my favorite? Because I can both SEE and FEEL the results.

When the liver cleanse is done right, I have literally expelled 100’s if not 1000’s of what is called liver stones or gall stones. Our liver works really hard to separate the toxins from the good stuff and when it doesn’t quite know what to do with something, it can calcify and just sit there in our liver.  These stones can be as small as chia seed to as large as a dime or a nickel.  Freaky, right?  (Honestly, if you're curious Google these, they're fascinatingly gross, I won't post a picture here, because I want people to actually come back and read more). 

I actually want to retry the Arise and Shine Cleanse because I don't think I did it long enough at the time to really see results, which supposedly is getting rid of mucoid plaque.  (Um, Google this as well if you dare, it's pretty gnarly stuff.)

Also, I have literally felt the euphoria people experience of cleansing - almost a high, that you can feel as a literal vibration in your cells.  It’s pretty unreal, even though you haven’t eaten you feel an incredible energy that is unlike no other.

Personally, if I am going to not eat food, I’d like a cleanse to actually clean me!

When I did the master cleanse I felt like I literally just starved myself and then my digestion was messed up for months afterwards.  The Green Smoothie Girl cleanse was effective but expensive and a massive time suck if you’re going to do it ‘right’. Juice fasting is great as you’re getting a ton of micronutrients as well as giving your digestion a rest but I will often pair a liver cleanse with a quick green juice fast at the end of it instead of just juice fasting alone.

So, in general, here’s what I’ve learned.

1. You lose weight fast, so you also put it back on fast.  So don’t do a cleanse if you’re just trying to lose weight.

2. You can really mess up your digestion if you’re not careful.  You must re-introduce foods slowly to readjust your stomach to digesting raw fiber and meat.

3. You usually get really sick at first.  Joe Cross experienced this in his documentary where he literally was bed ridden for about 3 days with flu-like symptoms.  The first time I did my liver cleanse I was nauseous and threw up several times a day. (I can now do this cleanse and go to work, maintain a normal schedule, etc).

4. It’s plain hard. Even though I have gotten to the point where you feel AMAZING, it takes a lot to get there.  In fact, I usually try to cleanse 3-4 times a year, including in January which is common right after the holidays.  But, there are times - like this past January when if I’m truly listening to my body, it resists.  

5. Cleanse with a friend (oooh, that sorta rhymes).  Anything that’s hard is just plain easier when you have support.

6. It’s best not to exercise.  Exercise is a form of stress on the body, and every once in a while it’s necessary and beneficial to give it a break.

That being said, I just finished a program where I was eating a TON of protein, as in protein powders as well as a ton of meat-- and my body just needed a break.  So, instead of doing a hard core juice fast or something, I just stayed off of meat, dairy and anything processed for about 2 weeks.  

You could say I feel amazing.  

And for the record, I will probably do Liver Cleanse here in the next month or so.  Stay tuned.

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Fat Burning Mode

There's an interesting concept out there that I've been trying out due to Unicity's Transformation program that I've been doing called 4-4-12.

You only eat 3 times per day.  

Now, as someone who for the past decade has eaten 4-6 small meals and snacks in a day this has been a particular challenge.

For example:

9 am: breakfast

1 pm: lunch

5 or 6 pm: dinner 

No snacks.

The idea is, your body is burning the food you ate for about the first 2 hours and then transitions into 'fat burning mode' for the next 2+ hours before your next meal.

This concept is similar to, although not quite as extreme as the ever popular intermittent fasting concept that has hit the health scene.

Transitioning to this new regimen has been a bit of a challenge because my body is like a clock.  I get hungry about every 2-3 hours.

Which is exactly the point-- according to Abel James, in his book The Wild Diet and on his blog, Fat Burning Man, we have literally trained our bodies to be hungry every 2-3 hours by eating so often.  Which I have found to be true in my own case.  

I'm not convinced this practice is for everyone.  Especially since I have really struggled with it - not just being hungry, but actually experiencing dizziness or a shakiness due to not eating.  So I did some reading and found that while intermittent fasting is extremely popular and effective for men, it might not be the best for women.  Stefani Ruper on her blog www.paleoforwomen.com says that 'women's metabolisms suffer from Intermittent Fasting'. You can read up on her study here.  

Often in a time crunch, I will do a cardio HIIT - where I run at a normal pace for about a minute and then sprint as fast as I can for a minute for 12 minutes. Killer! 

While 4-4-12 is not technically IF - I've found that when I eat every 4 hours, I often eat dinner around 5 pm and then do not have breakfast until 9 or 10 am the next morning - which,  can be up to 17 hours of without food.  Interestingly, I don't struggle much with not eating after dinner - it's not snacking before dinner.  Some days are definitely easier than others due to exercise and my cycle, etc.  Again, my approach after stressing about it, is to not stress about it . . . If I'm feeling shaky one day due to not eating, I will definitely eat.

More Tips to put your body in Fat Burning Mode:

1. Exercise before you eat

2. Weight lift 

3. Do a cardio HIIT (high intensity interval training)

Let me know what you think of Intermittent Fasting or the concept of 4-4-12 and if you've ever tried it. 

Happy Sunday everyone!

4 Reasons to Track Your Progress

For the first time in my life I am measuring my food, my workouts and tracking my progress.

I have always beens active or worked out. But, I've always done what I feel like when I feel like doing it and have never bothered to measure anything other than step on a scale every now and again.

I wear my Garmin pretty much every day and my heart rate monitor whenever I work out. I also measure my stats once a week.

What have I learned?

1. Progress is motivating!!  

2.5 months ago I could barely get out 10 pushups, I recently hit the 100 pushup mark (no, not all in a row). I recommend shooting for a measurable goal that can be tracked easily so that you're motivated to keep improving.

2. The scale is deceiving.

Pick a day once a week to measure and record your stats.  Seeing a half inch to an inch decrease is actually much more satisfying than seeing the scale drop (and a relief when the scale goes up!). Meeting with my coach once a week and reporting numbers to her forced me to measure my waist, butt, thigh and neck - not just step on a scale.   Both my waist and my thighs tightened and lost inches due to my resistance training. I don't know that I would've noticed that half inch to an inch difference around my thighs if I hadn't actually measured.

3. Accuracy.

If you're going to measure your fat mass percentage, get it done at the most accurate place you can.  At the beginning of my Transformation, I did two different fat percentage tests.  One was a calculation just based off of numbers versus a $20 BodPod test, (more on that here), which is one of the most accurate ways you can test your body fat.  Let's just say there was 6-7% discrepancy between the two tests.  Luckily, the BodPod which is more accurate was the lower of the two!!

4. You probably eat more than you think (and exercise less).

I'm also using my fitness pal -- don't get me wrong, I hate counting calories and I don't live or die by it - especially, because I believe the value of your calories counts way more than just the pure calorie count itself.  But, counting calories does have its place and my fitness pal is super simple, convenient and syncs to my Garmin (which tracks my steps as well as my heart rate).

My Post Independence Day Post!

Nothing screams freedom more than a summer road trip!  Driving for hours on end, blasting music, watching the road whizz by, switching drivers, watching the scenery change, watching the weirdos at rest stops, talking forever, not talking forever.  Just driving.

And then . . . reaching your destination . . . especially when your destination looks like this:

Hike up to Barney Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The beauty in this shot is my brother's one and only child, or um, dog, Evee.

and this:

Need I say more?  The scenery was unreal.  We backpacked for one night and two days and just existed.  No computers.  Cell phones out of range.  Fresh air . . . good for the mind, body and soul.

Like I said, ultimate freedom.

Yes, that's me with the yellow pirate bandana. Arrgh...

4 Do's of Fit Travel

Helping this little guy read English . . . while I don't speak a lick of Spanish . . . 

Boston and I had the privilege to join the non-profit Family-to-Family on an expedition to Queretaro, Mexico where we filmed and photographed children who live in a government subsidized boarding house during the week called an Albergue.  

1. Be prepared and take snacks!  

It's never fun to be stuck on an airplane or a bus in the middle of a foreign country and have no food to curb your hunger (or just no food).  It also helps when you're hungry and your options are french fries or icecream.  We were house sitting the week before we left for Mexico, so I was unable to get my travel snack shopping in -- we actually had so much to do the night before we almost pulled an all-nighter (definitely a don't).  And to top it off, my soaked, raw almonds grew mold halfway through the week, so that back fired . . .

2. Be Flexible. 

I'm following a low carb diet for the most part, but when your only options for lunch are literally rice and beans in a boarding house for Mexican children - eat the rice and beans!  I was so active on this trip - usually up at 5 or 6 am, running around in either intense desert heat and then crashing pretty late at night, so having some extra carbs in my diet was probably a good thing.

Ohhh yeah . . . eating some local cactus soup!!

3. Enjoy Local Dishes!

We were in very rural parts of Mexico - almost everyone had their own chickens that were free range (like, seriously sometimes walking right through their little houses) - and their egg yolks were deliciously dark orange -- a sign of a more nutrient dense egg. For the first time ever, I enjoyed Mexican dishes that weren't your typical taco - such as cactus and lentil soup or fried plantains (oh my, yum).  You know how in the US you order a side of fruit instead of hash browns or something and you just get hard, unripe cantaloupe or something?  Not so with the avocado, papaya, mango, mamey fruit and sweet cactus chili thingies that were super tine.  All the fruit is rich in both color and flavor and often right off the tree in the back yard.  Seriously, we have some catching up to do.

4. Trust in your Training.

If you've been working your butt off (literally), taking a week off/shaking it up a bit is not going to ruin everything you've worked for.  I'm definitely a bit of a perfectionist and had a little freak out when I ate a BUNCH of corn tortillas - but, supposedly I was eating 'the best tacos in Mexico', I mean, so what was I going to do - eat them without tortilla's?  Um no.  Life must be lived.