A healthy diet to live by
Cleanse and Detox for the New Year
by Rebecca Horwitz
It’s January, a time that many people look for areas to improve in their
lives. Maybe you make New Year’s Resolutions, or maybe you know better by now.
In any case, personal health is a big one for folks to reflect on, whether they
need to lose weight, gain energy, tone and strengthen, or improve their
immunity. Typical approaches to improving one’s health involve starting the
latest trendy diet or joining a gym. But there is another approach to getting
healthy that focuses on lifestyle changes to cleanse the whole body of
accumulated toxins, thereby allowing the various systems of the body to
function more smoothly. This leads to long-term transformations in health,
instead of the short-term results often seen following typical dieting and
exercise programs.
Hillary Thing of Accord Acupuncture is an expert on the benefits of the
cleansing lifestyle. I recently started an online program that she leads called
Radical Radiance, an eight-week step-by-step course in which she provides
instruction and support to those wishing to learn these methods for health
transformation.
“Cleansing is a foundational part of becoming healthier, whether it
means weight loss or better immunity. Everyone needs to do this,” said Hillary.
One of the first and simplest practices she advises clients is to start
drinking water with lemon, every day. This not only rehydrates the body, but
works as a gentle liver detox. Another important practice, one that requires
buying a juicer, is to start drinking freshly made vegetable juices. This
provides many health benefits and is very easy on the digestive system, which
is helpful if one’s digestive system is sluggish. Not sure you want to commit
to buying a juicer? First try ordering fresh veggie juices at The Last Bite in
High Falls. Personally, I thought veggie juices would be unpalatable but I was
pleasantly surprised to find that they have a nice kick to them and the lemon I
added made them nice and tart. The flavors change according to what you use,
obviously. The best thing about fresh juicing is that I noticed an enlivening
effect; I literally felt rejuvenated after drinking them.
Participants in the Radical Radiance program receive Hillary’s weekly
resource guide, which explains a new practice, and offers recipes for juicing,
smoothies, raw food dishes, desserts, and snacks. One week was all about the
importance of including “ecstatic movement” (Hillary’s term for exercise) into
the daily routine. Most of the practices have to do with eliminating toxins
from the body. We learned the various ways that elimination can happen,
including one that makes most folks cringe—enemas. “Nothing aids detoxification
like an enema,” says Hillary. In this program we learned that enemas are key to
improving colon health and can be safely and easily done at home.
Hillary does warn against jumping in too fast with the cleansing
lifestyle—as with anything else, such an approach can end up backfiring. “You
have to ask yourself, what’s going to work for you long-term? It should be one
step at a time. It’s a transition process.”
So, how should you get started if this approach to renewed health and
vitality appeals to you? There is much to read online, but a good way to go is
to start with a class or workshop. Hillary recently co-taught a series with
nutritionist Holly Shelowitz called In the Raw, about cleansing by eating raw
food. Raw food contains many vital nutrients that can be lost after cooking.
Hillary says that this class will be offered again in the near future, so stay
tuned and check her website (accordacupuncture.com).
If you feel ready to make a longer commitment, sign up for Hillary’s
online class Radical Radiance, which is designed to be doable for people with
busy lives. In this class, as I’ve tried to show, everything is broken down
into small, manageable pieces. Many techniques are introduced for transitioning
the body and mind into greater health, and support is available if a student needs
it.
The structure of the class revolves around a 21-day detox and juice
fast, in which solid and cooked foods are gradually removed, culminating in a
3-day juice fast. This cycle is repeated twice. I won’t tell you it’s easy, but
the experience of temporarily removing all the mainstays of my diet was
illuminating. In fact, there’s
much to learn from undertaking a cleansing routine. Why not look into that this
year instead of a diet?
Posted by Chris Hewitt
on 1:42 PM.
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