Cleansing For The New Year...

Woodstock Peace Salad with Tahini Dressing 

Happy New Year - and here’s to making 2014 count! I recall being very excited, and hopeful that 2013 would be a red-letter year, it turned out to be kind of a rough one, with several ups and downs. I never make resolutions - I’ve talked about this before, but I basically believe resolutions are nonsense. - however I do enjoy goal setting. The first day of the new year is always like a clean slate, you don’t know anything yet, and anything can happen. There are a lot of things I’m looking forward to this year, I’ve got vacation plans already in the works - amongst other things, school is almost at it’s end, and I have numerous ideas for the future. Right now the world feels like my oyster, and I want to take full advantage of it, and make 2014 the amazing year that 2013 was suppose to be.

I plan to start this year off right, and my biggest goal for this year is getting back into a routine. An exercise routine, a meditation routine and a healthful eating routine that focuses on whole fruits and veggies. I normally don’t do January cleanses, I think it’s silly - everyone does it, but this year a cleanse is something I really need.  May was really the beginning of my ‘falling off point’ I fell out of my usual routines, stopped hooping, stopped yoga, started eating more processed foods. Over summer I got back on the wagon for the most part, but school took up a significant portion of my time which left little time for me to exercise. Come September and vacation - an amazing, yet gluttonous touring feast through Eastern Canada, I fell back off. For months I’ve been trying to get back on track, and I do great with it for days and then fall prey to the sugar monsters, and the chocolate demons once more. The sadness I’ve felt over my Oma’s passing in October, coupled with the stresses of school and work, the bad weather and a few other things have just left me feeling blah. Staying on track has been a struggle these past few months and so I feel a cleanse is in order. I need to kick myself in the ass, and kick-start my health you know?

So come Monday I’m going to embark on at least a 21 day cleanse. Using Kris Carr’s amazing “Crazy Sexy Diet” as kind of a jumping off point. I may extend the cleanse, for several weeks depending on how I feel, and I haven’t decided yet how exactly I’m going to structure the whole thing but I’m feeling good about it. Getting back to whole fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. Getting back to juicing, junking processed foods, sugar, chocolate, easing up on oil, and salt. I’m excited. This is the way I prefer to eat, but sometimes we get side-tracked.

Chiptole Black Eyed Peas and Steamed Kale 

Anyway, I plan to document my experience on the cleanse for you guys to follow, with pictures of what I’m eating, and descriptions of what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. The next few days leading up to Monday is going to be sort of a ‘cleanse primer’ a slow giving up of the bad stuff so that Monday isn’t a total shock to the system.

I started today with a glass of water with lemon, and cayenne. Then downed a bottle of fresh grapefruit, orange and lime juice. For lunch I had an enormous salad - the inspiration for which came from Kris Carr’s Woodstock Peace Salad with Tahini Dressing. I loaded my bowl with a mixture of baby spinach, red cabbage, chopped broccoli, sunflower seeds, avocado, radishes, and green onions. It was so delicious and tasted great with the tahini dressing.

For dinner we had a simple meal of Chipotle Black Eyed Peas from Jae Steele’s book “Get it Ripe” made with carrots rather then zucchini, and served alongside a bed of steamed kale. This was the perfect dinner, and I felt great eating it. Eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is tradition in some parts, and it’s believed that doing so will bring good luck and prosperity in the year to come. Lets hope so! Stay tuned for more cleanse details, tips, ideas, and recipes.