Season for Detox – Day 14

This is a milestone day – the end of two weeks of detoxing.  This is the longest detox I’ve attempted.  I realized early this morning that those cold symptoms I was having weren’t really a cold, but detox symptoms.  It’s very common to have what seems like a cold or flu when on an extended detox.  That’s because the body is shaking off toxins that have been locked into cells for a long period of time. 

As these toxins are released, the body goes through a type of detox crisis.  The crisis can make you feel sick or show symptoms of illnesses such as cold, flu, aches and pains and so on.  When I detoxed off of caffeine (probably two years ago for about 7 days)  my whole body hurt.  I remember being under the blankets one night literally with my whole body having the shakes.  I’m sure it was no different from a junkie detoxing off of drugs. 

The thing is I didn’t think about during that week was that I also went cold-turkey off of sugar; a real drug.  So my body was going through a detox of multiple drugs at once. Since that time I’ve gotten back on sugar for an extent but can’t handle too much of it at a time as I really feel the deep effects of eating too much sugar.

 I’ve not gone back on caffeine though as I just don’t want to go through that experience of detoxing from those drugs again.   There is something great about cleaning out this one body we were given at birth.  There are too many diseases that invade the body because of personal irresponsibility and bad eating habits. I’ll be talking more about that in the next weeks. 

For today, a quick run down of what Day 14 held for the detox.  I started the day with a green smoothie as I have each day over the past two weeks.  Then I decided to just make a lovely root vegetable soup to warm up my insides a bit.  So I grabbed what I had; onions, garlic and a gorgeous leek I picked up at the market yesterday.  I actually sauteed these vegetables in coconut oil which gave the soup that rich, tropical, nutty flavor.   Then I decided to put in a bit of butternut squash, turnip and a few handfuls of lentils.  The lentils meant simmering the soup for at least 40 minutes to get them softened up. 

I have to say, this was one of the best dishes I’ve had during this time; rich, hearty, and comforting.  I ate it for lunch and dinner.  Dessert was a handful of red grapes with loads of water.  A good eating day, a good day of realizing that this wonderfully made body is healing itself.