This all started when I started drinking diet soda. I was in middle school, doing Weightwatchers, so I wanted to enjoy soda like everyone else (when at events) and so I started drinking it. And I didn't stop completely until 2013. And in between, especially in the last two years of high school and while I was at EMU, I drank a lot of soda. Sometimes two 20oz a day.
It is a bit concerning, considering that aspartame can reak havoc on the brain. I did not see any effects, besides headaches. I drank soda for the caffeine, for the taste, and for the fizzies. I have changed my ways majorly since then. I drink coffee now.
I never really had any problems from it, and I have always eaten pretty clean (aside from the soy consumption when I was vegetarian and vegan in 2010 and 2011). I always avoided most processed foods and cookies and things because of the calorie (and sugar) content.
So I was surprised when I started having gallbladder attacks after Yonah was born. At first they just felt like I needed to burp, that discomfort in the abdomen, but nothing would make it go away. Then the pain would spread and my back would hurt badly, from fifteen minutes to two hours. I couldn't sit still while it was happening and nothing seemed to help. Unfortunately, when I did go to the doctor about it, they were no help, because they thought it was muscular skeletal. I did some research my self and self-diagnosed. Thankfully (oh so thankfully), the gall bladder attacks stopped independently about two months after Yonah was born.
Because I was nursing Yonah at this point, I couldn't even think about detoxing. I wanted to, but dumping toxins into the blood stream while nursing a newborn is just not a good idea. Figuring that Yonah was going to nurse until he was two, I decided I needed to be patient until I would not be nutritionally needed by someone else.
Now, Yonah is sixteen months old and has weaned himself (besides the five minute nurse in the middle of the night) . I didn't think it would happen this early, but I guess it has.
Meanwhile, I started researching foods that assist the body with detoxing. There are a couple things I have been doing.
I started consuming more foods with probiotics. this is in part because I started feeling heaviness and discomfort in my abdomen after eating meat after taking antibiotics for strep throat at the end of September. I knew something needed to change, so I am eating a 1/2 cup of homemade milk kefir everyday wtih four tablespoons of flaxseed meal. And at lunch I have a cup of grated beets mixed with a 1/4 cup sauerkraut.
Milk kefir: it is 10x more probiotically potent than yogurt, and is known to specifically repopulate the gut, whereas Yogurt just helps with digestion.
Flaxseed: this is a powerful food--it has lots of Omega-3s (ALA), has a high fat and and fiber content. Flax oil in itself helps bring oxygen to your cells (which is anti-cancer, because cancer thrives in an anaerobic environment.
Beets: Beets are great for the liver. they help thin bile and are delicious
Sauerkarut: homemade probiotic that has detoxifying helpies in it because it is in the broccoli family.
of course, I'm also drinking a lot of water
Other things I do occasionally:
oil pull 10-15 minutes a couple times a week.
dry brush my skin before a shower a couple times a week.
apply magnesium oil a couple times a week.
I am thinking seriously of doing a liver cleanse and hoping to do an all vegetable week sometime soon. I have to get myself on board, of course!! :D
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