Spring Cleanse

Hi Everyone:

As promised, the spring cleanse is here.

This is a brief intro to it. I plan to start on March 7th, a Sunday and go through March 15th.

There are 5 main components to this cleanse. I will post an addition on my web page blog at www.hthmc.com for you to read about the details of each component every day. Then on March 7, I'll begin the cleanse and send out recipes and suggestions as we go.

1. Green drinks

2. fiber and intestinal cleansing

3. Lots of vegetables - 50% of your food

4. Yoga or qi gong moves every morning

5. Forgiveness meditation - the emotion of the liver is anger, forgiveness is the way to love and compassion through the liver channel.

While doing this cleanse, I would recommend that you stop dairy, sugar, gluten containing foods, and alcohol.

If you have caffeine, I would suggest tea rather than coffee, with no milk or sugar in it.

Update on Friday, February 19, 2010 at 9:46AM by Shiroko Sokitch, MD

Part I - the green drink

make a green drink every morning, use a blender, vitamixer, or other superblender

take a small apple, 1/2 banana, some blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries

water

3-4 leaves of chard, spinach(a handfull in this case) or kale, and dandelion leaves will help the liver cleanse more

a piece of ginger (depending on your taste

a tablespoon of chia seeds or ground flax seeds

a tablespoon of sunflower seeds or 3 walnuts

1/2 a lemon

pour water over the top, and some ice if you like, blend until everything is broken up completely

pour into mason jar, drink a glass for breakfast and then sip it all day.

Update on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 11:38AM by Shiroko Sokitch, MD

Part II of the cleanse

Fiber and Cleansing

There are several options. The easiest is to buy Yerba Prima all fiber capsules, beginning on the first day of the cleanse, take 2 capsules twice a day, then increase to 3 the next day and 4 the day after that. On the 5th day of the cleanse, begin taking bentonite clay - 1 Tablespoon twice a day, with lots of water. You will only do this for 3 days. Drink plenty of water with all this fiber.

If you want to use liver cleansing herbs, Amazon herbs makes a product I like, Fiberzon, which has herbs for cleansing in it. You can just use 2 doses of that per day instead of the fiber and bentonite clay.

The point of this cleanse is to make it easy for you to do, which will make it more likely that you'll do it.

Update on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 2:10PM by Shiroko Sokitch, MD

Part III - Diet

Diet should be 50% vegetables, meaning that all day, everything you eat, half of it should be vegetables. You can steam, bake, boil, stir fry, whatever works for you. One way to make it easy is to make a big pot of soup with tons of vegies in it, then reheat small portions throughout the day (hopefully not with a microwave!) You can eat any protein you like, meat, fish, chicken, beans, whatever feels good. You can also eat grains, I'd recommend quinoa as the cleanest, leanest, but you can also eat brown rice. Toasted walnuts are another good source of protein/fat that you could have with your breakfast.

Don't eat any white foods at all - ie bread, sugar, milk, dairy, cheese, even bananas aren't great.

Do not skip meals, have at least 3 meals a day, you can have the green drink for a snack or you can have some vegies and protein for a snack.

Fruits are okay but I would only have them in the green drink for this diet.

Update on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:41PM by Shiroko Sokitch, MD

Part IV - yoga, pilates, or qi gong

This part involves moving your body in a gentle way. You can take a class, or find a dvd that has some poses, or if you know some yoga, you can do your own thing.You should do some form of movement for 20 minutes a day. If you decide to do some cardio, try to go outside and take walks, be more reflective in your exercising this week.

If you know the sun salutation, you can do it 12 times a day, for the week.

Slow gentle movements that allow all of your muscles and ligaments to be involved are great. Here is a link to an instructional diagram and write up. (the internet is so great!)  http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/yogapractice/sunsalutation.asp  And here's a brief qi gong demo - http://www.everyday-taichi.com/tai-chi-qi-gong.html

Comments

[Marilyn Mueller]

Shiroko,

I did a search for Amazon herbs and have found all sorts of strange hits. It seems there are many distributors of these herbs. May I ask how or where you have acquired them? DId you order online? Perhaps Sheldon's here in Healdsburg carries this fiber supplement, or another local health food store like Community Market?

I would very much like to participate in the cleanse that begins on March 7th. I'm so grateful that you are doing this, and am excited about the cleanse. You are truly a benefit to our community, and I know that sometime before long I will want to seek you out for treatment.

Best regards,
Marilyn Mueller