Riri-kins wrote:

I sure do.  I need to start drinking more water so I've begun weaning myself by switching to it and Diet Dr. Pepper again.  It's funny. When you're done detoxing and have junk food for the first time in months you feel funny. I can't describe it. You're not grossed out or lethargic. It's like wearing a really loud outfit at a business meeting.

I think that's a perfectly valid way to describe it! Loud suit at a business meeting - Check!


As for my detox weeks, I tend to lean towards straight up milk and V-8 juice in lieu of soda, hummus, with either carrots or cucumber for dipping, instead of the usual snack foods and I make a staple out of my marti gras rice (which is just a doctored brown rice with carrot, egg, red cabbage, roasted sesame seeds and whatever peppers I can dig up.) Surprisingly, this is less of gas inducing blend than you'd think. Which I only say because I know somebody read that ingredients list and was wondering!

Detox periods for me also tend to be punctuated by specific urges for:
- oatmeal with fruit (high-five!)
- maki sushi (which cannot always be afforded)
- roasted birds (I don't get as much protein as I should, so this is detox for me)
- and fresh salad (for which I inherited the superpower from my mom to be able to eat with no dressing whatsoever so long as there's cheese or meat of some kind mixed in)

Edit: forgot the sesame seeds.

Last edited by Rotten Mooring (04-17-2012 10:27:39 AM)

The flipside to that (which is unfortunately true, from a nurse perspective) is that if your diet is consistently healthy and reasonable as far as amount of intake, you're actually much more capable of having a 'binge' day without major repercussions. Your body won't think it needs to save all the crap you took in.

Which is what I'm telling myself after eating fish and chips for dinner and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Being that I used to be a fat kid, but has maintained a stable lean-built for more than a decade afterwards, please allow me to say something on this matter regarding an actually healthy diet.

Oatmeal in the morning is fine so long as it is without man made sugar of any kind.  The more you eat in the morning, the less hungry you'd be for the rest of the day, so eat lots.  Add fresh bananas for flavor if it's too bland for you.  Some people like adding kiwis too, but I'd only advise that if you're taking your oatmeal without milk, like just water.

Ranch dip and salad dressing of any kind is FAT and will make vegetables even more unhealthy than meat.  For me, I water boil my vegs slightly, without oil, and just eat them that way during lunch, dinner.  Eat the eggs for lunch but preferrably not dinner, as they're harder to digest overnight and might have more fattening effects as dinner.

In general, eat bigger lunches than you do dinner.  AVOID midnight snacking.

Canned vegetable and beans have little value health-wise and lots of greese so scratch that.  Eat the fresh stuff if possible.  Sprinkle slight amount of salt for flavor if you need it.

You can actually eat meat and stay healthy, lots of it even.  But you need to choose lean portions and/or white meat, or you'll have to cut out the raw fat before cooking it so your animal oil intake takes minimal. 

Eat fish belly portions of the fillet, or fish heads if you know how to prepare them, regularly for collagen to keep skin FIRM.

Stay away from soft-drink and sweetened shakes of all kinds - they'll easily give you not just fat, but diabetes.  STICK TO WATER OR GREEN TEA when possible.  Also avoid coffee as that causes indigestion and make food stay in the bowels longer and make your intake more fattening to you.

Eat oranges or other such grapefruit throughout the day when you think water's too bland.  Eat fresh pepper with your meals to lower meat/starch intake.  Apples before dinner is a good way to keep dinner volume low.

Baked potatoes are fine so long as they're baked with minimal or no oil.

Eat only until you feel your stomach sac fill up, then stop.  Do not have your stomach-sac stretching (a visible bump will be a warning sign) as that will give you increasingly large stomach and larger appetite in the future.

Try eating bakery items (cream cakes, pastries, donuts and such) and ice creams no more than one day per week (and none if you don't even like that stuff), as excessive intake  will make the face go bloated and without definition even before they make you lose figure.

The above with moderate exercise like lifting light barbells, hula hooping,  and walking often should give you that Utena-ish built already:wink:

Rotten Mooring wrote:

Katzenklavier wrote:

I'm going to sound like a total pretentious prick for this, but I just want to put it out there. Please understand that I'm not trying to rip apart what you're doing. I'm no expert, but I've been trained in exercise science and nutrition as part of my job. So I just ask you to consider what I have to say and take it with a grain of salt (or two)..

It's not pretentious, it's just concern . I think we're all knowingly using the word "detox" incorrectly - going for the way it's used in the media, not the way it's used by professionals in the health industry. I know what OnlyInThisLight means when she talks about skipping over to a healthier diet for a short period, not for calorie cutting reasons but for more psychosomatic reasons. It's good to come out and clarify the point though. I hadn't been thinking about it at the time, but I would actually feel rather poorly if someone were to drop in here for a lurk and leave misinformed.

Mooring put it perfectly.  The word detox is just hyperbole on my part.  It is not about cleansing ones bowels or loosing weight, it is more like suddenly needing to eat simple, small, home-made, fresh and low-impact meals for awhile after eating heavy, pre-packaged and grease-soaked fast food stuffs for too long.  When I move into my actual healthier new eating routine, it'll be much less of a routine and involve a lot more food.

And let us not get started on standards or perceptions of beauty, and how damaging they are to our health and mind.

I think a person's physical appearance is kind of like a food item's flavor: it's simply something that incite an involuntary reaction in people.  There's a Chinese belief that the craving for beauty and the craving for food flavor are both part of human nature and could not (and should not) be repressed.  To deny a look that is obviously beautiful would be just as silly (and ultimately, futile) as it is to deny a food item that obviously tastes good.

That being said, different people do have different tastes, and beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder.  Not everyone can conventionally beautiful, but everyone WILL find someone who thinks they're beautiful if they get to meet enough people.

I myself have no problem with people trying to look attractive, since appearance, like word choice and mannerism, is simply a part of a person's presentation to others.  It is only when people try and go against their predetermined physical factors (like bone structure and genetics) to look like something that they're not meant to look like that I get scared for them, knowing that it would land them in all sorts of trouble. 

p.s. The josei manga Helter Skelter, with its movie adaptation coming out this summer, deals with exactly this topic.  A review of it could be found on my blog for those who're interested (I know it's a shameless self plug, but I just couldn't resist when it seems so relevant to this thread's topic).

Hi syora!

I more worry about American standards of beauty, which are extremely difficult for most people to attain

I know this is going off topic from food detox, but I just can't resist commenting on this.

The problem with American standards, I think, is that mainstream American culture seem to promote going into blind, reckless extremes instead of treading with careful, sensible moderation; that, and the people there are constantly encouraged to take easy shortcuts when doing everything.  Thus, a quest for physical beauty the mainstream American way is most certain to fail, and not without horrific consequences

I'm not a nutritionist so if anything in my routine is wrong or unhealthy please correct me. I would honestly love that as I can't handle getting sick  again.

I've found vitamins to be harsh on my stomach so I usually start the day with freshly juiced vegetables instead. My go to juice is a mixture of kale, romaine hearts, cucumber, garlic, and ginger. If I can afford it I add live algae but it's really expensive. I also have a glass of the vegetable juice in the evening before I go to bed. I only drink water the rest of the day and I don't restrict my food intake. I do try to get my iron and B vitamins from kale and spinach instead of meat and I'm a fan of eggs for protein. Other than that I eat what I want as long as it's not from a fast food joint.

Syora wrote:

A good tip for iron that comes from plants is to have something with Vitamin C on the side. This helps with your absorption so you get the most benefits.

I hope that helps!

TRUTH.

Definitely up the beans. Also, nuts are a good idea to add a little fat. Actually a little bit of NATURAL (check the ingredients, if there's anything but peanuts and salt don't get it) peanut butter in your juice, or some nuts with it, will help absorption of the nutrients. As a general guideline, 'good' fats, such as nuts and oils (olive oil especially) should be a small part of every meal and every intake of food. We avoid fat militantly in our 'proper diet' culture, but it's so necessary. SO NECESSARY. Your juice is missing the fat that would help the nutrients you're taking in get to the right places.

The other suggestion is that if you can handle the smoothie instead of the juice, you've be taking in the fibrous material in the veggies that's so good for you.

Riri-kins wrote:

I've begun eating more fruits instead of sweets lately and I'll have a smoothie for a treat instead of my daily frappuccino.  In addition to losing weight I have more cash so that's always a good thing. If anybody ever wants a yummy snack that tastes like popsicles then try frozen grapes. I swear I can't get enough of 'em.

PREACH IT.  Frozen grapes are an old favorite of mine, I need to start nomming them again!

I've been trying to get more diary in my life as well as veggies.  I've been swapping out most sweet treats with nonfat greek yogurt topped with nutty, gluten free granola.  I buy pre-cooked chicken strips so lack of time and energy can't be an excuse of mine against making salads, and I subbed out soda for Vanilla soymilk.


I like soymilk.  Regular milk tastes like water and butt.  Soymilk tastes like the universe loves me.