Meal Plan- Days 1-4

I have come up with my meal plan for the first four days of the detox. Be creative, come up with fun new recipes that will make it that much easier to stay on a healthy track. I love to search Whole Foods Market for delicious recipe ideas.

Monday

Breakfast                                           Lunch                                                             Dinner

Green smoothie                               Delicious Hummus,
                                                           1/2 avocado                                                  Stuffed Quinoa Peppers

Spinach, Banana,                             w/ vegetables and                    

Strawberries                                    flax crackers

Tuesday

Breakfast                                          Lunch                                                             Dinner

Millet w/ nuts                                 Salad w/ romaine, 1 boiled egg                Baked salmon w/ pepper

and almond milk                           almonds, hemp seeds, vegetables,           and lemon

                                                         sprouts, oil and vinegar dressing.             Brown rice, and green beans

chocolate smoothie

Wednesday

Breakfast                                        Lunch                                                               Dinner

Flax granola w/                            Left over Quinoa                                            Basmatti rice w/ beans and 

Almond milk                                                                                                           vegetable 

Herbal/ Green/ White 

tea

Thursday

Breakfast                                       Lunch                                                             Dinner

Chocolate Blueberry                   Garbanzo bean salad:                                  Warm millet salad 

smoothie w/                                chickpeas, cucumber,                                  w/ pesto instead of 

hemp seeds                                 tomato, basil, oil &                                       cream sauce

                                                       vinegar

       

                                                       Herbal tea

Snack Foods:

Fruit

Nuts

Chocolate balls

Goji Globs (recipe to come)

home made granola

                           

Cleanse Smart

The detox start date is approaching fast! I am still working on the meal plan, and hope to have it posted on Thursday.

I have been doing some thinking and researching and I have decided to use a herbal colon cleanse and organ detox to supplement the food detox. I want to have an optimal outcome, and I think this will help. What I purchased today is called Cleanse Smart. It comes with 60 colon cleansing capsules, and 60 organ detox capsules. It works out to 30 days. This product and other similar products can be purchased at your local supplement store. Do some research and figure out which one will benefit you best.

I will also be taking fish oil daily, as it provides the essential fatty acids our bodies need but can not synthesize. Therefore we must obtain these essential fatty acids through our diet.

Other things you may want to take throughout the detox include Vitamin D3 (1000ui), probiotics, and multi B complex.

Another thing that I have not yet mentioned is that you should start your day by drinking a glass of room temperature water with freshly squeezed lemon. Lemon enhances your livers detoxifying pathways and it also stimulates your liver to produce bile, which in turn caries toxins out of your body. All you need to do is squeeze the juice of a 1/2 of a lemon into room temperature water and drink it in the morning on an empty stomach. Check out this quick video at Joyous Health and learn more about the benefits of this simple task.

Thanks for reading!

Notes For The Detox

• NO sugar, except natural sugars in fruits.
• DO NOT eat anything that is not on the list, as it means it is no good for this detox.
• NO red meat through the entire detox. The saturated fat in these meats puts too much strain on the liver and intestines.
• NO coffee, however green and white teas are ok for days 1-4/18-21. During days 5-7/15-17 you may drink decaffeinated teas such as herbal teas.
• During days 8-15 drink ONLY water. You may add freshly squeezed lemon.
• During days 1-7 and 15-21, you may eat fish. Wild salmon is the ideal choice.
• DO NOT eat any soy products during this detox. Many people are intolerant to this product.
• Give your body a rest from dairy. Eggs and plain, unsweetened yogurt are allowed during days 1-4 and 18-21.
• NO peanuts during the detox. They have the wrong kind of fats.
• Make sure to exercise throughout the detox. Exercising will promote the flow of your lymphatic fluid and encourage toxins to flow to the liver, and in turn leave the body. 
• DO NOT fast if you are a child, if you are pregnant or nursing, if you have heart disease, diabetes, hypoglycaemia, an eating disorder, kidney disease, gout, epilepsy or colitis.  
• Practice meditation, stress/ tension releasing activities. 

The Plan

Days 1-4

What you CAN eat during these days (green is ideal, black is ok): 

Meat: chicken, cornish hen, duck, goose, pheasant, quail, turkey

Seafood: salmon, herring, sardine, shrimp, trout

Legumes: aduki beans, black beans, black-eyed peas, fava beans, garbanzo beans, green beans, green beans, green peas, lentils, lima beans, navy beans, pinto beans, red beans, white beans, mung beans

Beverages: herbal tea, vegetable juice, water, almond milk, fruit juices, rice milk, tea (green/white)

Dairy: eggs, yogurt

Nuts and Seeds: almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, filberts, hickory nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pecans, pistachios, poppy seeds

Grains: Amaranth, Buckwheat, Kamut, Millet, Quinoa, Rice (Basmati, brown, wild), spelt, triticale, oats, rye

Greens: Arugula, cilantro, collard greens, dandelion greens, endive, kale, lettuce(loose leaf, romaine), mustard greens, radicchio, spinach, sprouts (alfalfa), swiss chard, watercress, sprouts (bean)

Vegetables: artichoke, asparagus, avocado, beet, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, garlic, ginger root, jerusalem artichoke, kolrabi, leek, mushrooms, okra, olive, onion, parsnip, pepper (bell, hot), pumpkin, radish, squash (summer, winter), sweet potato, tomato, turnip, bamboo shoots, eggplant, potato, water chestnuts, zucchini

Sea Vegetables: agar, dulse, irish moss, kelp, laver, wakame

Fruits: apples, apricot, banana, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, cantaloup, cherries, coconut, cranberries, currants, elderberries, figs, gooseberries, grapes, guava, honeydew melon, kiwi, lemons, limes, mango, papaya, peaches, pears, persimmon, pineapple, prunes, raspberries, strawberries, watermelon, dates, nectarines, plums, pomegranate, raisins, rhubarb

Oils and Fats: Black current oil, coconut oil, fish oil, flax oil, olive oil, sesame oil, wheat germ oil, 

Herbs and Spices: anise, basil, caraway, cardamon, cayenne, chili powder, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, curry powder, dill weed, fennel seed, garlic, ginger, horseradish, nutmeg, parsley, pepper (ground black), peppermint, rosemary, saffron, sage, tarragon, thyme, tumeric, vinegar (apple cider, balsamic, rice, wine), wasabi, bay leaf, carob, chive, marjoram, mustard, oregano, paprika  

Days 5-7

Continue eating: the foods listed above, emphasizing on foods listed in green

Take away: poultry and green and white teas.

Day 8 

Take away: eggs, yogurt, all teas, and poultry 

Continue eating: brown rice, basmati rice, quinoa, drink only water, nuts and seeds listed above, legumes listed above

Days 9 & 10

Continue eating: raw fruits and veggies (smoothies or soups), drink lots of water

Day 11

Water fast: make sure to drink a lot of water!

Only water on this day, with nothing in it. 

Days 12 & 13

Reintroduce: raw fruits and veggies

Continue drinking lots of water.

Day 14

Reintroduce: nuts and seeds listed above, brown/basmati rice, quinoa, and legumes listed above.

Continue drinking lots of water.

Days 15-17

Reintroduce: fish as listed above, herbal teas

Days 18-21

Reintroduce: chicken or turkey, green and white tea, anything listed in days 1-4.

Information from Dr. Mauro’s 3-week detox plan

21 Day Detox

With the changing of the seasons, you may be feeling a little less vibrant than you did in the summer. Perhaps you have "caught" the bug that has been traveling around, or maybe your energy levels have dropped, and your food choices have been poor. As healthy as I like to think I am, I have been feeling this way and need to get back on track. For this reason, I have decided to do a cleans.

On November 1st, myself, along with my brother, will be starting a 21 day cleans. That leaves me 12 days to prepare. I will be posting information about what I will be doing/eating during these days, and recipes that I will use. I will also post how I am feeling throughout the cleans. There have been multiple people who have mentioned that they are interested in doing a cleans, and I think that this is a great time to gather information and see if it is right for you. I currently have information from my bother who recently visited a Naturopath. I will be visiting him soon to make sure that it is ok for me to follow the same regimen. At this point, I am not sure how much information I can give out about the specific 3-week detox plan. Check out Dr. Mauro's website and see for yourself what this plan entails. I hope to be able to share it with those of you who are interested in doing the cleans as well.

I have been wanting to do a cleans for a while now, and I cannot wait to start and share the experience with anyone who is interested.

Thanks for reading!

Never Be Sick Again- Raymond Francis

The reason I started this blog was to share information about how whole foods and healthy lifestyle choices can lead to an optimal life. For this reason, I wanted to share with you an eye opening book that I have been reading over the past few days. If you have not already read it, I recommend reading the book, "Never Be Sick Again" Written by Raymond Francis.

In this book Raymond Francis discusses a new theory of health and disease. This new theory states that there is one disease, two causes, and six pathways. What does he mean by this?

There is only one disease and that is malfunctioning cells. It doesn't matter what you call the disease, if your cells malfunction, your body will not be able to maintain its homeostasis (balance).

There are only two causes of disease, and they are deficiency and toxicity. In order to keep your cells healthy, you must provide them with the nutrients they need and protect them from things they do not need. Your cells will malfunction with a lack of nutrients (deficiency), with toxic damage (toxicity), or both.

So how do we use this information to "never be sick again?" We need to make good choices along the six pathways which include: nutrition, toxin, psychological, physical, genetic and medical.

So how does this theory work? Raymond Francis puts it like this: If all of your cells are healthy, you cannot be sick; however, if a large number of cells are malfunctioning, it results in disease. Disease begins to take place when a single cell begins to malfunction. As time progresses, more and more cells begin to malfunction and we, at this point begin to "feel sick". Perhaps you feel more tired than usual, or have more headaches, or are feeling some aches and pains. By the time a physician has given a "diagnosis" you many not have any cells in your body that are functioning at an optimal level. Scary? I think so!

What our modern medical society is wrapped up with is the concept of symptomology, where they focus on categorizing and identifying ones symptoms (the effects of a disease). Basically, symptomology is based on the idea that there are thousands of different diseases that all have different causes and treatments. They have come to this understanding, because our cells can malfunction in so many different ways. The major flaw is that the “treatment” of these diseases, really is only a treatment or management of the symptoms. The major problem is that symptomology does not eliminate the cause of the disease. As Raymond Francis puts it, "deficiency and toxicity are always the common denominators of all disease".

All of the symptoms that you may feel are really just different expressions of malfunctioning cells. The possible combinations are endless, and that is why we may feel sick in different ways. But in order to achieve optimal health, you must address the cause and not the symptoms!

So what we should be focusing on is the health of our cells. When our cells begin to malfunction many important cellular chemicals are not produced, cell-to-cell communications are not clear, and our body cannot regulate itself as it should. When these things take place, we begin to notice the symptoms such as allergies, fatigue, aches and pains, colds and flu, depression and a thousand other common symptoms. By simply suppressing these symptoms, as so commonly done in todays society, you cannot explain why the problem has occurred and you cannot prevent the problem from happening again in other regions of the body.

This book goes into detail about what you can do along the six pathways in order to keep your cells in optimal health and in turn “never be sick again.” One of the most important things I have taken from this book thus far is that health is a choice.

“The next major advance in the health of the American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself.”

-John Knowles

I definitely think that everyone should read this amazing book, and take that first step towards optimal health.

Thanks for reading!

Power Packed Chocolate Balls

If you are looking to fill your chocolate craving, but want to eat something that is full of nutrients, try these amazing chocolate balls. They are quick and easy to make. All you need are the ingredients and a food processor.


20 pitted dates
2 tbs coconut oil
a drop of water
2 tsp honey
1/4 cup of almonds
1 tbsp hemp hearts
chocolate mix
1 tsp bee pollen


In your food processor, mix the dates, coconut oil, and honey. Add the almonds, hemp hearts, and bee pollen. In a separate dish, mix the chocolate powders. Add the chocolate to the food processor. 
Blend until the consistency is thick and looks like it will stick together. Create little balls, or bars. Store them in the freezer. 

Since I have covered some of the benefits of cacao, maca, bee pollen, and carob, I will give you a few tidbits about hemp hearts.


Hemp hearts are the most concentrated and best balanced source of proteins, essential fats, and vitamins. Hemp hearts will give you the natural energy you need to be productive throughout the day, without the need for caffeine. You not only will have increased energy, but also have less desire to eat those unhealthy foods you sometimes crave. Hemp hearts help individuals in weight loss as it keeps you full longer. By eating hemp hearts, you are receiving all of the essential fats, proteins and vitamins that are essential for great health. They are easily digested which allows for easy transfer of the nutrients into your body. You can read more about hemp hearts by visiting this website: http://www.healing-source.com/about_HempHearts_b.htm#BENEFITS. These are in fact the hemp hearts that I purchase, they are also available at The Healthy Nuts. 

On their website they include the benefits and people who will benefit from eating 4 tbsp of hemp hearts per day. Everyone could benefit in some way.

• People interested in preventative health and wellness
• Diabetics
• People with obesity
• People with chronic constipation Elderly individuals with chronic health problems
• People with high blood pressure
• Individuals on carb-reduced diets
• Individuals battling high cholesterol
• People with Celiac Disease
• People battling depression
• Pregnant and lactating mothers
• Children with hyperactivity disorders
  
  
  This is definitely one of the tastiest things I have made and I urge you to try it out too! Eating one of these at that 3:00 point of the day when your starting to fade will give you the umph you need to continue on.
  
  
  Thanks for reading! Healthy eating!