Spring detox without the juice: Cleanse while eating real food

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2014 by: Heidi Fagley

Notice how many juices are being bottled and sold on store shelves? We’re literally being inundated by juice companies striving to get our attention to buy $10 juices by the dozens, ensuring we will get everything we need to clean out our systems if we just buy the juice.

Yes, juice can be a powerful way to help support detoxing the body, and it is chock full of nutrients — there’s no arguing there — but not all of us can fast, nor do we all want to. So what about the rest of us who want to support cleansing of the body but not give up food?

Simple — eat! A super-clean eating program can do wonders for the body and mind. In fact, the beautiful thing about the human body is that it knows how to cleanse, instinctively. We have multiple organs and systems whose job is to do just that, daily. So, interestingly enough, our bodies are always in the midst of working hard for us to detox — we just need to give them the right environment for success.

Fresh produce contains natural cleansers — this is the way that nature intended. Eating them regularly will consistently support the cleansing systems of the body, without having to drink our way through the day.

For instance, feasting on fresh fruits and vegetables can do wonders for the body and digestive system, and doing so allows the organs to do their job without interference.

To get started, simply remove what is unnatural, and include what is fresh and real. When support is given to the body nutritionally, it naturally detoxes.

Some things to include:

Fresh herbs: Including herbs like parsley and cilantro in your diet can support the detoxification of heavy metals from the system. Chop into salads, or blend into smoothies.

Juicy fruits: Snacking on grapefruits, berries and apples gives the body a host of nutrient-dense vitamins and minerals — plus, they have a high water content, which helps the body stay hydrated. Fiber gently sweeps through the intestines, clearing the digestive tract all while keeping things moving in the right direction.

Healthy fats: Including ripe avocados and chia and hemp seeds provides the body the healthy fats our systems so desperately crave. Every process of the body needs fat in order to function at peak performance.

Greens and wild edibles: We all know that these are at the top of any nutritional program. From kale to arugula, watercress to dandelion greens. Massive amounts of powerful nutrients naturally reside inside these leaves.

Other: Garlic, ginger and turmeric are some of the most powerful anti-inflammatory foods we have available to us. Inflammation is at the root of practically all known chronic health conditions.

A three- or five-day conscious intake of foods omitting anything other than fresh, clean fruits, veggies and healthy fats can help decrease stress on the systems of the body and increase clarity of the mind — all while satisfying the appetite and regulating body weight.

Include lots of pure water and freshly brewed herbal teas, get plenty of rest and enjoy what your body naturally knows how to do by supporting it nutritionally. Include fresh-pressed juices if you’d like, just know that fasting on them is not the only way to give the body a break. With all the springtime herbs, vegetables and fruits this time of year, it’s simple to give your body a break without taking away the simple pleasure of eating.

How Ditching Dairy Cured My Asthma

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BY SID GARZA-HILLMAN | ©2014

In 1992 I cured myself of asthma and it’s never returned.

I’m going to back up just a bit. During my senior year at UCLA I got a job working for a friend who worked for an actor. My job was basically to send signed photos to fans and pick up takeout, and honestly I think I handled both tasks with a surprising competence for a philosophy major. The actor and my friend were both vegan, and while I didn’t give this fact too much thought at the time, it did sound awfully crazy…then.

In 1992, having graduated the previous year, I was pursuing what a BA in philosophy had prepared me very well for — a career as an indie rock musician. But I was also a chronic asthmatic. Asthma runs in my family. My father and his siblings are all asthmatics, and I had suffered from asthma attacks as a very young child. I carried an inhaler and did what asthmatics did, which was to keep the inflammation at bay. When going for runs, I’d take a hit before the run, and definitely one after.

This was my life until my friend and the actor we worked for handed me a book called Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. After reading that book (the first of many, many nutrition/diet books to follow) I made one single change to my diet, and within a month I was asthma free. That change was to remove all dairy from my diet (milk, yogurt, cheese) most of the time. At the time I didn’t change much else — still ate fish, white rice (didn’t even know about brown rice), and plenty of white flour in the form of refined pasta and sourdough bread. On occasion I would have some cheese or milk and the next day have another asthma flare up. This pattern continued on for the next few years.

However, almost bigger than the removal of all dairy was my newfound fascination with diet and nutrition. Still a struggling musician working two “day jobs,” I began reading book after book and slowly continuing to transition my lifestyle in a healthier and healthier direction. Little did I know at the time that years later (2009 to be precise) I would become a certified nutritionist, health coach, and author of a book on the philosophy of health.

What I honed in on in my nutrition studies was the body’s natural stress response, and the profound way in which nutrient dense foods can aid the body to better handle stress of any kind. Chronic stress weakens the immune system, and a result of a weakened immune system is increased inflammation. I wondered early on why removing dairy from my diet would have anything to do with my lungs, but I now had my answer. Simply put, it was causing my body stress.

Food allergies are not all alike. Allergies like those to tree nuts and/or peanuts (immunoglobulin type E allergies) are immediate. Have a little, and your body responds immediately. But it turns out there’s another, even more common food allergy which involves the IgG antibody (immunoglobulin type G). The body’s response to foods that trigger the IgG is delayed, and can take anywhere from an hour to three days. I was essentially consuming dairy on a daily basis and having a delayed allergic reaction to it in the form of asthma. My body was so bogged down by what was happening in my gut, it couldn’t properly assess what was happening in my lungs, and was inflaming as a response.

After a few years of just occasional dairy (the following day I would have a bout of asthma), I finally decided once and for all to remove it from my diet altogether, and then went a step further in 2002 and became 100% plant-based. In 2005 I went even further and became almost entirely whole plant-based and gluten-free.

Now, at 45, my energy and fitness levels far exceed what they were at 25. I’m running 50-55 miles a week and training for my second marathon. I simply do not miss carrying an inhaler, so there’s no conflict in me about whether or not to eat cheese. Having been weaned for over 12 years now, I now see the problems that can arise from an adult mammal who still breast-feeds (in the form of milk/cheese/yogurt). The quality of my life is greater without it, and I see the food I choose to eat as a gift in every way. For me it is not restrictive at all, and my challenge now is to show others that there’s nothing to give up on the path to greater health and happiness.

I made similar recommendations to my father a few years ago, and now at 76, he is asthma-free as well. The resiliency of the human body at any age is still profoundly amazing to me ….

What Comes After Planks?

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Static planks are great, but they shouldn’t be considered a goal—they are a starting point. Life is movement and our training should prepare us to do just that. The current record for the longest time in a plank position is three hours seven minutes and 15 seconds. That is beyond difficult to be sure, but it’s also kind of pointless. It’s like a long cardiovascular training session in the form of a plank. If you can hold a plank for three hours, you aren’t necessarily getting any stronger—you can simply hold a plank for a really long time.

Here’s What You Need to Know

Done properly, planks are a wonderful exercise for teaching trunk, hip and shoulder stability by integrating a full-body contraction. This is an ideal starting point for activity.
Once you’ve mastered good plank technique, stop holding it for longer amounts of time and start moving it. Despite the intense muscle burning, long isometrics actually burn the lowest number of calories. Life is movement, not the absence of it.

Follow a system for developing moving plank options so you know why you are adding any movement to planks. Whenever I am speaking on the topic of ab training, I always ask the audience, “What’s the purpose of planks?” I am usually met with silence, so I’ll ask the question again, this time letting them know that they are unlikely to offer an incorrect answer. Now, I start to get some responses, most of which are abstract and generic, even if they are correct, such as: “They teach full-body stability.” “They develop good core strength.” “They help prevent back pain.” O.K., but why do I want any of that?

What’s the purpose of having good core strength and full body stability? To do stuff! It’s not a complicated answer. We tend to overcomplicate and sometimes overthink things in fitness. Whatever you (or your clients) want to do—play a sport, play tag with your kids, compete in obstacle races or catch butterflies—you want to feel good when you do it and not have to worry about your body. The same is true for the stuff we all have to do, but may not really love to do (things like doing laundry and yard work or putting away groceries).

Thus, the ultimate purpose of planks is to get better at moving. It makes little sense then to have a core-strengthening program that focuses strictly on the absence of movement. This idea has gotten out of hand to the point where some people erroneously recommend doing only anti-rotation exercises to train rotation. Think about it this way: Sitting behind the wheel of a car that is motionless is not how you learn to drive.

This idea has become popular because some have ascribed to the idea that rotation is “dangerous.” In other news, life is dangerous, so you’d better train for it. Life will ask you to move quickly, randomly and correctly at some point to avoid injury. Proximal strength equals distal power. In other words, strength in the center gives you more powerful, controlled movements.

Keeping still forever in exercise is like staying in first grade forever. You learn planks to be able to do harder things. Planks are very effective for preparing you to do something harder than a plank.

Jonathan Ross | ©2014

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