Happy Sunday! I hope you guys had a great week.
Ours was pretty good besides getting the stomach flu! Omg. I haven’t had the stomach flu in so long and sadly John and I got it at the exact same time. If you would really like to see how your marriage holds up against an obstacle, get the stomach flu at the same time as your spouse with a baby or more than one (that would really be upping the ante). Fortunately she was not also sick, that would be even more complicated, but man was it rough.
As a result, we failed our detox after one week haha.
I do have to say that I think even doing it for a week was helpful. We noticed how getting rid of the sugar and processed foods made us feel and I also noticed how much my skin was clearing up, as well.
Overall I think that detoxing might not be for us. I think that if you are actually trying nail down something specific like an intolerance, a detox, or more specifically an elimination challenge, would be super helpful because of your ability to reintroduce one group back at a time and get more clear on where the intolerance lies.
For our purpose, we were not looking for an intolerance. If you would like to know more as to why we started, you can read it HERE.
While we were only able to perform a week, here is what we did learn….
+ It is doable to not eat gluten, dairy, or added processed sugar. In today’s society, there are so many products on the market that make this super simple.
+ We definitely can do a better job in decreasing our processed food consumption. When we started I threw out most of the processed stuff we had and honestly I didn’t miss it
+ Processed food are much less filling than whole foods. Seems like a no-brainer but I really noticed a decrease in my appetite despite the fact that I felt like I was eating less.
+ The less crap you eat, the less crap you crave
+ Clean eating helps with sleep and body inflammation. Both John and I have been having some general aches and pains and within one week of cutting these foods outs, we noticed less aches and pains.
+ I did find there was some parts of this challenge that I didn’t agree with. For example, to me not all gluten is made the same. Goldfish versus homemade sourdough bread are two very different foods. One has zero nutritional value and is essentially empty calories where as the other has lots of good bacteria for the gut, satisfies the leptin hormone, and when consumed with delicious olive oil adds a great fatty acid.
Overall, I think you have to listen to your body. If you can’t eat dairy because it upsets your stomach or causes you acne, then that’s great to know you should limit it. But for those of us that don’t need these changes, I think it can cause more of a restrictive mentality and for many may result in binge eating like behavior following the plan, thus cancelling out any of the actual effects. I think it all just depends on your reasoning behind it and how your body reacts. Bottom line, do what works for you!
There is so much more to eating better and eating for your health. Truthfully, this detox, in addition to a few other factors, really peaked a new interest for me in regards to foods in relation to the feminine cycle, hormones, and ultimately disease. I am just beginning to adjust out of some of my negative behaviors and look forward to sharing more about this journey with you all.
While we weren’t able to complete the detox in its entirety, it did help provide momentum and passion within the food for health vain of thought.
xoxo,
Melissa
