Why Detox Your Body

Why am I suddenly snoring? 

Once upon a time I was married and turning 40. All of a sudden my (now former ) husband starting telling me I was snoring. I was horrified. With my background, I immediately suspected my structure or posture was off. After all, I had been bending over and living with small frys for a decade now, and surely that had taken a toll on my posture? However, nothing I did structurally seemed to make a difference.

To add injury to insult, I also started having night sweats or ( god forbid was I really that old??) were these hot flashes? Wherein I would wake up in a instant sweat, and then cool off, and then be cold and mad that I was a) awake b) cold c) mildly to severely damp. What the heck was going on? Why the sudden changes? It didn’t happen every night. Was this really what I had to look forward to: decades of interrupted sleep and grumpiness in the middle of the night?

Oh joy!  🙁

Then I decided on an external environmental elimination process by changing one thing at a time in the room. First, we had just put a foam topper on our mattress. Took it off. Helpful? No, same sweaty. Second, how about my pajamas? Went back to cotton… Still sweaty, still snoring. Third, I read a magazine article about hormones changing in women over 40, and something about how that changed the tongue, and caused it to fall back in the throat, causing snoring. Hormones? Hmn. Considered looking into that. Fourth, I changed sheets, again back to natural fibers and really nice cotton.

Nope, didn’t help. Nothing helped.

There went my environmental theory.

Are hormones to blame?

What could it be? Hormones get blamed for everything, but I wasn’t that old, was I?

Then one day, I met Margaret Floyd Barry, as she is now known. We had done the same workshop on different weekends and now were part of a group to expand on what we had learned. I liked her instantly. Brilliant businesswoman, nutritionist, and lover of all things naked…as in unprocessed, whole, organic foods.

My friend Margaret Floyd Barry

She suggested I try her “sugar control” program for two weeks to test it out. What was this? In hindsight, this program turned my life around.  However, I looked at the list of everything I couldn’t eat, and was immediately unhappy about most fruit missing. I got over it, especially when she pointed out it was only 14 days.  I could have half an apple and some berries. Mostly I was to eat as much protein and veggies and fat as I wanted as often as I wanted.

Hmn. Okay, I guess so. If I have to, to help the testing process.  🙂

First seventy two hours were super rough, but I had tons of veggies on hand and I just kept stuffing them down. No crackers or bread? This was new. I managed to get through the first week, and suddenly realized I had slept through the night. No sweating. No angry middle of the night cursing. No complaints of snoring.

WOW!

Why detox your body?

The interesting thing about an elimination diet, or detox, is that you get to add things back in and see what they do to your system. Gluten foods gave me a stomach ache, so now I avoid those. Carbs other than fruit and veggies give me an instant runny nose…and I go back to sweating and snoring pretty quickly. One holiday cocktail season just after my divorce I hit the party circuit hard for about six weeks. Even though I run nearly every morning, all those drinks and treats landed me with a sinus infection….which in my opinion was a runny nose on refined carbs for six weeks.

Super interesting, eh?

Then I read Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD, who wrote that wheat binds to the same receptors in your brain as endorphins do when you exercise. That makes it addictive. I now refer to bread at my house as “crack”. My poor children are teased at school because they don’t have normal sandwiches in their lunches, and I insist on as much as possible be organic. I tell them I don’t know why people eat bad food, and that the other mothers must not love their children as much as I love them. 🙂 They still complain. (Here is a link to his book)

Do we eat that way all the time?

No.

However, I know I am getting through to them, because one day my oldest daughter came home from a five day trip to a soccer tournament. Later that week, she had a game to play, and afterwards was clearly exhausted and hungry. I mentally ran through my options. She needed food, and quickly. Instead of turning right towards home, I turned left and headed to Burgerville, which at least sources its beef locally and sustainably. As I turned into the parking lot, to my great surprise, she burst into tears. “Mom! I’ve been eating crap food all week! Please take me home and feed me something organic!”

You bet, sweetheart.

Detox options

I also have had the good fortune to deepen my knowledge on nutrition by listening to lectures for the last decade by Club Sport’s regional nutritionist Laura Bartron. She is also a smarty, and has very carefully put together her most recent detox…what she calls the Detox Box.

This week long program uses supplements, two dairy free shakes a day, cleanse powder, and a meal plan to assist Club Sport members in safely detoxing. I have tried three versions of her detox in the last few years to help me get re-unhooked from refined carbs ( when will I learn? 🙂 

One main difference between the two from my perspective is that Laura’s program uses shakes and supplements, and lasts a week and Margaret’s uses all food and lasts two weeks or longer. I have lost 7-8 pounds each time I have done a detox. Was it water weight? Well, it takes 4 grams of water to store 1 gram of carbohydrate, which gives you that puffy bloated feeling. That was gone! 

Club Sports Detox Box

My 82 year old client Juanita enjoying her garden

I can’t tell you how much I recommend using food as a tool to help with your overall health goals. So many things are chalked up to getting older– the sluggish energy, the crazy sleep, and the lowered immune system, to name a few. Don’t put up with that! If that was true, (the “oh, I’m getting older” thing) then how do you explain the crazy fun energetic eighty two year olds like my client Juanita?

Hah! You can’t.

You can detox

So get out there and DO something about it, right now. If you are lucky enough to be a Club Sports member, grab that Detox Box in the pro shop and give it a try. How about just taking one potentially problematic food out of your eating regime…for instance, gluten? Or white sugar?

Additionally,  Margaret and I are scheming up a great combination program whereby you can get the best of both our worlds.

Detox offering

Keep your eyes out for a special BlackFriday/Cyber Monday announcement, and more to follow in the New Year.

Stay tuned for a special interviews with specialists in their fields coming up in the next weeks!