Monday, 24 October 2011

DeToxification- Intro and Days 1-2 (no not from drugs lol)

Intro: I've decided to do a detox diet type thing. I need to get all the junk out of my life, physically, mentally and spiritually. I'm not doing it to lose weight, I've just felt really sick and fatigued lately. I also have been getting headaches really bad. I just want to be a healthier human being with lots of energy. Maybe I'll get a rockin' body at the same time. 

Today is the second day and already I am noticing that I feel a little better (disclaimer: this could all be in my head)  Hopefully I'll be really good at keeping blog of this and updating so that maybe if others want to detox, they can learn from my mistakes or successes. I plan on doing this for about a week with only fruits and veggies, then slowly implementing in protein and then dairy over a month span. Here is my plans and such: 

Physical Diet: For the first week I've narrowed down my food to 3 things. Fruits, Vegetables, and Whole Grain (High Fiber, Low Sugar). Just so I also get a little bit of protein, I've also added nuts in. I eat 2 spoonfuls of all natural crushed almond a day usually. Eventually I'll start to add in fish (mainly Alaskan salmon) next week, then dairy in 2 weeks. 

Here is my source of which foods I will eat
And here is my list of foods not to eat. 

Also as for exercise I plan to divide my week. 
2 days doing 60 minutes of brisk walking 
2 days Yoga, 
2 days intense cardio, 
1 day of weight training. 
This isn't exact.. depending on my mood of working out I might switch it out and do more weights or whatever, as long as I exercise every day. 


Spiritually: My goal for the spiritual "Detox" (if that's what you wanna call it) is to really change my focus from myself to others. I want to do at least 1 service project a week. I also want to try really good at saying my prayers and spend 20 minutes in the scriptures daily, maybe listen to some conference talks during my exercise. 


Mentally: This is a huge one. I am trying to limit my non-homework computer time (facebook, pinterest, games etc) to only an hour a day. This also includes TV. I don't like the feeling of wasting away precious life in front of a screen. My other goal is to reach out and study art and culture and beautiful things in the world. I want to go to museums, art shows, performances, guest speakers on campus... really anything that enlarges the mind. Last but not least... I am hoping to read the entire Narnia Series and also a bunch of other books. I just love books. 



Well... Those are my plans.. now here is how the execution is going. 

Day 1: To start out I did a 24 hour fast. This was mostly for the spiritual detox that I so badly needed, but apparently it has great affects on the body as well. The last hour of my fast I drank tons and tons of water. This way the food all got out of my system and the water helped clean everything out. It helped kind of get a fresh start for my body, cleaning out everything and giving my organs a rest. 

Fasting also helped me so great in focusing my spiritual and mental health. A religion professor of mine told me that most of the time our spirit listens to everything our body tells it. When we are hungry, we eat. When we are sleepy, we go to bed. When we're thirsty, we get water. When our  body wants something the spirit usually says yes. This puts our body at a higher importance. Fasting is like taking that spiritual half and letting the body know that the spirit is in charge. It's like saying, "body, I'm not going to hurt you (although you might think so) but I'm making you go hungry in order to gain things greater than food. I just thought that was a really neat way of putting it. 

Here is a website on all the healthful benefits of fasting. I do not endorse everything said, but they seem to have done tons of research (much more than I will ever do) so there you go.


Day 2: Alright so day two... my first day implementing food. I went shopping for all kinds of good stuff and so far I'm doing pretty well... but I can always do better

Here is my grocery list:
Green Peppers. Salad. Broccoli. Tomatoes. Fresh Salsa. Carrots. Cucumber
Apples. Mandarin Oranges. Grapefruit. Pomegranate. Cranberries. 
Lots and Lots of Water
Whole grain oatmeal and Granola

So yup. That is that. Already I'm feeling better. I'm trying to eat small meals throughout the day and drink as much water as I can. Todays exercise was the walking. I walked around campus twice, then back to my apartment and then back to campus to the library and back. So it was good. At the library I got my Narnia books. Life is going in good directions. 

Well that's all for the first few days. I'll try and keep this updated. 


Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or an expert at dieting. What I'm doing doesn't guarantee results... it's just something I thought I might try. 


Wednesday, 12 October 2011

The Pros and Cons of "E- Textbooks"


There is a really cool "whiteboard" feature on my Biology online textbook where you can draw and circle stuff then erase it all. After studying for 7 hours strait, it can becomes quite the distraction....