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Good for You-Naturally!™ nutrition help and recipes, and outside links. See Good for You-Naturally!™ section of my website for more info and resources.

Detoxing 2 – While Pregnant?

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Greetings from Me and My House,

A list member asked: “Can this (detoxing) be done during pregnancy?”
Personally, I have no problem detoxing, and even fasting within guidelines, during pregnancy. I believe pregnancy is a most important time to be sure we are not toxic. Baby needs as healthy of an environment as possible to develop in. Ideally, we and our husband would thoroughly detox and build our health up before conceiving, but that just doesn’t always happen.

I know some people are fearful of detoxing and fasting during pregnancy and while nursing. (In fact, in our society, many are fearful of fasting even a meal or two ANYTIME! You wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell from people who have come to my nutrition classes.) Anyhow, some mothers’ concerns are that the baby will be overladen with toxins during the process. I don’t see this as a valid reason, as baby is ALREADY overladen with the toxins in mom’s body and continuing to add more toxins is certainly not going to help the baby.

I’m not in anyway “prescribing” what would be right for anyone else to do, but I will tell you what I do and what my Dr. says. My Dr. believes that moring sickness is the body’s way of trying to purge itself of toxins to create a healthy environment for baby. So he recommends a 3 day fast for it, drinking plenty of pure water with lemon. He says when you are extremely nauseated and throwing up and your body is saying that food/eating sound horrible, why do we force ourselves to eat. Our body is saying DON’T EAT! So from an MD’s perspecitive, not all believe fasting during pregnancy is dangerous.

Anytime you fast or detox you need to be sure to get plenty of pure water, aprox. 1 gallon per day. In fact, lack of pure water ALL the time is a major contributor to health problems for most people. Toxins build up in our bodies even faster because we aren’t flushing them out. The general rule is to take your weight, divide it in half, drink that many ounces of pure water per day. For a 120# woman that comes out to aprox. the “8 glasses a day” we’ve always been told. 120 divided by 2 = 60 oz. Obviously, people over 120#, need more. AND, as I said above, when fasting or detoxing you want to almost double that.

OK, back to detoxing when pregnant. As for the first way I mentioned, just cutting all junk and eating only healthy foods and juicing, this can AND SHOULD be done by all, anytime, pregnant or not. As for fasting, let prayer be your guide, without allowing fear to rule. As I mentioned above, some Drs. believe it is beneficial to short term fast during pregnancy for detoxing purposes. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with it. I do use common-sense too. No extended fasts – I personally wouldn’t go over 3 days. Pray about it – there have been times when our church has called fasts when I was pregnant, that I felt I was NOT to fast at the time, but I don’t let pregnancy (or nursing) be my excuse for NEVER being able to fast. Jesus called us all to fast, and for us “quiver-ful” moms pregnancy or nursing can be all the time. Know your body – don’t try to push a water ONLY fast when pregnant. Utilize Fresh Juices and/or Barley Green whenever you feel you need them. They are loaded with readily available nutrients that will ensure that both you and baby are getting all you need. In fact, Barley Green is the most nutrient dense food known to man and contains all nutrients needed for long-term sustenance. So technically there shouldn’t be a problem “fasting” even longer on Barley Green and Fresh Juices, except perhaps caloric (depending on how much juice you’re drinking). This would be my only concern, if just drinking small amounts of Fresh Juice/ Barley Green and you didn’t have the calories to spare and it was later in your pregnancy or when nursing when baby needs the extra calories.

That “getting enough” to provide the necessary calories is actually a Juice DIET, not “fast”. A Juice Diet is drinking high quantities of fresh juice that provides the calories too. If you drink under 1/2 gal per day, your body will go into “fasting mode” (metabolism) – (I’m sure there’s variance in that amount for different people). If over 1/2 gallon, it won’t, and up to a gallon or more per day may be needed to provide the calories and nutrients needed. Although for a short-term FAST (1-3 days) for detoxing (or spiritual) purposes I don’t drink these amounts.

As I mentioned in the last post, I felt the need to detox to be ready for the labor and birth of our baby expected anyday now. Well, this week I got my involuntary chance, to not just detox, but FAST. God must’ve felt I needed that too before baby comes because I’d allowed toxins to build up AND (according to my husband) I’ve been overdoing it and not getting enough rest, my body was ripe for letting the current “bug” in. And it hit HARD! I did nothing but sleep for 32 hours, and downed honey/lemon water and Fresh Juice and Barley Green everytime I woke up for a few minutes. I was able to sit up Tues., but still felt like I was hit by a truck, and still not up to eating. By Wed. I was able to eat just a few bites of fruit and “good stuff” and by yesterday I was HUNGRY. My dear, sweet husband took my stir-crazy (from being down 4 days) body out to a local restaurant that has several vegetarian selections for lunch. I had a great fresh fruit salad and a tremendous 7 veggie sandwich on 7 grain bread. Even after that, I was back to “grazing” by mid-afternoon.

I know I cetainly wouldn’t have voluntarily gone on a complete fast druing my “due” week, but even though I’m still not *completely* clear of the congestion and coughing, I know that the FAST, the PRAYER, and the extra amounts of BARLEY GREEN have all helped to restore my health and strength before I go into labor, AND will help my body provide healthier milk for my little one when he/she comes.
For more information on Barley Green check our website catalog [if you have trouble with that link, go here and then in the table of contents click on AIM Juice Powders] Or go to the AIM site where you can order it direct to YOU. [Barley Green is now called Barley Life [If you have trouble with the link, go to AIM, then click on Product Store > Shop Product Groups > AIM Barley Life > traditional powder ] There is a lot of information you can get while you are there.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa
Me and My House

Ditching the Junk and Detoxing 1

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Greetings from Me and My House,

I would venture that most of you are like me and the hardest thing about getting started – or re-started! – eating right is the detox process. Our appetites have gotten addicted to whatever our downfall is – sugar?, meat?, dairy? and those things are all very addictive – and it’s so hard to make it through those first few days without it. The only way I’ve seen it work is COLD-TURKEY. As long as you keep feeding an addiction “just a little bit”, it won’t go away. We tell ourselves “this is it, just a little” but then our body continues to crave it, and we continue to feed it, and the cycle goes on.

I find one of the best ways to aid in staving off the addictions is to make sure that I’m eating PLENTY of the good stuff, that I’m not allowing myself to become hungry. When I become hungry AND I’m craving the junk, it’s just too easy to give in, because somehow the junk is usually easily accessible. Which is why a cardinal rule at our house is the junk doesn’t come in the house. (OK, my dear sweet husband breaks it sometimes.) Anyhow, eating lots of the good stuff isn’t going to make you fat, and I believe in the “grazing” principle of eating – i.e. throughout the day rather than 3 strict “meals”, we do eat 3 meals but we also allow snacks of good for you foods available at anytime. Have them on hand and ready to eat! A piece of fruit or a handful of nuts can satisfy a sweet tooth or fill the protein pit. They may not give you the emotional satisfaction of the junk, but they can help you overcome the craving and when coupled with PRAYER!!!!!, they can do the trick. I also find that Fresh Juices and Barley Green [now Barley Life, also Barley Max] really help in overcoming the cravings. When you are pouring a lot of concentrated nutrients into your body, it doesn’t cry out as much. Another tip to getting through the detoxification process sooner, and with less stress, is to drink plenty of pure water with fresh lemon juice in it, or Lemon Essential Oil. It really helps your body make it through detox. The Lemon juice speeds up the getting the toxins out of the body, and a non-toxic body desires the good stuff.

The other way, is just the opposite, and usually works faster, but requires a special grace. That is to fast. It is the quickest way to detox and get over cravings. But it’s usually harder emotionally on us. For some people though it’s easier to not eat ANYTHING, than to only not eat what they are craving. Using the Lemon Water, and possibly the Fresh Juices/ Barley Green [ now Barley Life] for a 3-plus days fast will do wonders for our bodies. And give us a fresh start when coming back to foods, only the GOOD ones. When going into or coming out of a fast have your last meal before the fast and your first meal after the fast be a fresh veggie salad (no heavy dressing, preferably only lemon juice). Watermelon or *organic* grapes can also be used to break a fast. Have your next meal be a baked potato with a salad, or some plain brown rice with a salad. You want fresh and easy to digest foods to reawaken your digestive system. Whatever you do don’t eat a heavy meal, and don’t break your fast by eating the junk foods you just went off of. Your body will thank you.

Detoxing is not a pleasant experience, but it is a GREATLY rewarding one. One you will be VERY GLAD you did. Victory feels SO GOOD.

Well, plenty more on this topic, but enough for now. A 2 year old needs her momma.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa – who’s needing to detox – again – before this baby comes in the next week or so!!