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| <back | home Spring Cleaning ~ Using Diet and Yoga by Debbie Bennett and Shelley Massa-Gooch Spring, with its onset of warmer weather, longer days, and renewed life is an ideal season to incorporate a detox/cleanse into the diet. Stop for a moment and consider your current lifestyle. Are you consuming a clean diet of whole foods? Is your air clean and the water you drink pure? Are you relaxed and stress-free? Or, on the flipside, are you feeling tired, congested, run down, susceptible to illness, overweight, fighting allergies, edgy? Most of us lie somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, but wish to feel better, look better, have more peace of mind, and feel more relaxed. Reaching a state of optimal health is an admirable goal and one to be taken seriously. Too often, it is easier to accept the tiredness and aches and pains as simply aging instead of making changes to improve life and strive in a truly healthy environment. According to the World Health Organization, “Health is more than the absence of disease. Health is a state of optimal well-being”. Although toxicity is not the only reason for physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms, it is often a major contributing factor. Unfortunately we live in a relatively toxic environment with pollution of many types; water, air, noise, information overload, stress, hectic yet rather sedentary lifestyles, and more. The process of detoxification can be accomplished with small steps that will ultimately lead to great changes. One step in detoxification is to identify toxins in your life and bring your attention to the many simple choices you can make to reduce their impact. A detoxification on a dietary basis is a relatively easy way to make significant changes. Thomas Edison once stated, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Diet is an element of our lives that we control. We decide what to eat, when to eat it, and how much to eat. Making proper dietary changes often results in significant health improvements. We are all exposed to thousands of toxins and chemicals on a daily basis at work, in the home, through the air we breathe, our food and water supply, and through the use of pharmaceutical drugs. In addition, we are eating more sugar and processed foods than ever before in human history and regularly abuse our bodies with various stimulants and sedatives. These toxins and “dead” foods lead to poor digestion, constipation, toxic colon build-up, weight gain and low energy. These common symptoms are more than just an inconvenience – they can lead to long-term health problems and serious disease. Consider this; we shower, brush our teeth and wash our hair on a daily basis, but we tend to ignore cleansing our inside until some form of disease sends us a wake-up call. Our diet of processed foods does not deliver the optimal nourishment our bodies require. Since over a lifetime, more than 25 tons of food move along the digestive pathway, it is crucial that the food be healthy. Whole, nutrient dense foods, supply superior quality that has not been refined, irradiated, and sprayed with chemicals. This ideal food is loaded with the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes our bodies need for healthy survival. Simply moving away from packaged foods and towards fresh, local produce is a step in the detoxification direction. A simple exercise to use is to take stock of your kitchen. Look in your cupboards, freezer, and refrigerator and judge the balance between the boxes, bags, and cans of food versus the fresh produce. Using a clean, nutrient-dense food plan will lead you towards a kitchen full of fresh produce with a very small amount of the processed foods. According to Hippocrates, “Man is not nourished by what he swallows, but by what he digests and uses”. When food lacking in enzymes is consumed, it results in internal toxicity. Eating foods that are rich in enzymes (raw, fresh, organic produce) averts the formation of internal toxins and flushes out toxins that are lingering. Enzymes are the catalysts to every chemical reaction of the body and are extremely important to the digestive process. One responsibility is to facilitate optimal nutrient delivery and the efficient excretion of wastes at the cellular level. When enzymes are in ample supply, their work keeps the body performing at its highest level. In this optimal state, more effective detoxification can take place. The body’s basic requirements are water, air, protein, carbohydrates, fat, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes. The first seven are the building materials for a healthy body, and enzymes are the workers that turn materials into a finished product. Enzymes put together and take apart the materials. This includes taking apart the components of food and converting them into substances the body can use. When processed, nutrient-poor food is consumed it arrives with little or no active enzymes left so the body must use its own enzymes to digest the food. This often results in food being only partially digested and left to putrefy and ferment in the large intestines, which leads to slow bowel transit, and often more serious health problems such as cancer and other diseases. Raw, whole food aides in detoxification since it arrives in our bodies packed full of living enzymes (that have not been cooked or processed out). These natural enzymes help our internal enzymes in the digestion process as soon as the food enters the mouth and throughout the remaining steps of digestion. In addition to the digestive enzymes there are thousands of metabolic enzymes used in the body for millions of functions. For example, antioxidant enzymes are crucial for the destruction of free radicals. Other metabolic enzymes fight cancer, reduce inflammation, and support healthy immune function. The richer the diet is in enzymes, the more efficiently all of the enzyme systems can function. Another readily available method of detoxification is the practice of yoga which helps bring balance into our physical and ultimately mental world. A yoga practice will tone the whole body, strengthen bones, muscles and joints, aid in correct posture, improve the ability to breath and increase overall energy. Even when eating the most nourishing food, it still has to be digested and assimilated properly and the toxins have to be eliminated efficiently. As we get older the digestive system functions with gradually reducing efficiency. Practicing yoga poses (asanas) cleanses and detoxifies the body, assists in the process of digestion and elimination by increasing the circulation of fresh blood through the body. Yoga asanas, if done properly and under the supervision of a skilled teacher, result in an improved blood and nerve supply to the digestive and eliminative systems, which in time combined with a clean diet rich in enzymes, will help these systems function at peak efficiency. Asanas also benefit the internal organs by massaging and stimulating them resulting in healthier internal organs that will function better and last longer. Another benefit of yoga is the safe and moderate stretching of the joints. Similar to the “stress” put on muscles that results in stronger and healthier muscles, moderate “stress” applied to joints during a yoga practice causes the secretion of synovial fluid. This lubricant is released into the joints and keeps them supple, as well as removing waste products (another form of detoxification). Yoga can be used to realign and detoxify the physical body, particularly the spine. It also builds a foundation of considerable physical strength, especially important to those concerned with the loss of muscle mass which results in a slowing of metabolism. Breathing is essential to all life. It is a means of acquiring vital oxygen and of exhaling unnecessary carbon dioxide. Exhalation is one method of detoxification in the body’s employment. In a yoga practice, breath is what brings the asanas to life allowing for deeper movement and massage of inner organs. Have you ever purposefully taken stock of your breathing? Are you like most individuals who only inhale into the top third of their lungs creating a shallow breath devoid of sufficient oxygen needed to feed the blood and brain? Do you wear restrictive clothing which compromises the ability to breathe deeply? A shallow inhale in turn produces a shallow exhale and the detoxification process is again compromised. Try this experiment adapted from Yoga Journal Breathing Ratio Chart. Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 1, exhale for 8 counts, and hold for 4. Repeat several times. Your counts may be faster or slower depending on your lung capacity. Do you feel more relaxed than before you started breathing in this style? See how different kinds of breathing can affect both energy and stress levels. Lengthening and then holding your exhalation after all the air is expelled relaxes, while lengthening and holding your inhalation increases energy. A well-rounded approach to detoxification employs many different eliminative processes such as diet, exercise, and breath work. As stated earlier, Spring is an optimal season to experience a detoxification using fresh, raw, and local produce; the practice of yoga; and basic breathing techniques. For those who are new to the detoxification process, experienced guidance is recommended. Debbie Bennett is a weight management and lifestyle coach as well as a nutritional counselor and vegan/raw food chef. She works on both a group and individual basis to help bring balance and health into life through the use of food. Shelley Massa-Gooch has been teaching yoga for nine years on the Central Coast and is certified through the Yoga Alliance. Her classes in yoga and weight and lifestyle management are offered throughout the county. Contact information: Debbie Bennett-805-550-2487 or dynamicwellness@charter.net Shelley Massa-Gooch-805-441-4003 or ShelleyMassa@UnFranchise.com <back | top^ |