WF Detox -Part 1-

On Thursday the 14th of Ocober, 2011, I began a whole-foods-only detox.

The view behind this is that the foods that enter our body can and does affect our overall health - and later, I will share with you why I started this crazy idea to eat only whole foods.
Today, most foods contain all kinds of preservatives, flavourings, thickeners, stabilisers, acids… and much more, that our bodies just do not need! Imagine a car, whose owner fills up the petrol tank with a mixture of water, various oils, and maybe even tar (yes, I realize those substances are completely random. This is my point). Now look at your own body and think about what you feed it every day. Do you feed it the foods that your body was originally designed to consume, or is it a bit overloaded at the moment with many foods that, really, when you think about it, probably aren’t doing your body much good at all?

I began this detox when my family was on holidays – perfect, so I could watch what I ate, and not worry about what everyone else was eating!! From Wednesday the 12th of October, I began to watch what I was eating, and, except for a few leftovers that needed to be eaten, ate only whole foods.

I continued eating my normal soaked oats with quinoa and dates for breakfast. For lunches, I made salads. One of these salads was a red kidney bean and corn salad, which I adapted – I used peas instead of the kidney beans, as we didn’t have any kidney beans in the pantry – and it was delicious! I loved the lemon and spice flavourings. I began eating only fruit, vegetables and nuts for my snacks, and had corn thins for one meal.

I began feeling quite nauseated on the Friday afternoon, after I ate only half of my plain salad sprinkled with pepper for lunch (no cheese, no meat, and practically no flavouring. I think this may have been what messed with my poor tummy). I couldn’t quite put my finger on the full reason of why I didn’t feel so good. By Saturday afternoon, it really was not good. I went to a party with a friend, and when the foods came out, they included a salad platter. Originally I thought, “Perfect! Soemthing I can eat!” But after a few moments, I realized just seeing the salad made me feel sick. I began to realize then, that I may have gone into this detox too quickly! It didn’t even enter my mind to ease into this different way of eating. To perhaps allow one or two food items a day, like bread or cheese or some other packaged food.

But, since I hadn’t done that, I had to suffer the consequences!! I felt ill for the next 3 days, and struggled to eat very much. I steered away from salads, and made Lamb & Spinach Koftas and Chicken Lentil Curry - I ate these over and over again for the following days.

Come back to read more of my WF Detox story!

~Rachel