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Healthy New Year 'Family-style'
Following on from our Naturopath Helen's facebook post '8 tips for Detoxing after the Retox season' from earlier this week http://www.facebook.com/#!/NourishEd?sk=notes here is a 'family-style' interpretation.
As a mother of 4 young kids including a baby who is still breastfeeding then my ‘retox season’ probably isn’t that typical. Helen points out that the post-Christmas period is one of the most common times for people to get sick as a combination of stress and indulgence puts pressure on the body. In our house it’s kind of the reverse of that in that we often feel at our best just after Christmas. The holidays allow for more time to cook, for the family to be together therefore lower the stress involved in caring for the kids, and the fact it’s high summer here (kind of – at least half the time, this is Wellington after all!) and there is no school / kindy / playgroup means that the kids get to run around in outside all day without the stress of a schedule to stick to. However, that said we are definitely guilty of indulging a little more over the long summer. Ice-cream for morning tea... just because, Christmas chocolate, a glass of wine over a lunch play-date rather than the usual cup of tea, hot chips at the zoo.. so OK perhaps we do need that de-tox after all.
Helen’s first recommendation is to drink more water. That’s pretty easy as a mother as you get a bit obsessed with water in the hot weather, constantly hovering around the kids with water bottles and ensuring they aren’t so busy playing they get dehydrated. One of the great things about breast feeding is that it stimulates thirst to remind you to drink so that’s a very clever in-built ‘drink’ alarm also.
Recommendation number 2 is to drink a herbal liver cleansing tea. Again this is an easy one for me as I have a bit of an evening ritual going with herbal teas – I have a very cute little bodum teapot and the common sense organics herbal tea section is like an adult version of ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ for me. You can get all this individual packs of the dried flowers and herbs for about $3 each and they all have gorgeous names and descriptions of their wonderful health benefits. At the moment I’m in a calendula, camomile and fresh mint from the garden phase – I have no idea if that’s specifically ‘liver cleansing’ but I’d guess it’s pretty good. Making my pot of tea usually around 9pm signifies all the kids are in bed and I may have a few moments to sit back and relax before the wake-ups start. Can easily drink a whole pot of 3 or 4 cups. Again I doubt this is as great an idea as spreading the cups out through the day there we go – you need a flexible approach when you have 4 kids and this works for me!
Recommendation number 3 is to get juicing. We do have a juice-maker and every time we get it out and make fresh juice we watch the kids glugging down all that goodness and asking for more and we say ‘ we should do this way more often – it’s so great’ and then the juicer has to be taken apart and washed which actually isn’t even that bad as we’ve got a pretty good model but then it ends up back in the cupboard and we forget about it again for another couple of weeks. So this is definitely one to try a bit harder with.
Recommendation number 4 is to sweat. Sorry but going to have to pass on this one – my back is still too sore (although slowly but surely improving thanks to Grant) to do anything that will work up a sweat.. still at the gentle walking phase and looking on in envy at people jogging round the south coast – their bodies look impossibly supple compared to my cranky , clunky back ..plus they don’t have any small people strapped to them. However, my kids are pretty good at working up a sweat on the tramp, in the park etc.
Recommendation number 5 is to eat lots of raw veggies and fruit. Again an easy tick for us. When you’re providing 3 meals and 2 snacks a day for a gang of hungry boys then lots of opportunities to get the fruit and veggies in. Raw peas straight from the pod are the number one favourite thing at our place right now but the list is pretty endless. Eating raw is so easy in the summer.
Recommendation number 6 is to get into the cruciferous veg – we’re probably guilty of being a bit same-y from this selection (the cruciferous ones typically are the least appealing to the kids I find) but what we lack in variety we make up for in broccoli…because it’s so easy to stick in the steamer and everyone likes it and it’s super-cheap right now.
Recommendation number 7 is to get into ensure getting enough zinc and selenium. Again this is an easy one – plenty of beef , nuts and sesame seeds on the menu here.
8 th and final recommendation is to drink a spoon of apple cider vinegar in water before meals. This is a tricky one to manage for me – the pre-meal build up with all the kids underfoot tends to be a little insane at our place and I’m usually more focused on drawing breath than mixing up cider vinegar drinks.. in fact at this stage in the day if I stop and think about a drink it’s probably going to be a craving for a large glass of wine.
So that’s my take on Helen’s tips for a healthy new year – anyone else got any tips on what works for their family?
Amy
Posted by Amy Black on 12th January, 2012 | Comments | Trackbacks
Tags: detox, water, raw food, herbal tea
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