As of this first Monday of May, Waterloo Region’s Vibrant Living (vibrant-living.ca) is hosting its second annual community wide detox. It’s free, you’re only accountable to yourself, you get awesome recipes, feed good vibes, and a free hot yoga class.

Sounds great right? What I sort of don’t get, however, is that fact that each of us (including me) spend two weeks detoxing like mad and then eat cruddy for the remainder of the year. Isn’t the whole point of detoxing to improve one’s permanent lifestyle? No, wait, I do get it… there are just too many temptations out there.

So once again, I’m part of the challenge, and this year, I’m going 100%. Last year, I kept beer in my diet. No more. I am going to use this plan as a way to a better lifestyle! (I think I said this last year)

Perhaps a small back story is needed. I have detoxed many times before. I just came out of a Weight Loss Challenge. I practice hot yoga religiously and also do a variety of extreme sports. I am a veteran. However, the last two weeks I have been under extreme stress. Less than 4 hours sleep every night, black circles under eyes, new wrinkles, and the worst part? 10 pounds straight to my waistline of stress weight. When the body is stressed it retains fat as a protective response, and most stress fat is stored in the abdominal area, a place where fat isn’t supposed to go. So hello ab flub.

This detox is to help rid me of this little horror and also perhaps to help me move towards a raw food diet. Now, before I get any calls for going “hippy” or “idealist”, I am still debating on this choice and have been thinking/researching a lot on it. But I deviate, let me continue about this detox.

When I woke up this morning, I felt poisoned with all the things I put in my body. The night before I had engaged in a ridiculous amount of indulgences as a final farewell before today’s new menus. And believe me, you can really smell the toxins on one’s body (BO anyone? Toots?) When I put that green smoothie in my system (which I also mistakenly put in 2 cups of cilantro), it wreaked deathly detox havoc on my digestive tracts so much that I could have just given up right there. I had to crawl/limp my way to hot yoga and was even late for the class as a result. It was a messy day.

What do I get from all of this? Personal satisfaction for sticking it through all day. A joy for trying this path once again despite all setbacks. Sure, you get withdrawal symptoms, or nausea and discomfort like I did, but celebrate it as part of the cleaning process. It always gets worse before it gets better, and consider your detox symptoms good! It means it’s working!

Our bodies is what keeps us alive. We have to respect it…