Exclusivity: Sometimes you have to say no to say yes

Recently, my husband Corey and I took a vacation to Nicaragua. We drank mojitos, indulged in a few too many glasses of wine, smoked cigars, ate anything that was made with nicaraguan cocoa, or caught locally, or farmed locally or anything we could justify stuffing in our gut. Basically, we had an amazing time. We did, however, over-do it a bit. On our flight from Panama to JFK, we built out our detox plan.

---

I’m not the kind of person who enjoys the word “No”. As in NO I can’t do that, NO I can’t say that and especially, NO I can’t eat that. I was raised by man who would literally eat a leather shoe if it had enough garlic on it. So setting up any kind of non-inclusive diet makes me anxious. In the household I was raised in, the vegetarian, or non-dairy or carb-free dieters were referred to as the “picky eaters”.

I went through my first “detox diet” just after my wedding. I’ve had excema bordering on psoriasis for my whole life. It’s fine in winter and terrible in summer. In the weeks leading up to my June 1 manhattan wedding, it was unbearable and more importantly to me, unattractive. I woke the morning after my bachelorette party (the day of my wedding rehearsal) with such bad scaling on my eyelids that I was barely able to open my eyes. The pictures of my wedding rehearsal? Buried far underground. 

So I wasn’t surprised when I went to an eastern medicine doctor a few days into being Mrs. Corey Loftus, and found out I was allergic to alcohol. 

Alcohol? At my Bachelorette Party? Why I never! It was only…what? MAYBE six bottles of pink champagne at Bagatelle between three women.
Of course after Champagne with dinner at the Ace Hotel… and a mimosa brunch with the parents at The Boat House.

The doctor and my acupuncturist also recommended I take a month to discover what else I could be allergic to. For the following month, I pretty much ate rice and lettuce and slowly re-introduced foods one at a time. From this, I discovered that I had a slight milk, egg and wheat allergy. 

So, fast forward to last week, we are on the plane from Panama to New York and we make a plan for a detox:

NO dairy
NO soy
NO pink or red meats
NO processed sugars
NO wheat
NO alcohol (processed sugars, right?)
NO veggie or sunflower or conola or cottonseed oil 

How do I frame this for myself to encourage commitment? Excitement, even?

1. It’s for a finite period of time. The end-date is in my sights. I can always push it back, but I have an out if I want it.
2. It’s an experiment. I’m constantly taking stock of how I feel and what I crave. I’m committed, because I can’t tamper with the data. If I secretly ate a meatball on Tuesday, how can I tell if I’m craving red meat because I ate it yesterday or because my body needs it.
3. I get creative. I head to china town or a local farmers market and pick up massive roots like yucca or alien fruits like rambutan and get googling. 
4. It’s a fresh start for my shopping list main-stays. It’s a time to think about things that I pick up SOMETIMES thinking…”this will be a healthy snack” and letting them sub in.

I’ll check back in letting you know how it goes. Be sure to check out all the recipes I’ll be posting that follow all these exclusions.

Let me know what you are thinking of letting go of. Have you done a detox diet before?

---

---

written by Francesca Loftus
Chatterbox - Clown - Task Juggler

Francesca is a CEO and yogi, on a mission to have the most number of jobs in the world.
francesca [at] iamhom [dot] com

---