I decided to try Adina Niemerow’s Super Cleanse again.

The last time I tried it for a few days I felt fantastic and stopped drinking coffee completely. I weaned myself onto it by cutting out dairy first, which cut out the coffee since I was drinking about 1/3 a cup of pure cream or Half & Half (whichever was available) every day with my 2/3 pot of very strong coffee.  Then I cut out wine and started cooking dinner earlier which made my family much happier. I wrote the goal of 6PM on my refrigerator blackboard for dinner and it’s moved dinner from 7:30PM to between 6 and 6:30PM. This was also a move from summer late sunsets and later eating in general.

This time with the cleanse, I did the One-Day Wonder Cleanse. It involves the least amount of work in my opinion. I did not feel as good this time and had a headache most of the day. I had green juice for breakfast, the Blissful Blend Broth for lunch and the Satisfy-Me Broth for Dinner. I also had a salad as a snack. I felt myself detoxing when  went to bed by sweating a lot and woke up very early. The next day (yesterday), I continued with other cleanse menu items. I had the Rush Hour Coconut shake for breakfast, then a Beauty smoothie as a snack. I still had a headache though. For lunch I had some butternut squash soup I bought at the market. By dinner my headache had  not subsided, so I decided to eat some of the brown rice and eggplant I was serving everyone else. After that my headache went away.

I realized when I did this last time I was doing cleanse foods all day, and then eating a conservative, limited meal with dinner. I felt great, so I will try that for the next few days.

Today, I again woke up early and I have to say, my skin looks fantastic. And I do not have a headache! There really is something to the skin and body revitalizing through simple foods. We are healthy eaters in my family, but I have a tendency to cook a lot of grilled proteins whether they are chicken, red meats, fish or shellfish. I feel much better with lighter fare.

Yes, my husband would not eat a raw diet or do a cleanse unless his life depended on it and maybe not even then! As for the kids, and I have 4, they will eat the salads in Nadina’s book. Try the watermelon salad, it’s quite tastey. There are some bases in the book also that I plan to try on the family. They are bean/grain combinations like millet and garbanzo beans, with spices and are called kitchari. I thought the kids might like them, and I’ll let you know if mine do! Just thinking of ways to integrate new food ideas and habits….always a slow process, but worth it.

warmest regards~zoe

My name is Zoe Sexton and this is my idea for helping people manage their households, and push myself to get on with my writing life.
I am a mother to four children still at home ages 16, 15, 4, and 2. There is great humor and some moments of frustration in that, but I am the type of person who doesn’t dally around with what was or what could have been. I always deal with what is and enjoy being an analytical problem solver—the primary job of any mom!
I grew up in rural Northern California; at least it was when I lived there. Now such visitors as Price Charles and his lovely mistress, Camilla, have dignified it. It has also become a well-known name in organic foods, from vegetables, to meats, poultry, cheese and flowers. If you haven’t guessed, the place is Point Reyes. Growing up, we were on the poor side, with artists for parents and mostly without a very stable living situation until I was in junior high. We lived in other people’s garages and had a nursery school in our house.
I did manage to get into a private high school with the support of my mother and my grandparents, and things shifted mentally for me from there. I graduated from UCSB, and two kids later, as a single mom, picked up an MBA.

What am I doing here? Well, it’s inherent in my nature to puzzle things out and I figure there has got to be a balance in every household between eating healthy, living the fullest life you can, staying organized without going insane, or making critical sacrifices. I look around and I see the sacrifices people make in the name of their families, which really do more harm than good and cause more problems in the long run. Eating late, buying processed (even organic processed) foods, not spending time, getting going too fast with schedules that are too full. I’m here to say, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and there is another way. 

So keep checking in with my website as I bring in more writers, articles, art, recipes, menus, suggestions and communities that will help you find your way in balancing your household, family, relationships and lifestyle.