Emma’s Detox

My little gorgeous niece has learnt how to crawl! I am planning on popping in for a demonstration on the way to clinic so will add a photo of her in action. My brother has been frantically coordinating the expansion of his physiotherapy business. He has relocated to huge premises and is opening on Monday. I will be practising there and also running my HypnoBirthing classes weekly. I am very excited about this as I know he will create an awesome space with a lot of great energy.I stayed up till 1am working, as did my cat Simba (see picture), so I slept until my book keeper phoned at 9am! I haven’t slept in that late for ages but I must have needed a catch up. Apparently it is going to be filthy hot this weekend and I have a Reiki course all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to go to Bondi early morning for my swim. As I missed the gym this morning, I will go for a swim at Golden Door when I arrive tomorrow night.Breakfast was cereal, fruit and yoghurt – for some reason on this detox I haven’t been eating many eggs. I could make frittata for lunch or dinner quite easily as it is a great protein source but eggs don’t appeal at the moment. Lunch was left over salad from dinner which I snacked on between seeing patients.I had a social outing this evening which is probably the first big one for 3 weeks. I felt good about it before I went – I am not tempted by alcohol or bad food. The only thing I was concerned about were the options available for dinner! I […]

I had a crazy day in clinic today – even my 15 minutes breaks ended up being used for acute phone consults! So it is late and I have just finished writing reports to GPs and psychologists – not my favourite part of being a naturopath but a necessary one.I used about 6 lychees with my cereal this morning along with a kiwi and it was a taste bud sensation. I took left over salad of rocket, sugar snaps, cucumber and avocado for my mid morning snack. All my friends laugh at me as they know that I often eat left over salad before I go to the gym in the morning. It started when I was younger – I have always enjoyed making salads but I always made so much that we never ate it all at dinner.So I would stand with the fridge door open in the morning pondering what to eat for breakfast and the salad would just scream out to me “EAT ME!!!” So I did. I then began researching what traditional cultures ate in the morning and I discovered that the cereal and toast phenomenon was a relatively recent invention. In China they eat congee, in Japan it’s miso, in Greece it’s fetta, olives with coffee etc. So our Western version of toast and jam or cereal with milk is what we feel we are supposed to eat, but is it really the best start to the day? Why can’t breakfast be savoury and more substantial? Have you ever heard of the expression “eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner”? So, if you are getting bored with your breakfasts, think outside […]

Well, at least I woke up nice and early due to going to bed at a reasonable time for a change. The gym was not as busy and I felt great by the time I was stretching an hour later. Today’s breakfast was muesli, sheep’s milk yoghurt and half a dozen lychees. I love this fruit and just devour them when they are in season.I then went for “coffee” and made the radical decision to have a soy chai latte. Well, never again! It was just like drinking hot milk and did not appeal to me at all. One thing that you need to ask if you are ordering chai is “do you use syrup or do you brew the herbs to order?” I kept having women complain to me that they couldn’t lose weight even though they were taking their herbs and supplements, exercising and eating well. After some investigation work it turned out that this subset of patients were all drinking soy chai lattes! If the syrup is used then this drink is high in calories, about 250 per cup, which takes quite a while to burn off at the gym. So, now I ask them to avoid this drink completely and stick to my herbal tea instead as it contains a little ginger which supports a healthy metabolism.IKU provided a lovely lunch – I adore their cabbage and beetroot salad as just looking at it makes me feel healthy. I then had ocean trout and yellow fin tuna with salad for dinner. Now, a little about yellow fin tuna – this is a smaller, faster growing species than the blue fin tuna. Hence it is a far more sustainable choice to […]

I woke early to fit in a 20 minutes spa and a 20 minutes steam session. In the spa I aim the jets at any wobbly bits and make my plans for the week. In the steam room I do my meditation – that is called multi tasking! I am not too sore after my big cardio session yesterday but I think that is due to the Epsom salt bath last night. Being high in magnesium Epsom salts relax muscles as well as reducing lactic acid build up.I had fruit, sheep’s milk yoghurt and LSA for breakfast followed by a mid morning smoothie of berries, banana and soy milk. Lunch consisted of a beautiful quiche with fetta, spinach, cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs. As this dish is so high in protein it keeps me feeling full for ages which is unusual for me. At 6pm when I finished I jumped in the car and drove home from the Hunter, spending the driving time to return phone calls.I am rather excited as I need to book plane tickets to Thailand for August – I haven’t had a holiday for over 2 years so I am dying for some sun and relaxation. I can imagine now, afternoon cocktails by the pool, massage on the beach, oh I am there already!Dinner was light – miso, almonds, black sesame crackers, white nectarines and an apple.  More like a picnic than dinner but occasionally I like to graze and have a few different flavours. Do you know how shiny my hair is – it’s amazing the subtle changes detox causes. I love it!

As it was the weekend I made my weekly early morning run to Bondi beach and although the water was icy it was incredibly refreshing. I usually take the Sunday magazine to read between swims but I forgot. The nippers provided plenty of entertainment instead, they look so tiny with those big yellow boards almost as big as they are! I had a decaf soy flat white on the way home – I figure 3 weeks in that I can have a treat!I was starving by the time I got home as I only had a white peach and some hot water with lemon when I woke up. As I wanted to head to the gym I made a smoothie with 2 bananas and 1 cup of berries with all my other usual ingredients. I added extra banana for the energy and bananas are also high in potassium which is great when you sweat it out at the gym.Now, get ready to cheer – my time on the rower today was an incredibly 10 minutes and 4 seconds! I use music and my HypnoBirthing training to get through the pain threshold but I have to admit that I felt like vomiting when I finished – my heart rate was up at 171 so no wonder! I then used the cross trainer and did a hill session which almost had me crying. I missed the yoga class this morning so I did some stretching instead.I had a fresh juice of pineapple, apple and mint which is one of my all time favourites – it’s perfect on a hot day if you blend it with ice and make a frappe. Lunch was once again from a […]

So, this morning I weighed myself at the gym and it seems that my weight is the same as when I started. I haven’t used these scales before so it will be interesting to see what Jess has to say at my reassessment in 10 days. I know my body is much more toned and my muscle mass has increased. My wobbly bits are less wobbly and in fact I feel good at the beach now. I wouldn’t like to do a Pamela run across the soft sand but none the less I could do a stroll comfortably!I went to the gym and hit 10 minutes 43 seconds on the rower so a little behind my best time. My technique with all the exercises is much better and I really concentrate to get that right before I go for repetitions. Once I finish this detox I may ask jess to split my program so I can do upper body one day then lower body the next. This makes for a very efficient workout as it is quicker but harder.I had a breakfast of gluten free muesli with a heap of summer fruit (love passionfruit right now), sheep’s milk yoghurt and apple juice. I then went to the organic markets and picked up some fresh produce for the next week. I found those little Abbas apples again and they are just gorgeous. I also bought two big bunches of flowers for myself – I have a tradition to make sure I do this regularly. I am a herbalist after all and flowers make me smile – both visually and olfactory.Lunch was on the run – a shop bought salad of spinach and pumpkin – I […]

Ok, so my aim for this detox was to get back on track with my exercise after a very lazy Christmas period. I also aim to include a complete gut repair program which includes a parasite cleanse. Then I will do a heavy metal chelation program towards the end. So for the first week or so I focused on making sure my bowels were working really well and taking anti parasite herbs with probiotics as well as liver herbs ( and a few dozen peripheral things as well!).  Then i moved the focus onto gut repair and a liver cleanse.I also journal my dreams as often I receive intuitive messages via them. Once I was told to take a B vitamin in my dreams, I had pathology done and lo and behold I was deficient! I definitely do an emotional cleanse – I think about the last 6 months and what has negatively affected me. This detox I wrote a letter, posted it and immediately felt lighter and that the issue was resolved.So here is a list of what I take (you will never again ask me why you need the 5 different things I give you!)Liquid detox herbs, individually formulated amino acids that upregulate detoxification pathways in the liver, probiotics, aloe vera juice, anti parasite tablets, high potency antioxidant, zinc, magnesium, a multi, CoQ10, fish oils, a powder for gut repair ( glutamine, slippery elm etc), powdered greens for alkalising and of course chlorophyll. I am sure I have forgotten something but I guess you get the idea.Detoxing must be individually formulated in order to get the best results. A 23 year old girl is going to have completely different requirements to a […]

This morning I did Pilates from a DVD at home. I stayed up till midnight working so am feeling a little jaded and not up to an intense cardio workout. Breakfast was my gluten free cereal, oh wait a minute. I forgot to tell you what I add to this. So, into the big jar with the cereal go goji berries and nuts and seeds that I toast with shoyu, a Japanese soy sauce. It is similar to tamari but milder in flavour. By doing this I am increasing the antioxidant properties and protein levels of my breakfast. Then on top I added fresh blueberries, nectarines, sheep’s milk yoghurt and apple juice.I felt like a coffee today – perhaps because I was up late but I haven’t even thought about coffee for at least 4 days. I often hit a mental slump 2 weeks in and I think I may be suffering from that now. I start to feel that I need to look outside or elsewhere for food. Perhaps it is because I am not eating any starchy carbs except for the occasional bowl of cereal.I will make sure I eat quinoa (keen-wah) tonight and focus on that for the next few days. I adore this ancient grain and give out thanks to whoever decided to commercialise it. Quinoa has been grown in the Andes for 5,000 years and it reputedly kept the Incan armies strong and robust.  It comes from Bolivia and is a Fair Trade product which means that there is no middle man and the people who grow and tend to the crops actually receive a fair amount for their work. This alone will give you warm fuzzies when you […]

I had my usual hot water with lemon when I woke up and I tend to sip it as I check emails. I had an achacha and a white nectarine to start and then my breakfast smoothie which was just amazing – wait for it! The ingredients were oat milk, probiotic, passionfruit, banana, berries, pureed apple with cinnamon and flaxseed oil. I love this start to the day as it provides energy as well as protein.I have noticed in the last few days that I am starting to get bruises again. My ferritin levels are always low (max 33!) so it is something I keep an eye on. I need to take iron supplements with digestive enzymes during my period and I forgot this month. As I am not eating meat either, my levels must have dropped and the symptoms are returning. Mainly I have easy bruising and dizziness. My energy levels are still great but I am putting so many incredible things into my body I am not surprised! I will focus on more iron foods such as parsley, figs and prunes.I took some more fruit to work to snack on as I love lychees and white nectarines at the moment. Lunch was at the ever faithful IKU and I always enjoy their food. You can feel the goodness making its way into your cells. I become very sensitive during a detox, both physically and energetically. It feels like my body isn’t clouded with excess “stuff” and is operating the way it did 2,000 years ago when we were running from dinosaurs! I think with caffeine, as much as I adore it, my adrenals run overtime and I tend to thrive on nervous […]