For the first time in 8 years, I have a break from nursing and being pregnant. Though I have been slowly detoxing over the years, I know I still have issues unresolved that need attending to. Toxic medications from hospital births (my first 4 were in the hospital, and my last 4 have been at home), synthetic hormones and chemicals from birth control pills (the years before God dealt with me not only on how harmful they were for my health, but how I needed to trust Him in our child bearing years), and many other food toxins (preservatives, additives, chemicals… from the years before we were on a Real Food lifestyle) have all hidden themselves and wreaked havoc in my digestive and endocrine systems.

In an effort to detox from my previously toxic, typical American lifestyle, I have used herbs, essential oils, fermented foods, GAPS diet, and supplements to heal and clean out my body. But recently, in dealing with diverticulitis I have found that nothing I have done before was helping. I stepped out of my comfort zone and looked into other means of healing, reconnecting, and detoxing. Extremely pleased with the results, I am continuing on with this course until I have completed my healing. To me, complete healing will be – a fully functioning endocrine and digestive system.

The current therapies I have been trying out have been acupuncture and ionic foot bath detoxing. At first I felt exhausted after each session, but I know that detoxing and healing side effects often include feeling worse before you feel better. The more I read on acupuncture, the more it makes sense that over the years my connections in the body have been damaged, and inefficient with all the toxins clogging up the system. Acupuncture is a way of stimulating those connections to rebuild and re-establish their vitality by detoxing and waking up. This is crucial for people who have been healing a particular gland or organ for years, but as soon as they stop their supplements or get off their special diet, they regress. This indicates that the connections are not rebuilt and the organ is still not fully detoxed. For me, acupuncture is reconnecting and the ionic foot bath is detoxing out junk I have been unable to get with herbs and diet.

The only catch with these therapies is that you have to go up to 10 times to really see the improvements. It takes time to rebuild a body, especially after years of abuse. Nearing the end of my use of these therapies, I can now see how important they are in rebuilding from a host of dysfunctioning body systems.

Lastly, since I have had such issues with my thyroid and endocrine system, I still have the 20 pounds from my last pregnancy I need to get rid of. This is where the integrated juice fast comes in. In order to maintain my metabolism, I am juice fasting for one day on and two days off. On the two days off, I am keeping to a Paleo/Gaps like diet, eating salad only for dinner and having a tea or something for later. The evenings are the worst with the diverticulitis. I feel like I am going to explode. Yuck.

My goal here is to finish losing the baby fat, as well as allow some down time for my colon to finish healing. My overachiever goal is to be done in 10 days. My realistic goal might be two weeks. We will see how quickly my body wants to cooperate. I will post updates, recipes, and testimonials as I go. Here’s to be completely whole again!