PACK THE ESSENTIALS

First and foremost, I pack and bring all my supplements with me including my protein powder as well as other items such as Maca root powder and also 100% raw cacao. It is so good! No sweeteners, just full-on, pure, fermented (yes cacao is a fermented food) purely natural chocolate with nothing else with it. I am so used to it now that eating even 85% cacao chocolate bars are almost too sweet for me.

Raw cacao powder gives your body a massive hit of antioxidants (up to 20 times that of a blueberry) and more than 300 different chemical compounds.

MAKE YOUR FIRST STOP THE GROCERY STORE

 The first thing I do is to head to a proper grocery store before heading home to the family. My first stop is in the produce section. Stock up on some fresh fruit (great alternative for snacking or sweet cravings), and a variety of veggies. I also get the essentials like Himalayan crystal salt, quinoa, black beans, nut butter and coconut oil. Once I get the essentials, I am armed with good food! That is a huge step to staying on track.

VOLUNTEER TO COOK

 Once I have stocked up at the grocery store, a winning formula I use is to offer to cook for everyone!

This strategy won’t work for everyone and in every travel situation, but when it is possible, cooking for everyone lets you choose healthy foods and dishes.

I do always like to destroy the myth that healthy food does not taste good. In fact, I make it my mission to blow everyone away with how good the food is! It seems to always work.

So, with this plan, I get to

1. Cook my own food and control it!
2. Make food for my family (and hopefully blow them away)
3. Expose them to a wider variety of healthy food.

A win, win, win!

WHAT TO DO WHEN PEOPLE DON’T EAT LIKE YOU?

We must let go of judgment that our family must eat like us and/or live like us. All that does is create separation and makes people feel bad. I’ll admit, I used to do that. I’d get on my soapbox and preach because having been impacted by healthy eating for quite a few years, of course, I wanted to tell them everything I was learning and shout it to the world! But it does not, and did not, work.

I learned that the best approach is to focus on what I need by making my own food and invite others to try it. Totally an open invitation. Take it or leave it.

Also, I only offer advice when people are ACTUALLY asking for it.

It can be easy to want to share everything you’ve learned about food! But only give advice when asked…this will save you from fights! This is a rule of thumb I live by even beyond my family, applying it to friends and strangers as well.

BE YOU 

When I travel home, I am not afraid at all of asking for what I want and need when it comes to food and/or breaking out my own food.

Have you ever heard the quote, “Be You and Change the World?” Well, this is a perfect example. I honour who I am by the wonderful, nutrient-dense foods I choose to put in my body and I will not compromise that by feeling embarrassed or worrying that it may make someone else uncomfortable. I am not aggressive or rude about it, but it is my health, my body, my life, and that is what I do to honour it.

FAMILY AND EMOTIONAL EATING

It is so easy to get triggered by family. You know, having an argument, getting upset, getting annoyed…believe me, all those things happened to me once or twice. The truth is we are different people, living our own lives, and then, Bam! we are all together. So, this can still trigger some old patterns when we are around each other.

Also, all families have things over the years that have not been worked out yet, or that have dragged on and on. Sometimes, well most times, it comes out in unhealthy ways. But you can get through it!

Enjoy your time with family and do your best to show up, be you, honour yourself, and love them!

Those are some of my top tips for how to eat healthy when visiting family.  It pays big time to be prepared by packing essentials, do some research, keeps the right attitude, and stay committed to keeping your health first.

Cleanses and detoxes are popular since they promise to clear out nasty toxins from your body and make you healthier. That’s a tall promise.

What cleanses and detoxes promise

A cleanse and a detox are the same thing for the most part of it and have the same basic goals: to remove “harmful” things from your body. Sometimes, they aim to target a specific organ like the liver or colon, and supposedly, detoxing makes you feel better. These detoxes or cleanses usually involve limiting your food intake to pressed juice, avoiding specific types of food, or drinking concoctions of juices that supposedly rid your body of toxins. Rarely do the cleansers describe these toxins in detail.

There are far too many of these cleanses and detoxes to dig through. One of the most longstanding cleansing programs out there, starts off by asking the user to consume a herbal laxative tea both morning and night. This is then followed by a saltwater wash. After this, the user then consumes 6 to 12 glasses of lemonade (made with lemons and maple syrup in exact proportions), with a small amount of cayenne pepper. Sounds gross right? Well it might be worth it if you believe the claims of the product, that following this cleanse can rid the body of any type of disease or disorder.

Most cleanses, as summed up by Kamal Patel, nutrition researcher with a MPH and MBC from John Hopkins University: “What ties these diets together is a dual aim: weight loss plus a notion that we have built-up toxins in the body which are slowing us down and possibly killing us. So a typical cleanse, let’s say of juice only, is meant to shift your intestines away from digestion and absorption and towards ridding the body of toxins. That’s where the benefits are claimed to lie, but they may actually lie elsewhere.”

What happens in your body when you’re on a cleanse?

We are all aware that fruit and vegetables are good for us, so following the logic suggests that a diet of just fruit and vegetables must be super healthy, right?

Not really. If you drink nothing but juice for a week, you’ll lose weight, but it’s because you’re not eating, not because your body is “detoxing”. Water is stored in your muscles with glycogen. When you eat a low-calorie diet, you use up those glycogen stores and lose the water weight with it. You will gain the water weight right back when you go back to a regular diet. You are also missing out on all those vital nutrients like fat, fiber and protein. In fact, some cleanses advise you to avoid exercise when you are on them because your caloric intake is so low, which leads to fatigue and dizziness.

After a few days, your body is basically running on fumes, and without adequate protein intake, your body will start to break down muscle tissue instead. Most importantly, a juice cleanse doesn’t do anything that your body doesn’t already do on its own. Our bodies are pretty good at removing toxins. If they weren’t, and you needed a yearly cleanse, we’d probably all be dead.

Whilst most of these cleanses and detoxes aren’t necessarily dangerous, they can cause some problems. Since juices don’t include much fiber, the body end up absorbing more fructose sugar, which holds its own health concerns.

Better alternatives to cleanses

So since cleanses don’t really do anything productive and a special juice mixture wont remove toxins from your system. That doesn’t mean you can’t do other things to get your health back on track or in gear for a new year.

In fact, the concept of a cleanse is basically just a reboot of your diet. Doing a “food reset” is always a great start. That is, going back to the basics of healthful eating. Mainly focusing on eating whole, minimally processed, largely plant-based foods to re-accustom the taste buds to more subtle flavors. Nutrition and health is about the big picture. What you do for five or seven days out of the year is pretty inconsequential.

Rather than detoxing, we should focus on thinking about eating nutritious, health-promoting foods on a daily basis. Think leafy greens, beans, whole fruit, nuts and seeds. The idea of a year’s bad eating, or even 6 months of bad eating, that can be undone or somehow remedied by drinking nothing but green juice for 72 hours, is erroneous.

Likewise, an actual fast, as in just drinking water, has some research showing that it’s useful. Ample research demonstrate the effect of fasting on longevity, promoting autophagy, reducing mitochondrial oxidative stress, general decrease in signals associated with aging, and the potential to prevent and treat chronic illnesses. Intermittent fasting may be a viable option for those otherwise looking at specific cleanse diets. You basically limit eating to a few hours a day (typically 8). That is a simple, sustainable way of eating and doesn’t involve buying cleansing products.

Health and nutrition might at times seem like a confusing mess, but a healthy diet is really all you need. Not a gimmick, not a week long cleanse, not a detox. Make this the year that you give your diet a full reboot.