And so it begins...

Well, I'm kinda past the beginning and the beginning of my blog has kind of caught me in a whirlwind of changes for myself.
 As you may have gathered from my last post, I'm kind of ok, a HUGE natural health freak. Thanks to my firstborn daughter who I love more than I can even put into words, I started reading about natural health when she was born because, like every mom, I wanted what was best for my child and this seemed like the best path for us.
  So just in the last year since the birth of my second daughter I've really, truly been getting down to business with it. I kind of toyed with it, ate healthy, exercised occasionally, bought organic when I could, etc., but I've decided to take it to a new level as another little baby step on my way to my PhD.
 So in this last week I have decided to stop shampooing my hair and I've also started a colon cleanse. Let me tell you, natural health is not for the weak of stomach. I know you just read that and went, "Gross! Time to quit this blog."
 But wait! It's just begun. I'm begging you to stick with it just to the end of this entry and maybe I can change your mind.
 Let's start with the no shampooing. I've been reading about it for a while and just never really had the nerve to quit washing my hair. I like my hair. I think my hair is beautiful. I can tell when other people's hair gets greasy and it kind of makes me shy away from them a little bit. If they don't even take time to wash their hair, how dirty could the rest of them be? Shake hands??? I think not.
 So you can imagine my trepidation when I got in the shower and ignored the shampoo bottle for the first time. I could  practically hear it screaming my name. And what about conditioner? I hate combing out my hair already. What on earth am I going to do without conditioner?
 So I got my baking soda paste together and rubbed it pretty thoroughly through my scalp. If that's what I have to clean it with, that puppy is getting SCRUBBED. It didn't foam, it didn't work through my hair easily, it didn't feel like a typical wash, but I had made the decision and I was going to stick with it. So after I rinsed out the baking soda, I rinsed my scalp and hair with apple cider vinegar and water.
 Wow. What an underwhelming sensation it is to know that I was purposefully putting something in my hair that smelled like stinky feet. Blah. I could only hope it didn't smell that way when I got out of the shower. So I let that soak for a little bit to balance out the ph of the baking soda and rinsed. Now my hair was a tangly, snarly mess and I did not even want to think about how I was going to get it combed out. There was a faint smell of apple cider vinegar, but I figured you'd have to bury your nose in my skull to find out and if you're getting that close, you've got something besides a sniff of my hair coming to you. I decided to blow dry it and then detangle it because I knew trying to brush it while it was wet would just cause more snarls. It was surprisingly easier than I thought to comb it out, and it actually felt and looked pretty darn clean. So I've been doing it for almost a week, now. I actually asked one of my friends to smell it the other night to see if I've just become immune to my own stench, but they said it didn't smell like anything, and it doesn't look greasy at all. I know it's only been a week, and according the the internet (and they don't lie on the internet! lolz) it'll be a few more weeks before things get really nasty and I'll want to wear a head scarf everywhere I go. But a short period of grossness followed by a lifetime of wonderfully naturally wavy, bouncy hair....hmm....I think I can put up with that. My apologies to everyone who has to look at me for those few weeks, though.

 Ok...so now that you all know how disgusting my hair is let's move on to the internal cleanse. Right now I'm in the very beginning stages of step one which is a colon cleanse. Since this is my first time doing it I'll probably continue it for approximately four to six weeks. It all depends on what my body feels like.

 That's one thing that I will reiterate to you over and over again. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN BODY!!!

  I am following the protocol in my favorite "diet" book of all time, "The Coconut Diet" by Cheri Calbom. This book has literally changed my life and is a major part of the reason I have decided to walk down the naturopathic career path.
  So, as I said, the first part is the colon cleanse, then I'll be moving on to liver, gall bladder, and kidney cleanses. She promises less cellulite, faded wrinkles, glowing skin and a whole bunch of other stuff, so I'm really curious to see how this is going to affect me. I should probably take a before and after picture, and IF I'm satisfied with the results of the after picture I'll post them for you guys.
 So for the colon cleanse I've done sort of a semi-fast for the first few days. Raw food only and only if I get SUPER hungry. After a week or so, I'll add in more meals of strictly raw food and towards the end I'll start putting light animal proteins back in: eggs, yogurt, raw milk, etc.
 I'm drinking a fiber shake three times a day which....isn't the best or the worst thing in the world. Luckily it goes down fairly easy and the taste disappears in a few seconds. Then there's a herbal cleanse that I take three times a day, and a probiotic morning and night to make sure that the good bacteria remain in my intestinal tract after so much cleaning. The only thing I haven't worked up enough courage for, yet, is the enema. I promised myself I would do one tonight, so I've got water heating and I'm sitting here procrastinating, trying to tell myself it will be ok. I don't even know why I'm so scared. It's just water, and it all comes back out.
 Ok, so I won't go into too much detail about it tomorrow when I post, but I will let you know, noob to noob, if it's something to fear or embrace.
 And, hey, if you've done one before and you're reading this, please feel free to let me know what you like, what you don't like, any special tips or "recipes" you've tried and I'll try them out and let all the readers know what I think.


 'Cuz, you know, it's, like, a blog and I'm, like, narcissistic and stuff.