Tag: habits

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The Finish Line? Adventures In Detoxing.

We have come to the end of our 21 day family-wide detox. It’s crazy how time flies, even during a time like this one when you’re looking forward to the end. I suppose working to raise 5 kids, homeschooling 2 and keeping a handle on the house will keep anyone busy enough to make time seem to speed by.

As I mentioned when I laid out our Detox Plan, my Hubby was going to do a 21 day intensive detox, while the kids and I participated in a more gentle one. The protocol for the one I’m on lasts much longer- at least 2 months, and it doesn’t actually include any diet modification. It’s just supplements that I continue to take that help my body rid itself of the stored toxins.  We decided to add a major diet modification during the 21 day period that my husband was doing his; that way we’d be doing similar things at the same time.  Of course, the more raw and the less junk I eat, the better my body will be able to use the special stuff I’m putting in, and not have its energy diverted to deal with new toxins. We also decided that the kids would take the supplements for only the 21 days.

So now, we’ve come to the finish line. Or have we?

My body is still getting toxins out. I can tell. I have certain body signals that show up usually only when I’ve been eating a lot of junk, and they’re here now. Or rather, they never went away. I know that my diet has been exceptionally clean in my choice of food, so they should be gone, but they’re not. Which is proof to me that my body is cleaning itself up, but is not finished.

Now that we’ve come to the goal of our 21 day detox, what do we do? Just cross the finish line and go gorge ourselves?

Not exactly.

If there’s one thing I’ve seen over the past several years of learning to manage a household, it’s the importance of establishing habits. Flylady teaches you to practice one habit each day for one month. And the habits repeat each year. You’ve heard that it takes 21 days to make a habit; there is much wisdom in the concept of focusing on one thing till you “own it” and not move on until it becomes part of who you are and what you do.

These are the healthy habits I plan for our family to continue. They are nothing new or revolutionary, but we’ve been practicing them for the past 21 days so I’ve seen that it is possible to do them.

  1. Serve a salad with dinner MOST NIGHTS instead of only a couple of nights a week. When the main course is cooked, there must be some raw. No exceptions.
  2. Grind fresh flour and make bread myself. I’ve always known it’s better to do this, but my lack of time, paired with how quickly we went through a loaf of bread, I thought made this completely impractical. So I would make bread once in a while but certainly not every week and definitely not for daily consumption of sandwiches. Now that we’ve gone through this purposeful plan of cleaning up our bodies, I want to make sure we fill it with things that will be useful and life-giving, and not gunk it up with “fillers”. So, I’m going to make bread. At least twice a week. I did it for the past 2 weeks, and it really wasn’t that hard or time consuming. We only had a little at a time, which allowed it to last much longer. That brings me to number 3.
  3. Eat less bread. It is easy to get into the mindset that eating a sandwich is the best thing to do for lunch, especially when you are packing a lunch to send with a child to school. But I’ve re-evaluated that idea. Two whole slices of (store-bought whole wheat) bread is a lot for one meal, especially for a little body, especially when it’s repeated several times throughout the week. In fact, I realized that most of the calories and tummy space of the entire meal was made up bread. Bread that didn’t have much nutrition in it, either, because it was not made with freshly ground flour. No more “bread with every meal”, especially since I need to make it all myself. One slice with some veggies or a salad is plenty, and many meals are complete without it. It’s really just a habit.
  4. Find non-food “treats”. I give my kids a “treat” every Friday. Since we’ve always restricted “bad” sugar, it became the tradition that their treat took the form of  real candy, pudding, etc. But during these past 3 weeks, it was not an option. We talked about shifting our focus off of food as a treat. This past week, they each got to pick a special activity to do, something I hadn’t made the time to allow on regular days. One of them wanted to play with play-dough, and so on. I’m not saying we’ll never allow candy, but changing the definition of a treat is important.

So, while we may be crossing the finish line of our official detox time, we’re not stopping the race entirely.   We have established some valuable habits and I hope to add to them, one babystep at a time.

What new healthy habits have you/will you start to practice?

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I Come From A long Line Of Tired People

That’s what my Nana used to say. And it must be true; my afternoon nap has ALWAYS been sacred to me. I mean, when I was in college, I used to put a sign on my dorm room or sorority house door that said “Please Don’t Knock! Kimmy needs her Beauty Sleep!” it didn’t really work, the sign. People would knock anyway. Grrr.

With a new baby who doesn’t yet sleep through the night and other little ones to care for, preventing me from “sleeping when the baby sleeps”, I’m tired. And that’s an understatement.

How much sleep do we really need? And what are the effects of chronic sleep deprivation?

I just finished reading a chapter in the book Nurture Shock called “The Missing Hour”. It showed how children getting an hour less sleep a night than what they need contributes not only to crankiness in younger kids, but that the rebelliousness & moodiness in teenagers accepted by most as normal behavior is actually caused by lack of sleep. I was surprised to learn that child obesity was also found to correlate with lack of sleep, as well as lower school grades and test scores.

While the lower grades thing was not a surprise, the degree to which it is a factor was. Sleepy 6th graders performed two full grades lower. Like fourth graders. And obesity? Apparently not only from lack of exercise and poor diet.

I definitely believe that most of the crankiness and belligerence in young children comes from tiredness. Many parents stop insisting that their children nap simply because the child doesn’t want to and seems to be able to stay awake all day without it. I think this is a big mistake. All of my children still take naps (even the 5 1/2 year old) except for the 6 1/2 year old, who rests on the couch with a book. And at times, we do insist that he naps when we can tell that he really needs it, if we know we’ll be staying up later, like on the weekend.

As a parent, I’m interested in this stuff. I know both my 6 1/2 year old and my 3 1/2 year old are not getting enough sleep. I want them to have it, but getting that schedule exactly right is tough, especially when children share a bedroom.

If you want help figuring out whether your kid’s getting enough sleep, the following might be helpful.

The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child’s Sleep provides some helpful guidelines regarding just how much sleep children need at different stages in their development. Keep in mind that these numbers reflect total sleep hours in a 24-hour period. So if your son still naps, you’ll need to take that into account when you add up his typical sleep hours.

Between Birth-Six Months, children need 16-20 hours

Between Six-Twelve Months, children need 14-15 hours

Between Ages 1-3, children need 10-13 hours

Between Ages 3-10, children need 10-12 hours

Between Ages 11-12, children need about 10 hours

Teenagers need about 9 hours of sleep per night

SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SLEEP:

  • The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.
  • It’s impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.
  • Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.
  • No one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.
    Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.
  • Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain’s sleep-wake clock.
  • Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%. (by the way, 24 minus 17=7…this means that you are walking around drunk if you get 7 or less hours of sleep.)
  • Diaries from the pre-electric-light Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.
  • Approximately one-third of your life is spent sleeping, and the length and quality of your sleep directly affects your daily performance, your mood, and your entire waking life.

I apologize for the formatting problem above. I’ve tried to correct it but am unable and cannot spend more time on it.

I never outgrew my nap. I have a good excuse for needing one now, but I think that when the kids are grown, I’ll still be enjoying an afternoon siesta. Maybe I’ll enjoy it even a little bit more.