Over this weekend, I made up my mind, that in anticipation of a formal event I'll be attending this coming weekend, I'd do something a bit less risky--go hard with fruits and veggies. I generally eat a fair amount of fruit and vegetables on a daily basis, but for this week, the plan was to actually eat almost nothing else (within reason...protein is necessary and good). To that end, I went out of my way to buy fresh avocados, bananas, cucumbers, carrots, ginger, berries, oranges, and mushrooms early this afternoon for juicing and to also make a very delicious Thai stir fry (more on that later). Then, I dragged myself off to my newest obsession--Congolese dance at Alvin Ailey.
After warm-up, the superbly fabulous instructor, informed us that not only could she offer us a great dance class, but that she also had tips for us concerning summertime skin. As it happens, I've been having a terrible time with my historically clear skin--breakouts, dark spots, and so on and so forth--and I'm tired of caking on the makeup. Her recommendation? Do a cleanse!
You've got to be kidding me, I thought to myself.
But she was serious. And she didn't recommend a $300 cleanse either, but instead prescribed the same back-a-yard herbal remedies that my father forced on my sibs and I as kids (when we had perfect skin). Burdock root. Yellow dock root. Carrot juice. All three times a day.
Heretofore, I've been experimenting with various products--most notably, Dudu Osun, or African black soap which I stupidly applied after trying to wax my own lip--causing a hideous scar that I'm now desperate to get rid of. For the scar, I've been using by Help Me by Philosophy, and as a facial cleanser, the black soap (which still scares me), and Purity by Philosophy (which is a great makeup remover). The breakouts cleared themselves up instantaneously on my recent trip to Jamaica, but upon returning to work and its accompanying hells, my skin has decided it hates me yet again. And I currently hate my skin.
Clear skin? No. Makeup? Yes.
Like everyone else, I want to be beautiful. Desperately. I want to stop hiding my skin and flaunt it. Furthermore, I want to be beautiful the right way. That was the point of working out 5 days a week, and growing dreadlocks, and giving up meat. I want to be healthy.
So, now, as I type this and promise myself that I will in fact not have more carrot cake-flavored soy cream, I'm actually going to have a cup of homemade fruit/carrot/ginger juice and I'm going to experiment with some things until I'm able to toss my M.A.C. foundation out of the window (not that I actually would).
For this week, I've decided to start with focus on daily juicing, and I'm going to get my hands on some herbs that I can drink as a cleanse. I think this will have a couple of benefits--for one thing, when I initially went vegan 2. 5 years ago (I'm just a pescatarian now), I had so much energy because my body wasn't bogged down with crap. Now that I work 12 and 16 hour days, and workout for a minimum of 300 minutes a week (reaching 350 is this week's goal), I could totally use some extra energy. Secondly, if I can actually exert the willpower to eat well (no law firm cafeteria red velvet cake or french fries), then I think the cleanse may actually help me lose these next extra stubborn 5 pounds. I guess we'll see.
Next, I'm going to make an extra effort to ensure that within my strict exercise regimen, I incorporate extremely high sweat activity. I sweat like a pig already, but according to the dance instructor, the goal is hydro-therapy--sweating out toxins. I don't have time to use the gym's sauna (steam= good), but I can sweat my brains out in spin and boxing class a bit more so than I do in my fairly vigorous dance classes (with the exception of Open Guinean, which is sweaty and strenuous glory).
That's all I can handle right now: Eat better, drink lots of fluids and herbs, and poop a lot. I'll experiment and report back! Stay tuned.
Info on yellow dock root here. Info on burdock root here. Happy, healthy, inexpensive cleansing!
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