Raymond L. Burton - The Happy Soul

We are still rocking along pretty good with the cleanse but the initial meals we prepared are all gone. We had to go get some groceries last night. It seems like when everything you eat is fresh, you run out of the staples pretty quick.

When we hit the grocery store its always, eggs, tomatoes, carrots, green and red peppers, potatoes and chicken. There is always the once by in the spice isle and fresh herb section also just in case we might find something to add some zip. Its amazing how many of the prepared sauces we use have sugar and yeast in them.

One thing to watch out for in this range of the cleanse is getting caught away from home and not knowing what to eat. What you have to do is either go for a salad with lemon juice and spice, a breast of chicken and water. That’s safe. If you cannot get into a restaurant for that meal, then you are looking at getting some water and fruit somewhere. If you are lucky there will be a Greek restaurant nearby and you will be able to get a skewer and some rice.

I am away from home right now writing this and I wanted to share another recipe for something and my favorite salsa recipe. I’ll have that for you in the next post.

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Last night had us going shopping to pick up all out groceries so we could start the herbal cleanse today. One thing about doing a cleanse is that your life has to change a little for 12 days. Things need to slow down and we actually like that. So my girlfriend and I sat down and went through some recipe books to see which ones we like and could use on the cleanse.

The next step after agreeing on recipes, is to write down all the ingredients to form your shopping list. Its really not bad because there are only certain ingredients you can use and they are replicated in many recipes. Kind of makes you wonder why they all taste the same doesn’t it? Just kidding, the foods are quite tasty once your taste buds adapt to real food instead of sugarcoated goodies.

So what can you eat on this cleanse? You can eat all the vegetables you want and they can be cooked or raw, your choice. You can have grains but just no flour. You can eat legumes such as beans but not too much. If a food causes gas it is because your body is having difficulties digesting it. It’s a know fact that a lot of illnesses can be traced right back to digestive problems.

This particular cleanse has some issues with fruit. Sweeter tropical fruits are not allowed because of the sugar content. Fruits like bananas, melons and pineapple for example. Other domestic fruits like apples, pears, peaches and berries are fine in moderation.

The one hard thing about doing a herbal cleanse for me as an ex bodybuilder is cutting back on the meat. The sweet stuff is not a problem because I usually tend to be low carb out of natural habit. The meat however has always been a large part of my diet. Herbal cleanses ask you to cut it back a couple of notches and add back in the veggies so the body can detoxify. It is amazing the amounts of growth hormones and antibiotics that are put into our mass produced meats. Such is the disadvantages of having such a convenient source of meat available. Some of us do not have time to hunt.

Water is very important on a cleanse, and this particular herbal cleanse recommends drinking as much as you can. This isn’t hard since milk and fruit juices are not allowed and this leaves pretty much only water left to have with your meals. As a minimum on this herbal cleanse you should drink six to eight glasses of water a day.

What is the hardest part of a herbal detox? I think the preparation is where most people run into trouble. You really have to plan in advance in order to not get sucked into grabbing a muffin or snack at the store. You have to have the groceries available and have time to wake up and make breakfast. It is hard and different than usual but what a nice change to sit down and eat breakfast with the girlfriend instead of just tagging off at the door with a quick kiss.

What was breakfast for herbal cleanse day 1? Four eggs with some diced red onion and red bell pepper. We kept the yokes in or I would be starving by the next meal. My girlfriend added some store bought salsa to her eggs and I will be making some salsa from scratch later on today.

I’ll keep you posted as we go through the cleanse. As well if you are doing my diet video tutorial series, I fully recommend doing a herbal cleanse before you start. Your results will be much, much better.

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I read an interesting piece in one of my books today. The book is called “Meditation: An Eight Point Guide” by Eknath Easwaran.

There was similarity drawn between the human mind and the truck of an elephant. The point was that just like the ceaseless movement of an elephant trunk, so too does the mind always try to wander during meditation and daily life.

Here is the important part. If you want the elephant’s trunk to stop moving, you have to give it something to hold onto. It’s the same thing for the mind during meditation and everyday activities. The thing that some gurus suggest is something called the Mantram.

The word Mantram is nowadays seen more frequently as the word mantra. Many religious traditions have used the mantra for hundreds of years. By repeating the mantra the mind is fixed on one idea and does not wander. Thai is the goal anyway!

Just as the ceaseless repetition of a modern marketing campaign can stick  jingle in your head, a Mantram can replace negative or non productive thoughts with something more useful. For example, instead of “double your pleasure, double your fun, go chew a stick of gum”, you could repeat, “Where there is sadness, I sow joy”. Then again you could just go chew some gum, it’s all about choices I guess.

“Om mani padme hum” is a very common Mantram. I love the idea behind this Buddhist phrase. “The jewel in the lotus of the heart”. The reason I love this mantra is because of the story behind how the lotus flower grows.

The life of the lotus flower starts in the muck and sludge on the bottom of a pond. Once the lotus flower decides it would like to grow to more, it shoots upward out of th muck towards the light.

Once out of the muck, the lotus heads upward through the water until it breaks through the surface. On the surface with the bright sun shinning on it, the lotus flower finally blooms and opens its delicate petals to catch every ray.

OM MANI PADME HUM 

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