Or Commit to Cleanse: My Story to Jumpstart Your Motivation & Weight Loss
Written by Bethany Curee, God’s Daughter – Freckled & Free

MY STORY

I don’t know what it is about cleansing that I think really works to help stay committed and work towards jumpstarting one’s goals. Perhaps it’s the defined set of rules and the perimeter it temporarily allows you to stay in which helps lessen your choices, giving you a focused group of foods of which to create from. It helps you follow a precise nutrition packed regime that really forces you to get creative with the allowable foods you can have and seek inspiring recipes to widen your flavor profile. You’re able to learn new ways of cooking that you may not have tried. You might surprise yourself how creative you can get when your choices are limited. For me, I tend to thrive when I’m at my strictest, so to cleanse, is to essentially get re-committed or re-focused. Its become a yearly goal to fuel my body towards health, activate my motivation and work towards weight loss goals – and let’s be honest, cleansing in general is just plain good for so many reasons. How will your body not thank you?

Its felt like an eternity to me since I’ve started this weight loss journey and some days it does feel quite never ending. Almost 13 years have passed since my first baby (born in 2009), and 5 since my fourth baby (born in 2017). With each one I’ve added a little more to lose than what I had before weight wise. After my third child (born in 2015), I had finally lost a good amount and had reached 20 pounds from my high school weight when we found out we were expecting again. This fourth little one has proved the hardest to lose after. This stubborn weight has settled in and is not accepting my eviction notice. I’ve let it know multiple times it’s leaving, but it isn’t getting the drift. It keeps returning. But I’m still here slowly chipping away at it. I won’t be giving up. I go down many successful valleys of loss and back up the mountain again…and down again and up…and honestly, I’ve lost the same weight more times than I can count. I’ve been on the zig-zag weight loss road for quite some time. Sigh. Aye…but here I am still fighting.

I’m working to learn to love me despite the scale. Working to embrace the curves that love added to my life. Working to love myself the way my husband does and to see me the way my children do, “You’re so pretty mommy, NO, you’re not pretty mommy because your GOREGOUS!” Working to have grace with myself until I’ve “arrived.” I’m learning I’m capable of strictly committing and doing hard things. And sometimes it just feels good to get all of this out, cause I know someone out there is in the same boat as me.

In my mind I’m more working to shift to these questions to live by, “Is this going to fuel my body? Heal my body? And work to keep myself as healthy as I can be for my family?”

It’s a work in progress mentally, but I’m working on it becoming my fuel.

MY CLEANSING JOURNEY: KIDNEY CLEANSES & MORE

In the past few years I’ve officially activated my personal Cleanse to Commit philosophy to help me reach my goals, in July of 2021, I completed my fourth cleanse in the last three years. The first three were kidney cleanses that I did to not only aid with weight loss, but to help naturally lower my blood pressure which began when I had my fourth child (not happy about it). However, for my most recent cleanse and the one I will be going into detail on today, was the Lymph Cleanse. After researching and listening to more of what Vaughn Lawrence, Naturopath & Certified Comprehensive Iridologist, had to say on weight loss and healing the body, I decided this was the next best cleanse to try. I’ve said it before and I will say again, I thoroughly believe Vaughn and his team are God inspired and work passionately to be true to the desires of God’s plans for our health journeys which is found in God’s Word. It’s evident in all they do and I highly recommend them as a resource for any health needs, and no this isn’t paid advertising, this is my personal journey to health in which I stumbled upon Spirit of Health and what they do at a recommendation from a friend. I personally can vouch that I have seen vast changes in my own health when working with them and their programs. I have had several phone conversations and emails with Vaughn and his team where they actually took time to listen to you and care about your specific needs and how to work towards getting better.

LYMPH CLEANSE

For better specifics on this Lymph Cleanse I completed you can read all about it here or I highly suggest watching Vaughn speak on this very topic right now. According to Vaughn, it is recommended that if you choose to do the Lymph Cleanse, that you first do a Kidney or Colon Cleanse. Why? Well, when you are cleansing, you are needing to remove excess toxins from the body and therefore your elimination pathways need to be clear and working. Because I had already completed three kidney cleanses, I was safe to to pursue the Lymph Cleanse.

The Lymph Cleanse is similar to the Kidney Cleanse as far as diet, fruits and vegetables ONLY for 21 days along with the recommended supplements. Juice fasting is the choice, if you can survive that—but you can focus on eating just high water fruits and vegetables and still come out on top. The goal being to avoid fats, proteins, grains, legumes, oils, potatoes, corn, bananas, dried fruit, etc. Ideally, to focus on high water content vegetables and fruits like celery, beets, lemons, limes, grapes and berries. Supplements included North American Herb & Spice Turmeric Power Plus Capsules, Dr. Morse’s Lymph Node Support Tincture, Dr. Morse’s Lymphatic System Tonic Capsules, Flora Beet Crystals and Cedar Bear Cayenne Pepper Tincture. As well as the recommended Lymphatic Cleanse Drink which composed of purified water, fresh ginger slices, juice of 2 lemons, 10 drops of liquid cayenne and 1 teaspoon of beet crystals daily, maybe not so tasty, but if you’re like me, you will do what you need to for good health. Just know if you decide to try a cleanse, take baby steps. If you can only cut one thing out a week and take your time with it, you are still working to improve your overall health. Each week can be another choice to kick your body into healing mode. And, hey, that’s better than you had been right?

Sooooo what I did so that my body wouldn’t go into super shock like it has in the past when cutting everything all at once cold turkey—I decided this time around I would complete a phase one gradual shift into to the strict Lymph Cleanse. For the first week, I only cut out sugar, dairy, breads, etc. and only had veggies, fruit and protein (once daily) to make it a little easier for my body to adjust to this time. I think that was a wise choice. You have less migraines and general weakness to shift into it slowly. (Haha, the joys of healing your body right!?)

My actual, fully committed, hard-core 21 day Lymph Cleanse looked a little bit like this and began on July 25, 2021. I chose to go the fruits and vegetables only route, because with four kids I need a little more to get me through the day.

One of the biggest challenges was to try and commit to no oil or fats during this cleanse. So no salad dressing, avacados, or veggies roasted in oil. I had to get very creative. After some research for inspiration, I roasted garden tomatoes to use as a type of dressing for salads. And that worked for probably the first two weeks of the cleanse, but with our crazy schedule in life I had to start having a tiny bit of dressing here and there as well as the smallest amount of oil I could. I typically save cleansing for January but cleansing in the summer proved to be an excellent time to take on a strict cleanse as the garden was flourishing with delicious veggies for my enjoyment and fruits were at their tastiest.

When facing a challenge like this, I always find it super helpful to make a Whole Foods trip or any healthy store to pick up some inspiring allowable foods. I found some delicious pickled jalapeños, fermented carrots, fermented beet and carrot sauerkraut and so much more to zing up meals with something exciting.

I believe this is a great cleanse for anyone to try and will only lead you to better health. I love how during cleanses you can really prove to yourself that you are capable of a focused, strict meal plan even for a season to improve your overall self and willpower. Any cleanse is challenging and will push you. I believe you can complete a cleanse with or without the supplements and still do your body good. I believe the supplements help to support you and speed the process of healing up during the cleanse. Each body is different so before you start a cleanse, make the choice that’s right for you. Start to learn what your body responds well to and what it doesn’t. I had huge success with all of the Kidney Cleanses I have done and I felt very successful to complete my first Lymph Cleanse. For me however, I actually had to end the Lymph Cleanse supplements a few days prior to finishing the 21 day cleanse. While I still completed the diet restrictions required for the full 21 days, I stopped taking the supplements due to some gallbladder sensitives (which perhaps I will share another day) that were reoccuring from one of the supplements I was taking. This is not an issue for most people, just another health obstacle I’ve been working to heal and conquer since having my second child (born in 2011).

I will stop there. Maybe you’re asking yourself if you’re really going to finish reading this? How long can this lady really go on? Well if you’ve made it this far you might as well finish. I get a little geeky about health. I find it fascinating and love learning how to take care of my body the way God designed. Just know, this is my personal story, yours will look different. But, I pray it inspires you to Cleanse to Commit or Commit to Cleanse…think on that for a minute because it makes a lot of sense when you let that mouthful settle in. I hope it sparks something in you to say, HEY, I want to jump on that too for my overall health.

The goal here is to inspire us all to (A.) Love ourselves and (B.) Be at a healthy weight for our families. Feeding our bodies with God’s foods will help all of us flourish for the work God has for us—even if the scale doesn’t move. All in all, ask yourself am I doing all the right things to be the best version of me?

No lies here. It’s dag-on-hard. It’s challenging. I’ve fought, I’ve struggled, I’ve cried, I’ve gave up temporarily and come back again with new dedication to work harder. I’ve rose and I’ve sunk. I’ve gotten mad about it a time or two. It’s not been easy, not one single bit of it. I make myself tired talking about it and pepping myself up. I’ve been soooo good, I’ve ate practically perfect for several seasons and I still haven’t reached it. I’ve seen moments of hope and glimpses of what’s to come with reaching my goals, but I’m more than ready to officially get there. And you might be like, yeah, yeah, it’s been forever since you have posted about this and we’ve lost interest. On top of that I’m a bit late getting it up but busy #momlife over here is still at it. And to top it off, I just had a trimalleolar fracture to my ankle/tibia/fibula just to make things get a little more interesting (perhaps another blog for another day).

Soooo—things are about to get a little bit harder. Exercise will test me and challenge me in even new ways and a long road of physical therapy is up ahead for me now that my surgery is complete. But I’m gonna keep on fighting. My health is worth it. Just know I’m in the thick of it too. I’m here saying hi and being real. I know many of you are working on it too. It takes much work, time and commitment. Wherever you are on your journey I salute you, keep it up, keep fighting, one day we just might reach those goals and what a joyous accomplishment that will be. We got this! I’m talking to you and to me. Are we listening!? Maybe a Cleanse to Commit is just what you need? I pray it inspires you to do the hard for a time, even to prove to yourself that you can do it. Commit it to God, spend extra time in prayer during it and watch how you can accomplish challenging things by your own choices and God’s strength. I have no doubt he will back you.

Written by Bethany Curee, God’s Daughter – Freckled & Free