A Simple Detox: A Personal History of Binge ________

It was 2008 and I was at a friend’s birthday-cum-going away party. She, a petite jovial MBA grad and marketing manager, was engaged and soon was set to leave the country. In a few months time she’d marry abroad and relocate to London, and so we drank. And drank. And drank.

A few days later the photos ended up on Facebook and I had a wake up call. My hair was two colors- brown and purple- and I was fat. Well, not fat for America, but fat for me. It was the most I’d weighed and it occurred to me that my way of dealing with a breakup and the second worst recession in a century was to drink red wine and watch rockumentaries. I spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 watching music documentaries and drinking half a bottle of red nightly. For most, the recession was an unbelievable, depressing wakeup call, but for us financial writers, it was more. I felt I should’ve seen it coming and yet I didn’t, and I kept reading more bad news every day. And so I learned that drinking half a bottle of red nightly is a very good way to pack on what I like to call the Recession 10.

I never gained the Freshman 10, but the Recession 10, oh yeah. It was just me and Kurt and Courtney, me and Sid and Nancy, and the red of course. I learned something though – I like reds from Italy (Chianti & Montepulciano), Australia, Spain (Rioja), and whites from New Zealand (Sauvignon Blanc) and Italy (Pino Grigio). Watching rockumentaries also reminded me that condoms truly are, to quote Fight Club and Chuck Palahniuk, “the glass slipper of our generation.” As Helena Bonham Carter said in character in Fight Club, “You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away. The condom, I mean. Not the stranger.”

Sex, food and booze, not to mention drugs, no matter how recreational, can corrupt one’s body and spirit. The aforementioned vices are fine when consumed safely and in moderation, but in excess they result in unhealthy habits that can also curb productivity. And yet we binge on food and booze every holiday season. For those in need of a bit of cleansing that is affordable and sustainable, we’ve got an option.

For me, when I decided to shed the Recession 10 about three years ago, I immediately knew I had to cut the red. So what did I do? Naturally I switched to vodka. Technically vodka too is a carbohydrate because it comes from a carbohydrate, potato, but better a potato than a grape, because the potato is gluten-free and has less sugar. Eventually I cut out the vodka on a large scale too.

Now red has returned to my life, but in moderation. Still after a week of too much dairy and gluten on holiday, my body was telling me to cut out the dairy, sugar, and bread. I chose not the $400 option Gwyneth Paltrow and Gilt Groupe recommended but Trader Joe‘s $14 Complete Body Cleanse. The two-week set of three pills is a reasonably price, realistic cleansing program that when paired with a gym regime and a mobile application such as MyFitnessPal, can serve as a way to get one on a path to a healthy, sustainable regime. Because extreme diets are not sustainable, but a different way of interpreting food, hunger, exercise, and self medication is.

I’d recommend the TJ’s cleansing kit because of its price point and because it’s gentle. The two-week program might be too much for anyone with GI disorders, such as IBS. But, I found that though it promoted, let’s say a flow of toxins,” during week one, it was a gentle cleanse without too many daily interruptions or any flatulence or stomach pains.

During the first week, only fiber pills are taken during the day, and the fiber, digestion and liver formula pills are taken at night. The dosage of the various pills changes in week two and trips to the bathroom are reduced but still present.The Digestive pill is comprised of burdock root, fennel, ginger, and fenugreek, among other ingredients, while the fiber is based on the common psyllium husk with a sprinkling of oat bran and marshmallow root. Finally, the liver formula has a few common ingredients as its base, milk thistle and dandelion, along with licorice and artichoke.

Most cleanses warrant a clean diet. I cannot say I observed a different diet wholly, for I had wine half of the weeknights and coffee most mornings, but in moderation. I attempted, as I have been for a few months, to switch to herbal and green tea in the afternoons and to cut out almost entirely gluten and processed sugars from the diet. Dairy, however, wasn’t something I could part with. I also recommend having smoothies for breakfast at least twice a week and using a mobile application such as the free MyFitnessPal alongside the cleanse to jump-start a healthier routine. At the very least, you’ll feel a bit lighter and will close the cleanse more conscious of what you’re putting in your body.