Have you been considering doing something healthy for your body, like a Juice Cleanse? Now, you’re ready to take the next step and make the commitment to your health by doing a juice cleanse or juice fast as some people call it.

You might be wondering about how to prepare yourself for your cleanse. It’s true that there are sometimes some unpleasant “detox events” that might be experienced, but this does not have to be the case if you prepare a little for several days before you arrive for your fasting retreat.

Here are some tips to help prepare you for a wonderful fast!

1. Caffeine withdrawal can be the least pleasant of all detox events, usually manifested in a nasty headache. So if this is an issue for you, consider a gradual decrease in your coffee, black tea or cola consumption. Try replacing half of your black tea with herbal, or half your coffee with Teeccino (available at your local health food store) today, and everyday lessen the caffeine until by day one of your fast you are entirely without it. I hope i can answer most questions in our website, fan page or blog, but if you wish, We offer phone support ($50 per half hour) with private coach for this if you feel you want daily guidance and support. Just send me an email with “SUPPORT REQUEST” in the subject line to request this option.

2. Look at this fast not as a time of deprivation, but as a time of Self-Love!

Consider your cleanse a time of regal pampering and self-love and care. Be sure to schedule some pampering treatments such as having your hair washed and blow dried in a salon, a massage, or luxurious facial. Do not have your hair colored this week, however! Do that before a cleanse, not during a cleanse as the hair dyes and fumes in salons are extremely toxic. Remember you are taking out toxins this week, and do not want to put more in! Have a pedicure and bring along your own non-toxic polish (check out the selection at Whole Foods). Plan something sweet, (not honey in your tea!) like a personal date with yourself: go to a ballet, or stroll through a museum or park all alone without your cell phone turned on. You will be amazed at how healing such gentle self loving gestures can be.

3. Light Up Your Diet Before Your Cleanse.

Consider “lightening up” and simplify your foods a few days before your cleanse is to begin. For example, add more simple steamed veggies, whole grains, broths, and consume less meats, dairy products, rich sauces, alcoholic beverages, rich deserts, etc. A raw juice fast is extremely safe and full of nutrients, so if you find this impossible without our group support here, not to worry, you will be fine and we will have a special pre-fast dinner together to get you off to a good start!

4. Colon Cleansing Recommendations

Colon Cleansing is an important part of any cleansing time, and there are many ways to accomplish this. You will learn about the colon and colon cleansing while you are here, at our retreats, but while at home you can perform your own at home enema, or even better, book an appointment with a local colon hydrotherapist who will be able to tell you everything you ever did not know you wanted to know about colon cleansing. Have a PURE WATER colon treatment with no additives during your cleanse. Remember: you are wanting to eliminate extra’s this week. Think of colon cleansing as an ‘internal bath” with pure clear water. If colonics or enemas seem too invasive to you, you can also just try a gentle natural colon cleanser on the first day of your cleanse. This requires a great deal of inner wisdom: if you are out of touch with your body, or if you have any intestinal disorders and just do not know what would be safe, I implore you to check with your doctor, or simply rest your system during your cleanse. You will benefit to the degree you are ready and that is exactly perfect. A third option is to drink a teaspoon of sea salt in a full glass of room temperature water first thing in the morning. This can also stimulate the colon to cleanse itself.

5. Dry Skin Brushing

During many of our retreats, we perform Dry Skin Brushing Workshops. While you are cleansing at home on your own, you can do this for yourself too. It is extremely beneficial to brush your skin with a soft yet firm brush from toe to head. Start at the feet and work up toward the heart. And then at your fingers and in toward the heart. Scrub the back, the underarms, the groin, you will feel exhilarated. Do this every morning before you take a shower. I start my routine while still in bed. You can purchase a dry skin brush at any health food store, or a Whole Foods.

Our favorite is the Vegan Merben Sisal (Normal Skin) or Chamois (very tender skin) brushes with handles.

6. Extra Green Energy: if you will be still quite active during your cleanse or just want to super charge your juices even more, you might wish to pre-purchase some E-3Live. Just add a Tablespoon to each bottle you will be receiving that are numbered 2-7 before shaking them up and drinking them. Go here to learn more.

We offer the Hohm Juice Cleanse where you get fresh juices shipped to your door. Whether you are cleansing on your own or at our New York hohm boutique yoga retreat with us, this pre-cleanse advice will help you prepare for your juice cleanse.

I hope these pre-cleansing preparations and tips are helpful. Happy Cleansing!

Namaste,

Mary McGuire-Wien
©2010 Mary McGuire-Wien

**Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? I would be honored, and just ask that you include this complete blurb with it:

Mary McGuire-Wien is the author The 7 Day Total Cleanse: a juice fast and yoga program to purify body and soul. She writes and consults about juice cleansing for yoga and healing arts professionals and private clients worldwide. www.AmericanYogini.com

One of the benefits of juice cleansing is how it empowers us to self heal. It is above all an opportunity to become conscious of evermore subtle layers of ourselves. When excess is stripped away, we can notice what previously went unnoticed- and it is there where we gain power over our health. When things go “wrong” in the body and when we ” have no idea” why or how or what creates our dis- ease, yoga practices both on and off the mat, such as juice cleansing, empower us through self knowing.

Though a great many of you are juicing for weight loss, there are deeper gifts to this ancient practice. One of my greatest passions is yoga. Practicing movement with awareness enlivens and invigorates all areas of the body. Yoga movements with breath make it obvious how large parts of the body can be improved such as the back, arms, torso, and legs. Less obvious but vastly important is how the smallest parts of the body can reap rewards for the whole of you. The hands and the feet can feel disconnected from the rest of the body at times, but their connection to all parts of the body, in particular heart, is much greater than we may realize.

The hands and the feet include points that correspond to every organ and nerve in the body. The ancient performers of reflexology were the first to realize this. Science later proved what this ancient wisdom realized – the hands and feet contain thousands of connections to the rest of the body. There are over 72,000 nerves in the entire body and as many nerve endings in the hands and feet. Despite their distance from the heart, your extremities are very much connected to every other part of you.

Consider that the formed body is created from the heart outward, and we often naturally die from the hands and feet inward. Its true: the first cell is our beating heart. From our heart cells we multiply cell by cell developing outward culminating in fingers and toes, the last part of our bodies to be formed. Webbed in the womb at first, they are the last part of our physical formation with fingers and toes radiating outward from the heart center.

For the most part, we are completely unaware of the state of our hands and feet until we experience pain. Arthritis, stiffness, numbness, decreased agility can point to where we are losing prana–vital intelligent life force energy– in every other part of the body and mind. Hands and feet fingers and toes are wonderful places to gain increased awareness of our state of health as we progress through linear time from young to old. Here are some easy exercises to cleanse and lubricate the joints bones and reflexology points of your precious hands and feet while you detox and cleanse.

It is easy to lose conscious awareness of these parts of our bodies. The good news is it is just as easy to come back into awareness and consciousness by turning a bit of attention to them.

Notice what your toes feel like right now as read this? Your hands? It’s so great because there is no wrong way to feel, no wrong answer. You can feel them cold or hot, are they curled into fists or relaxed? Can you feel each and every toe? Just your big toe? How about life? Can you feel the life energy intelligently moving under your skin? The hands are a relatively easy place to cultivate your mental ability to increase your Prana. It’s a fun and easy meditation you can do anywhere and anytime. Even if you never strike a yoga pose on a mat, you will become a great yogi/Yogini with this simple practice: Feel your hands from the inside.

So how does one remain aware of these small but ever so important parts of the body? Practicing yoga is an excellent way of doing so. Yoga helps us to become aware of all parts of our body. Through movement and control we realign our geometries. We get in touch with every part of our body, from the large limbs to the tiny toes on each foot. We begin to understand the connection between the body and the heart. This awareness and understanding brings invigoration and healing to all points of the body.

It is so important to keep that connection with your hands and your feet. Be aware of how your heart connects to them. Allow your heart to guide you in your actions. When your feet are connected to your heart they will bring you to places you never dreamed possible. When your hands respond to your heart they will create new and beautiful things.

When you are cleansing you may find that difficult sensations arise. You may feel the urge to turn away from them, but this may not be the best thing to do. Pay attention to where these feelings point. With hands and feet that are connected to your heart you will be able to walk to a greater understanding of yourself and the people you love. All points of the body, even the hands and the feet, lead back to your heart.

Namaste,

Mary McGuire-Wien

American Yogini, a division of Hohm, LLC, is a luxurious eco-chic New York Health & Wellness Retreat specializing in juice cleansing, weight loss, detox & yoga lifestyle.

Mary McGuire-Wien, Author of The 7 Day Total Cleanse, is committed to teaching, guiding and inspiring you through your juice cleanse, cleansing detox & weight loss retreat.

© 2010 Mary McGuire-Wien / American Yogini All Rights Reserved.
*Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

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Non-Toxic Teeth and Mouth Cleanse Protocol from Mary McGuire-Wien on Vimeo.

Mary talks about cleaning your teeth, mouth & tongue during a detox juice cleanse with a non-toxic natural teeth whitener which naturally whitens your teeth with baking soda & sea salt.

More cleansing protocols to come…

love,

Mary