Detox your way to better health
I will do the 100 day’s detox now every year……
MARTIAL ARTS
During my journey to better health I discovered something incredible which shaped and will shape my path for the rest of my life. A truly incredible journey of self-awareness and self-confidence building, better health, strength, flexibility and so much more. It’s the story of finding Tai Chi Chuan, Zi Wu Men, LHBF and the endless possibilities martial arts training brings. Meeting my teachers Shifu Master Dan Docherty – Practical Tai Chi Chuan and Shifu Master Li Yu Hua – Zi Wu Men Gongfu and Liu He Ba Fa.
I will be eternally grateful for the knowledge they share with me.
That amazing story however is for another day…..
GOOD HEALTH
It was my second time to complete this detox and purification program.
Over 100 days it is an internal detox using 5 elements nutrition and Zi Wu Men Neigong practice. Specific breathing techniques coupled with gentle and precise movements aids the internal body to align itself. The awareness is being focused inwardly during the neigong practice and the tendons are encouraged to stretch and expand. The Zi Wu Men method works subtly on the body and makes internal harmony easier to harness.
It is important to say that this cleanse is not about weight-loss. Weight-loss usually comes through better health and a less inflamed system. I started out with the desire for weight-loss but as you read through my Journey the issue was far bigger than that….
I started after the end of the Chinese Spring Festival with a small group that I guided through with me. It is the most comprehensive and complete body detox and neigong program I have ever done.
My body just didn’t need another fad crazy idea as to how to lose weight fast!
A completely unbalanced approach that becomes impossible to maintain afterwards, if your body ever gets over the shock of it.
Yoyo dieters end up with more than just a weight problem in the end. You need to look to the root cause of your problems. What we are on the outside is a reflection on our internal health and that’s what we need to address.
The body likes consistency, regularity and to be balanced, mentally and physically to achieve good health.
All this I learned through my own personal trial and error. After my first child, I couldn’t get rid of my baby belly…. That was 20 years ago!
“I wish I knew then what I know now,” that old cliché!
Well I didn’t, but I’m ok with that! An empty cup is there to be filled…. I’m still happily filling mine.
My journey since then has gained me the knowledge to make better decisions for my health and what my body needs. The discovery of my Shifu Master Li Yu Hua’s 100days detox with 5 elements nutrition, Zi Wu Men neigong training, was where many of my health finding paths met one path…
That will be the one I stay on from now.
MY JOURNEY
We shall start from the beginning…..
My business was in hospitality, backstage areas and tents. I gave birth to my first child in 2000 in hospital and was backstage in a field at Glastonbury 4 days later watching the festival on tv from my bed with my new baby. If I ventured out I was always asked “When’s it due, it must be like any day”. I brushed it off then as I had just had a baby and thought it would go away. It didn’t!
And the “when’s it due” comments didn’t stop for the next 19 years! I mean who actually! has the gall to say that to someone?
The worst one was “You shouldn’t be doing that in your condition” referring to alcohol or being out late and giving me dirty looks.
I admit it was with some satisfaction I would say “actually it’s fat” and watch them squirm and shrink with embarrassment….. Does that make me bad? Eeeeek probably!
But by this stage I was incensed at their insensitivity of what was quite hurtful comments to someone struggling with weight issues.
Some looked so mortified I wish I hadn’t said it! Oh the guilt.
Over the years, I have given up Wheat; Dairy; Sugar; Meat and in fact food altogether at some points!
I wouldn’t say they didn’t work, in fact they gave me the foundations of my understanding today to better health and good food. Though they never felt complete like that’s it, they were always temporary and short lived with the weight piling on and not because my diet was bad either. By this stage over the years I have developed a very healthy diet which some of my friends would say quite strict, but that’s a matter of perspective.
One thing they were right about and were equally as baffled about as me, was how someone who ate a very healthy diet could still hold on to so much weight?
Exercise I thought, I’ll do more exercise, not that I have ever been a sedentary person. I guess rushing about like a blue arsed fly doesn’t count as exercise, apparently!
My friend and I went to the gym, circuit training we thought that will be good. Well no! A big fat no! what the hell! And that was that.
I had tried kick boxing in Spain as an exercise and remember getting our bodies’ sweat stuck to the plastic mat floor so I couldn’t drag my body along with my elbows! And that was that one done too.
Well we can’t be good at everything! And I have never been good at gym or much that involved moving with effort and speed combined with exercise. (something else I have changed through martial arts, health and neigong training).
I was now looking at possible health issues causing the weight rather than outright laziness and poor diet.
My well-meaning friends often came up with possible health issues I could have, including candida, allergies, ulcers, poor metabolism, thyroid etc. etc. etc.
I was even given a laxative course as a gift once! I mean you’ve just got to laugh.
I concluded that I should perhaps take a trip to the doctors, not my favourite place as they aren’t that interested in good health and think you’re a crackpot if you think you are ill, or maybe getting ill.
They seem to prefer it to be too late before they start administering drugs to counter the fact they were too late in their diagnosis.
Personally, I think prevention is better than cure. The doctor wasn’t overly helpful and prescribed a colonoscopy to see if there were any problems!
Great!… a stool sample would have sufficed thanks!!
Hydrotherapy anyone?
My next quest to better gut health was regular hydrotherapy treatments!
I would say this soothed my inflammatory bowels but that’s all it ever was, a soothing treat to appease my bowels and make them feel better. The hydro-therapist decided it wasn’t for me to suggest ideas as to what could be wrong as I didn’t know anything and wasn’t ready.
How ready is ready? We are now about 15 years after the birth of my first child and the beginning of all this!
Then I guess 10 more hydrotherapies benefitted, well certainly not my wallet anyway!
DIAGNOSIS
This was going no-where……. I went back to the doctor and found they had appointed a new doctor; this was good (There are no words to describe the old Doctor, but those that know, know!) the new one was NICE as well as professional! So even better. She instantly got me tested for helicobacter pylori
and that is what I had, finally a diagnosis!
I wasn’t just fat after all. I had already suspected a bacterial overgrowth before, which was why I embarked on the hydrotherapy treatment. I was talked down from that idea fairly, sharpish. Another old Cliché “listen to what your body is telling you” not someone else with different motives, trust your instincts and if in doubt get a second opinion.
Getting rid of helicobacter Pylori isn’t as simple as just taking the antibiotics. For a start the antibiotics kill good and bad bacteria, I had to take 2 types for 10days. Helicobacter Pylori if left untreated can lead to stomach ulcers and cancer and is linked to many other inflammatory diseases and conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori The discomfort caused by this is bloating, gas, acid reflux and poor stools I had all of this. The answer I found was to rebalance my internal system using the 100days detox, 5 elements nutrition and Zi Wu Men neigong system. I took the antibiotic course last year in 2019 and then decided that now was the best time to start the 100 days with my Shifu Li Yu Hua, so that’s what I did.
CURE
I was bloated and swollen with unshifting fat around my mid-drift.
Now was the time to ask Shifu Li Yu Hua what the 100day’s detox, nutrition and neigong practice was about.
I had heard her mention it but it sounded very hard and I had little understanding of it, we had to adopt a whole new way of eating and supported it with intensive neigong practice.
In the end the truth was I had to embark on it with trust as I didn’t have all the information I wanted when I started, I did have enough though.
I Let go and humbled myself to not having to know it all first, this very act is cleansing and healing in its self. I trusted my teacher.
I had a vague idea of the theory, that resetting the body back to neutral after years of inflammation made sense to me, more sense than any other diet or theory I had tried. To me it was the most logical reason why I held on to weight and inflammation for so long.
I gathered what information I had and joined my teacher’s Singapore WhatsApp group for the 100days. We kept track of our daily in puts, out puts and our daily internal practice.
I wrote a daily dairy of the changes as I knew I wouldn’t remember them and I was curious about the process.
I am a good cook, so cooking from scratch is my domain, this is a big plus to surviving this detox for the first couple of weeks. I love to experiment with foods and flavours as well. I have read many books on health and cooking and love a good recipe book so that part was easy. It isn’t for everyone so I guided some of my group this year through ideas and recipes on our 100days WhatsApp group which was great for group motivation.
Follow my Facebook page for simple healthy recipes and ideas. This is not part of the set program that is the 100 days as that is a specific program, just healthy free recipe ideas. To help you see how simple healthy unadulterated food can be delicious.
The first 2 weeks were the hardest, getting organised, getting food prepared and getting used to what I couldn’t have anymore.
I didn’t think about what I couldn’t have and focused on what I could, this worked for me. The effects started to happen fast, I had changes to my sense of smell and taste and I didn’t desire the foods I thought I would and quite quickly I was feeling good. I was less bloated and sluggish, I had more energy and clarity of mind, improved stomach acidity levels.
In one sense it is a fast, we are fasting though we are eating a lot of greens and watery foods, cleansing the system and starving the cells of the inflammatory foods, but still eating the right foods to heal the body.
Soon the body resets.
This becomes so far from just being about weight-loss, you forget that it was ever your aim in the first place…… all those years ago, from the first “when’s it due?” comment until now.
Too many People I see after dieting looking grey and gaunt, thin and tired, with tired skin, lack lustre with no energy. They may have achieved weight loss victory but at what cost on the health of the organs, body vitality and life force..
The 100 days is extreme to many but again that is a matter of perspective, once you get your head round it, the food is plentiful and satisfying whilst resting the body and healing the system.
Lasting results on health, a full body and mind reset to a better health future.
The nature of the 5 Elements Nutrition retrains the brain and body to desire different foods, this takes effort during the cleanse but once you have been through the 100 days your brain is reset and on a new path.
I found this after completing the first 100 days in 2019, I have never looked back, now I desire healthy organs and good neigong.
I have taken people through the program who didn’t need to lose weight but had other issues, fit and healthy with good diets and plenty of exercise. This is not a weight-loss program it is a full detoxing of the body program, a balancing of the internal organs and body. It is ok if you don’t have weight to lose to do it. We are losing inflammation and toxins, the weight loss for those that need it is the result of better health throughout the body, so a great side-effect that stays off with better health choices.
Inflammation and acidity in the body is now cited as the beginning of most, if not all illness’.
CONCLUSION
I have now just completed my second 100days plus successfully encouraged 5 more people through with me. Their results are amazing. All of us have improvements to symptoms relating to menopause, allergies, inflammation, stress and energy levels. I am waiting for their reports, and will submit mine. This blog is my personal experience rather than report specifics.
I weigh less than I did before I had my first child!
The 2019 detox I lost 15kg and this time I lost a further 7kgs taking me down to 60kgs which I haven’t been since pre-children. I am 5’4”. My belly is smaller than 20 years ago! This is down to the loss of inflammation and balancing of my body and internal system through, the 5 Element nutrition and neigong training of the Zi Wu Men system.
My skin looks younger, clearer and friends have been joking over lockdown zoom that I look 12 years old.
The lockdown, drink or both must be affecting their eyesight as I’m 46!!
My bowel health is amazing, healthy regular stools, no inflammation and bloating. I have more energy and my mind is clearer not fuzzy and lethargic. I eat well 3 times a day at similar daily times, my body feels more balanced and in tune.
I have found a well-balanced way to detox and will continue to do it yearly. I believe that our bodies need the accumulated trash thrown out as much as our homes do. We don’t leave bags of trash in our homes to rot away so why would we do that do our bodies. Trash comes in the form of external influences, emotions, stress, bad foods.
My body is in a better place to accumulate a little trash now, no one is perfect. Life would be boring if we all were. “The spice of life”
To be honest I’m not bothered to go back to old habits.
Good immune health is now more vital than ever if we are to prevent the new nasty that is COVID-19 (coronavirus).
Lockdown is affecting more people mentally, emotionally and physically putting us and our health under more pressure. This is how the neigong and breath cultivation is such an important part of this cleanse bringing realignment and balance back to our being.
I have held Daily Free 15min Breath Cultivation classes over Zoom for Lung health and good immunity. Daily Free 30min Body Tai Chi body conditioning classes alongside my school’s full time classes, teaching Practical Tai Chi Chuan and Zi Wu Men Gongfu and Health Preservation. With good results and improvements by all the students over the Lockdown period most still attending daily. The post COVID-19 fight has only just begun! Now is the time to take control of our own health.
The next detox program will be a 30day detox in the early autumn guided by myself and my teacher Master Li Yu Hua. For more information on the 100days 5 Element Detox and Neigong follow my website and to better food health follow my Website and Facebook page’s.
“Expel the Old and bring in the New, is the secret to internal essence”
Excerpt from 17 poems of Yi Jin Jing. – Yi Jin Jing by Jennifer Lee – Li Yu Hua
@ziwumenuk
