your bod, your temple

When my oncologist (I like to say that like someone in NYC would say "my manicurist") said this past week she didn't want to see my mug again until 2016, I didn't feel what I thought would be abandonment.

Instead my bod expanded like a unicorn heart and fairly floated down the stairs and out to the parking lot where I actually fist pumped like an idiot in my car.

I also felt something else. I knew I had to do like the Doobies and take it to the streets.

Disclaimer:  I get that I'm far from a guru and am not a doctor or even someone who's done all the research and taste tests I need to do to get the right cred. Hell, my kids still think I'm strumming their pain with my kale and would gladly trade me in most days for some cheese sauce.

But I've read some shizz. I've tried some shizz. And now I want to share some shizz.

Since being diagnosed with and kicking the balls out of breast cancer in 2010, I really have come to see my bod as my temple. I don't expect it to take in garbage and somehow deal with it. I got that message loud and clear in the form of tumours one and two (let's save the why cancer, why me for another time), and if I can help just one other person starve the c-dawg out of their own lovely house, losing my eyelashes will have been worth it.

I promise to be bold, honest, helpful and to do the research you don't have time to do.

So won't you join me?

I'm starting tomorrow with a detox of sorts and am double teaming with my man on this one. I was a whirling dervish this afternoon, making up seven bags of green juice ingredients, roasted tomato soup and quinoa & almond salad to last the week. Even portioned out six bags of raw nuts to snack on and bought two big containers of my favorite hummus and rice crackers. I'm as ready as I'll ever freakin' be. I know if I'm not prepared, I'll open a bag of chocolate covered cranberries instead. Fail.

Try this: green juice

If you have a juicer, try this baby out. I promise it's good. It should make about 16 oz of juice and you need to drink it within 24 hours:

• 3 kale leaves
• 2 celery sticks
• 1 sprig parsley
• 1 knob of ginger (about an inch)
• 1 cucumber
• 1 big green apple
• 1 lemon, peeled

 

Why these ingredients? I'm so glad you asked... They have the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, low-sugar, vitamin-rich, cancer arse-kicking qualities a girl looks for in a juice. Don't buy the stuff on the shelf. It's pasteurized and dead or it's been sitting for longer than 24 hours and dead. Whip it up yourself and drink it slow, yo. I have it as my breakfast and eat nothing solid until lunch. And when you really get into it, try to juice more often than you blend. Blending is good with the fibre and all, but with the juice, drinking it on an empty stomach, the enzymatic super powers go directly to your cells without passing Go or collecting $200. It's gold, Jerry.

It's the best thing I've introduced into my bod over the past year and a half and can't imagine ever living without it now.

So will you give it a try? If you do it already, I'm in love with you. If not yet, isn't it time you started worshipping at the temple of you know who?

- Carissa