January Cleanse with a Community
Taking on the first SPNA Community Cleanse (to be an annual event) is rewarding. Chatting away through the neighborhood walks, learning healthy habits from the pros at California Hospital Dignity Health, and having my pants fit better is a huge win.
With a little over one week to go, this is when I really start to see the benefits of doing a month-long cleanse. It is the same each year - this is my 13th January doing a cleanse.
In 2011, in my third year living in DTLA with endless opportunities of cocktails with neighbors and decadent eating at new restaurant openings, it started to take a toll. Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Goop launched with quite the buzz, and she promoted a book - Clean. It tells a tale of a rigorous schedule Dr. Alejandro Junger was living and how, despite being an expert in the heart, his own health had taken a beating. Through research and crowdsourcing from leading experts in diet, digestion, and allergies he determined inflammation was the big cause of his growing waistline, low energy, pale skin, and general malaise. By the end of the journey, he devised a three-week elimination diet to strip one’s body of all the most common allergens to greatly diminish inflammation that occurs. With remarkable results, he took his findings and published the results in a best-selling book in 2009. I got a copy, and for the first time in many years I read a book cover to cover.
I was convinced but knew a 21-day commitment was unlikely. I opted for a week. It was brutal--leg aches from caffeine withdrawal and irritability as I socialized with friends without alcohol (people are incredibly annoying when tipsy and you are not). Thankfully it was for only a week. I made it, but barely. Results were good--losing a few pounds and feeling a bit better.
In subsequent years, I leaned into it and went the full 21 days. Sober Jan became a thing and friends joined in for a collective abstention to start the new year. I found the passion for cooking and the cleanse recipes were simple and truly delicious (many recipes have become favorites I enjoy throughout the year). Best of all, the drop in weight and the healthiness was evident to me and those around me.
For the past five or six years, I do the Clean Program for the entire month. Like clockwork, I will drop 20 lbs. As I write this article, it is January 21st, and I am on track already sitting sixteen pounds lighter with ten days to go. Weight loss isn’t the only goal as I see better sleep, improved focus, and a dramatic decrease in cholesterol (my LDL drops 50-70 points from the start of January to the end).
The results are impressive, and I am NOT eating like a squirrel or drinking disgusting concoctions. Being the foodie I am, there is no way I could sustain living with bad meals for 31 days. Breakfast is always the same, a blended shake made of almond milk, blueberries, mango, pineapple, spinach, vegan protein powders, and some added supplements. Lunch is sensible--salmon, quinoa and sauteed zucchini. Dinner is a blended soup (butternut squash bisque was last night). Portions are normal to start, and you naturally start to trim the amount you eat as the month goes on.
Dr. Junger’s elimination diet removes the common culprits: gluten, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and dairy, plus a few other common allergens (peanuts, nightshades, strawberries, etc.). What remains is still enough for hundreds of recipes, many I make in bulk to last several days.
The biggest challenge in cleansing is the loss of community, something many of us prize and the reason we chose to live in the urban setting like downtown LA. Eating out is nearly impossible as you don’t truly know what is in the meal, and sitting at a bar as a local brings on way too many temptations, so time at home is the mainstay for the month.
This is why I conceived of the idea of the SPNA Community Cleanse. As part of this month-long communal effort, we have been doing twice weekly group walks in the neighborhood. Always a different route, it has been fun to meet new neighbors and to get to know better the ones I already knew. As a fan of learning, I have enjoyed the New Year New You Zooms held by our partner in this program, Dignity Health California Hospital. Having experts talk about tools on mindfulness and meditation have been helpful.
Downtown LA is a community, South Park DTLA is an even closer-knit neighborhood. While easy to round up participants to enjoy cocktails, this month-long commitment has been the most challenging event we have organized. But we look forward to making it an annual one.
Never too late to start a cleanse. If you have questions, just email us, we love sharing information, and I love helping friends old and new take on the SPNA Community Cleanse program.
If you are one of our participants signed up to compete for prizes, stay tuned for emails on how to submit your cleanse results (we are giving prizes for drops in body mass and LDL cholesterol). Enjoy the clean life!
By your neighbor - Michael Robleto