Time to get healthy

I'm feeling sluggish, tired, heavy, lethargic, stiff, and just plain unhealthy. In early January I was quite sick with congestive and flu-like symptoms. My immune system was weak, and going back to work was hard on me. Now I feel completely over that, my respiratory system is feeling great but my digestive system is suffering. I get through the work day with a somewhat healthy lunch thanks to the cafeteria at work, but it is more or less the same every day. I have too many treats and candies in my classroom which I eat throughout the afternoon when I start to feel tired, then I come home and either snack on moderately unhealthy stuff until bedtime or go out to eat restaurant-sized portions of varying degrees of healthiness. What to do?

I kicked off this weekend with yoga on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Since the retreat in Thailand I have not practiced once! I must admit, it didn't great on Saturday, but today was better. I have some damaged tendons in my left ankle, and I am still wearing a tensor bandage, so I have to be careful and not push it too much.

Then I reflected on the Ayurvedic body styles I learned about in Thailand to help me plan a 1-week cleansing diet. I'm not in the mood to try and just 'eat better' or 'snack less', I need a serious regime to clean out my body as well as my mental state of craving comfort foods and compromising my better judgment in terms of food choices. I researched some common cleansing diets and applied the dos and don'ts to my Ayurvedic body type - which is Kapha - to come up with a general idea of what I will be eating over the next 7 (or more) days. Then I went out into the wet markets in my neighbourhood and stocked up! I bought broccoli, peppers, asparagus, artichoke, apples, blueberries, eggplant, carrots, spinach and a dozen bunches of fresh herbs. Then I stopped in the super market for a sac of mixed Thai rice (8 rice varieties), 2 liters of pure carrot juice, herbal tea, rice paper, raisins and dried apricots.

So here I go. I just cleaned out my fridge of all that could tempt me (there really wasn't much in there to begin with), cut up some carrot sticks, put some rice to soak, ate a bowl of blueberries, and I have no idea what to do next...