I asked one of my detox-ers, Anna Cardoso, to write up an honest review of her experience of my 7-day whole food and self-care New Years Detox from a couple weeks ago. She was a very active participant in the cleanse which helped her dive deeper and gain insight on herself which helped her grow through the process two-fold. I should share with you that this is not solicited or edited in any way. Here's what she had to say!

My name is Anna and I am 29 years old. I currently live in Framingham, Massachusetts and am a licensed yoga instructor. I decided to do the detox because I always get to this point at the end of the year during the holidays where my body just hates me. I feel nauseous all the time and am just in that constant cycle of bad eating habits and bad life habits. Not taking care of myself, running on empty, and giving a lot of myself to others when I should be turning my attention inward. Especially with winter in New England too, I get more depressed, so it gets hard to do literally anything.

So when I saw this detox, I saw an opportunity to make changes and to form new habits. I also really liked that Natasha was incorporating self-care habits too. Detoxing and cleansing is a hard process to do, but because she was including self-care practices as well, I was all for it.

The detox definitely ended up being so much more than I expected. We’ve all done detoxes and cleanses and this was the first time that I actually felt successful in one. There was a great easing out of bad habits and easing into the healthy ones. We had a call in the beginning and then again in the end, along with the Facebook support group and a huge book on resources! And not only that but because of Natasha’s approach to it, I was able to also go through a mental/emotional/spiritual cleanse as well. It was a whole mind, body, and soul situation and I loved it. This cleanse really helped me to turn inward and become aware of where my emotions were, and how that affected my eating and health habits. By doing this I was able to change the habits because I could see the root cause of it.

My favorite thing from this cleanse was the self-care practices. Just focusing on being kind to yourself and saying nice things, oil self-massages, and reflection. That was the biggest thing for me, was just giving myself some more self-love. You really don’t realize how much you need it until you start doing it regularly. Through this, I gained a lot of knowledge, not only about eating habits, but also just about myself. I was able to become more mindful of my habits all around and make the changes I needed.

My experience with this detox was really amazing! I was able to change my bad habits into healthier ones, which in turn changed a lot of my life style habits and made me a happier person who’s now comfortable in their own body again. I was able to eliminate dairy and sugars from my diet, therefore, eliminating a lot of bloating and that uncomfortable feeling.

I took the self-care theme away the most from this cleanse and brought it more into my everyday life. We really just don’t do enough self-care and are always really hard on ourselves. I’ve been trying to keep the self-care practices in my habits, but also just saying nice things to myself. And just being proud of my accomplishments and focus on the positives. I also have re-incorporated meditation into my daily practice which has really helped calm my system down and allowed me to have a clearer mind.

I definitely think this is something everyone should do, probably for each season change like Natasha mentioned based on the Ayurveda principles. It really is a great refresh to get you into a better mindset and feeling about your body and in turn your whole life!  

Let's thank Anna for being vulnerable and sharing her experience with you, my readers! If you're curious about cleansing I promise there will be more opportunities. About 4 a year actually! I'll be running seasonal cleanses every winter, spring, summer, and fall. If you're interested in joining the next one schedule a call for a free strategy call to see if cleansing is right for you.