Liver Cleanse Process

Picture has nothing to do with post.

I've had four people personally ask me what the whole process for the liver cleanse is, so I thought I'd post for them and all the others who are suffering in silence.

Step 1 - Prepare your liver 
I found an herbal liver and kidney detox tea at my local Kroger (Fry's for all you Arizonians). I suggest drinking this for a few days before detox.

Step 2 - Soften your liver
I drink as much apple juice or apple cider vinegar as I can the day of my cleanse and for my first cleanse I drank this a few days before. Apple cider vinegar has more malic acid and requires less dosage. Malic acid makes liver stones soft and painless to pass.

Step 3 - Fast
On the day of my cleanse, I don't eat anything. This builds up bile, which helps with the cleansing processes.

Step 4 - Epson Salt I
Two hours before going to bed, I take 4 tablespoons of pure Epson salt and mix it in a larger glass of water. Warning! This is very bitter! The Epson salt seems to be the driving force for pushing them out.

Step 5 - Olive Oil & Citrus
Right before I go to be I take half a cup of olive oil mixed with citrus juice (grapefruit, lemon, lime or orange). It doesn't taste as bad as you might think. This coats your insides and allows the stones to slip out.

Step 6 - Sleep
I lay on my right side while sleeping. I have no idea why exactly. I read it in about 5 liver cleanse recipes and do it out of blind faith.

Step 7 - Epson Salt II
When I wake up I take another four tablespoons of Epson salt in water.

Step 8 -  Epson Salt III
About an hour and a half later (give or take a half hour), I take the same Epson salt drink again.

Step 9 - Persist
I didn't get great results the first time, but the second and third time I did. So don't get discouraged after one try. Talmage's first time he repeated Epson salt drink four more times and the olive oil/citrus drink one more time until about 6 o'clock in the evening and got results the first time he did the cleanse.

Step 10 - Repeat
I plan on repeating this process every two weeks until I don't get anymore stones.

Liver Cleanse (Warning! Graphic Images)

So Talmage and I did a liver cleanse. His first, my third. Basically we drank vinegar, Epson salt mix in water and olive oil mixed with citrus juice. We drank each drink two hours apart and then went to bed. The results are a little gross, but since you were wondering here is a picture of our liver stones.

Talmage's First Liver Clease

The second time I did it got over a hundred stones, probably over a measuring cup full of liver stones. The third time I got about 70 stones out. And I got "gravel" out during each.

If you want to know more about the importance of liver cleanses I highly recommend this movie. "Here, educate yourself."

Basically cleansing your liver is an important key component of detoxing your whole body.

Conference Weekend

Two weekends a year we stay at home and watch General Conference. This is a live broadcast of our prophet and leaders in our church receiving inspiration from God and speaking directly to us. It is an amazing experience of hope and renewal. And family time. I love it and get so much peace and hope from it. 

The kids and I painting:

 

Talmage left for a week long conference in Flordia on Sunday of conference weekend.

You are What You Eat

 How we've changed our eating habits after watching Hungry for Change:

• The label says it all; we try to buy more FOOD and less "food like product." 
• We buy more organic vegetables especially spinach.
• We have a lot more smoothies with cleansing ingredients such as adding parsley, spinach, cilantro, etc.
• We try to make meals that we are used to but with a healthier twist. For example, brown rice instead of white rice.
• We eat less meat and more fruits and vegetables, it seems to even out budget-wise.

Honestly, it's a challenge to find that balance of taste good and is good for you; a challenge worth working on. Because you are what you eat.

Hungry for Change

Rachel and I feel that we have drastically improved our eating habits lately. The underlying theme to our new lifestyle is eating more food and less "food-like products" (said with a latin accent). We have made this change, in large part because of a video that we watch that was recommended by my cousin Lucy. The Hungry for Change book has just come out and to promote it the video is available for free until midnight this Saturday October 6th. It's long (about an hour and half) but well worth the watch.

Heber and DaMAN

So the other day we were walking down the street when we saw these kids playing. One of them as he saw Heber yelled, "Hey you got the same shirt as me!" So we got a picture of them together. The little boy's name was Daman (pronounced da-MAN). He made sure we knew it was with a "d" not a "th" as if that is a common mistake.

Hokie Pride and Military Appreciation

Blacksburg, VA is home to the Virginia Tech Hokies. When there is a home football game here the whole town is centered around the action. Businesses close. Students party. Alumni return. And old timers tune in their radios. When I try to describe it to people, the best comparison I can come up with is to imagine a University of Arizona Wildcat football stadium right in the middle of Globe, AZ. Anyway, last Saturday the Hokies played Bowling Green University. They aren't too great so it wasn't hard to get some free tickets.

It was also Military Appreciation Day and both the football players and the fans dressed appropriately.

Bowling Green (carrying the ball) and Virginia Tech (making the tackle)

Heber (top) and Talmage (bottom)

We had some nice seats, in my opinion. I was hesitant about them at first because it was in the north end zone student section. But they turned out to be at the very back of the student section giving us a nice view of the whole stadium and a view of the campus behind us.

Our seats were right up there where those people are standing 

Overall it was really exciting. Heber complained about it being loud and we were only able to hold out halfay through the second quarter. After a slow start, Virginia Tech won 37-0.

BG field goal attempt. The fans are signaling "Block it." If you look close you can see the ball next to the left upright.

The front of our shirts weren't too hokie-ish

Opening kickoff. It was so windy that someone had to hold the ball for the kicker.

Utilizing the Cartoon Effect option on my camera phone

What is a hokie? I've not yet heard an adequate answer. Maybe this?

 The plan was originally to bring Hannah since Heber got to go to a basketball game with me. She wanted to the night before. But once here and Rachel got working on her new bike, she lost all interest.

Turning Heber's $10 spider-man bike into a girls' balance bike. 

Scrubbing off the old

On with the new

Olive doing her part

More on her new bike and a more thorough update of our new car-less lifestyle to come.