Welcome to the sixth installment of Cleansing from the Inside Out, a series about my experience participating in Amanda Moxley’s Whole Body and Mind Cleanse program. For more on my cleanse experience, read the entire series.

This week was a serious wake-up call for me. While I worked on all the objectives Amanda gave us, the goals that I focused on most were deconstructing my cravings and paying attention to my energy. In truly focusing on my body and its needs, and how certain foods affected me, I realized how disconnected I had become from my body’s signals.

Like a lot of women, during my lifetime I’ve struggled with an unhealthy relationship with food. I’ve been an obsessive counter – calories, Points, servings, fat grams – you name it and I’ve counted it. Counting is how you control your weight, I told myself. So what if your stomach is growling? You don’t have any calories left for the day. So what if you’re not hungry? You have three points left and you better eat them.

As you can imagine, when the idea of “listening to my body” came up in our phone call at the beginning of the week, I couldn’t help but think it was a little cheesy. I had been so disconnected from my body for so long that I was sure it would tell me lies. After a week of practice, I had started to see that if I really listened, if I paid attention to its signals, if I recognized that I didn’t always have to feed my cravings, I could trust my body to tell me what it needs. And I could still lose (or maintain) weight.

I was also learning that I didn’t need to beat myself up for my food choices (or any other choice for that matter). Kindness is the best thing for my body, mind and spirit. Loving myself, enjoying the food I eat and making conscious, thoughtful food choices would allow me to have a bowl of ice cream or juicy hamburger without berating myself for weakness or “bad” behavior.

I was looking forward to what the final week of this cleanse would bring.

Tune in for the fourth and final week of my cleanse experience coming soon. If you’re interested in joining one of Amanda’s 30-Day Whole Mind and Body Cleanse groups, you can learn more at Amanda’s website.

(Image by D Sharon Pruitt)