At least, it’s an easy impression to get in chapter 2 of Total Renewal, which I’m reading for the Health & Fitness Challenge (chapter one post). The point of “Remove Toxins and Decrease Your Total Load” (chapter 2) is to make you aware of all the unnecessary burdens and stresses that you put on your body and give you ideas to eliminate some of them. The problem? The list pretty much encompasses your entire life! Eep, maybe it’s chapter two I can never get past now that I think about it. Here are all the categories of toxins listed:

• Environmental
• Drugs
• Allergies
• Diet
• Low-Grade Infections
• Nutritional Deficiencies
• Metabolic Imbalances
• Physical
• Work
• Psycho-Emotional
• Social
• Spiritual
• Lack of Sleep
• Lack of Exercise
• Temperature/Climactic Extremes

Yeah, no problem. I’ll get right on that list. Obviously the only way to do this successfully is to pick and choose and do a few at a time depending on what’s affecting you most. I’ve picked four to get started on for next week: sleep, exercise, housecleaning and pilot light (the last two show up under environmental in the list).

The author, Lipman, says combustion appliances can affect your health if they’re not working properly. I’ve experienced this (looong story), so I don’t argue with that. However, my other half inists that a yellow pilot light is normal while I (and Lipman and, let’s see, every other source on the Internet) says that pilot lights should be blue. So first on the list is to convince dearest to clean the furnace or get it serviced.

And while we’re cleaning things, keeping dust and mold down falls under reducing the burden on your body, especially if you’re allergic (and I am). So I will make a point of dusting (weekly though the book insists twice a week). I will now pause so that everyone that I know in real life can have a moment to laugh themselves silly at the thought of me dusting more than once every three months. Waiting … waiting … waiting … okay, it wasn’t that funny, Mom.

The biggest issue I’m tackling this year is sleep (I get maybe 2 or 3 hours at a time). So I’ll try to stick to a regular sleep schedule this week, as well as starting regular exercise (helps me sleep). That’s about all I can take on this week. The elimination diet of death is chapter three and next week.

Chapter two also introduced the Neti pot, which I am apparently a candidate for (I will spare you the drippy-mucus details of why I’m a candidate–I’ve said too much already, haven’t I?). I bought a Neti pot this summer at the pharmacy on one of my braver days. I carefully unpacked it, checked out the bits and pieces, read the instructions, and decided to do it tomorrow. The next day I decided I would wait a day. Six months later I still haven’t convinced myself that it’s a good idea to pour salt water up my nose.

Maybe tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. I am weak (so sue me)
2. That silly get fit and healthy New Year’s resolution begins
3. So I started the restoration diet of doooom
4. One step forward, two steps back