Detox holidays. Everyone’s doing them, right? I call them “poo holidays”…you know.. the ones where people dart off to Bali or India or Thailand to detox and clean out their insides…if you know what I mean.
From what I hear they entail drinking clay (to grab’n’drag whatever’s clinging to their guts) and pumping all manner of things (coffee, herbs) up their you-know-whats. Oh, and then pooing everything back out again. It’s Operation Eliminate…sitting by a pool. My friend Deb goes twice a year. “I come back scrubbed out and recalibrated,” she says.
I’ve never done such a retreat. I mean, you would’ve read about it if I had.
I guess I cling to the idea that our bodies have their own divine way of sorting out our (I promise this is the last mention) shit. I realize I’m about to sound like my Mum when she’d offer me a celery stick when I complained of being hungry. But I think a far better way to detox is to do stuff. Stuck? Move a little. Eaten badly? Eat a stack of good stuff. We are dynamic beings, not passive vessels in need of a hose out.
Me. I prefer to keep things clean and simple. I do bike riding holidays. I always have. I’ve seen New Zealand, Spain, California, The Netherlands, Vietnam, Tasmania, vast tracts of NSW and Victoria by bike as well as the 3000km stretch of coast running from Brisbane to Cairns stopping off at all possible gaudy Big Edible Items en route.
Recently I was invited to ride around the Hawke’s Bay region in New Zealand. It came at a time when I needed to get clean and clear (just after I decided to abort my book project). It was perfect.
[Disclaimer: I was invited as a guest of Tourism New Zealand to experience their new Cycle Trails, a project of 18 new trails that zig-zag across both islands. They know I’ve ridden quite a bit of the country before and thought I’d like to check it out.]
Five reasons to detox on a bike
- Head down and watching spokes spin, you have a lot of time to think. Actually, it’s more a purging of thoughts. After up to nine hours in the saddle, the toxic thoughts eventually peter out. They just do. And then sweet, Zen-like emptiness. Previously I’ve reinvented my career, had insights into my future, had emotional purgings…the lot! All atop a saddle.
- The pedaling motion is also great for lymphatic drainage. So is the sweating. So is the sun.