Springtime Healthy Food

Spring has sprung! If your liver chi hasn’t as well it’s really unpleasant for you and everyone around you. This is the time of year to do some spring cleaning in your body, particularly your liver. This does NOT mean an intense liver cleanse. You can generate the changes through diet an exercise.

The energy of nature is moving upward through the blades of grass pushing through the soil, flowers bursting open and buds popping on the trees. Our liver energy wants to flow unbridled, like a burbling stream. Often we are still in the habit of hibernation. Eating foods and not moving enough cause that good energy to back up and cause more harm than good – and cause spring fever.

Symptoms of Spring Fever

Frustration
Irritability
Feeling hot and bothered
Headaches and joint pain
Low grade pissiness

Time to Lighten Up and Burst Forth!

With the warming weather the energy inside our bodies warms up as well. Time to stop overeating those heavy winter time comfort foods. What not to eat: cheese, cream, heavy meats. Reduce grains and root vegetables, alcohol. These foods are more work for the liver to transform into energy. They create heat in the body at a time it is trying to lighten up and cool off.

Time to bust out. Break through the shell. Be like a bud bursting into bloom. Often the inertia of winter hibernation has us in its grip. We must make a conscious effort to disrupt the hibernation mode and get moving. Get on your bike, pick up the pace of your walk, weed the garden vigorously. Create the change and transition to vitality happening in the world within yourself. Push it!

Time to start eating lighter. Slightly steam your vegetables and season liberally with vinegars, which help move the chi. Eat larger meals at the beginning of the day and enjoy a lighter dinner. This allows your liver to fast and cleanse itself as you sleep.

This combined with increasing exercise will melt away the winter fat like spring snows off the mountain top.