Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
In short: When life keeps you indoors and close to the kitchen, it is easy to eat more, move less and turn to food for comfort. Spring is a natural moment to change that. Your body doesn’t need a harsh detox: it needs fresh, simple food, water, movement and room for your emotions, so that it can do its own cleaning. A few gentle days of eating well can bring back your energy and a clearer head.
It is the end of winter. For months you have been indoors more than you’d like, working at the kitchen table, a few steps from the fridge. You’ve baked, you’ve cooked, you’ve nibbled. The evenings were long and a little lonely, and something sweet helped. Now the light is coming back, the birds are noisy in the morning, and you feel heavy, tired and not quite yourself.
I first wrote this article in the spring that followed a very strange year, when lockdowns kept us at home, the gyms were closed and many of us spent far more time around the kitchen table than ever before. That time has passed, but the pattern returns for all of us: a long winter, a convalescence, a period of working from home, weeks when we hardly go out. So the question is still a good one. How do you help your body feel well again?
What happens when life keeps you close to the kitchen?
One of the things I heard most during those months was how much time and joy people found in cooking and baking. And that’s wonderful. Cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients is a real bonus for your health, compared with a quick lunch grabbed at work or a take-away dinner.
But there is another side. When you spend more time in the kitchen, you also spend more time near food. And you move much less than before. Exercising at home is not always easy, with your family around you, or because you live alone with no one to motivate you.
A little unexpected and unwanted weight can arrive that way. And for those who already struggle with their relationship with food, times like these are particularly challenging. Isolation can drive people to emotional eating and bingeing, out of stress, boredom, confusion or anger.
What do emotions have to do with how we eat?
Emotions are inevitable. They are a normal part of being alive, and they do not make us ill when they arise in daily life and are allowed to pass. Traditional Chinese Medicine sees a problem only when they are repressed and held in, or expressed very intensely, very often, without control or out of context.
In this tradition, every organ corresponds to the energy of a certain emotion. Anger, resentment, frustration and irritability are linked to the liver.
Health, in this view, is the free circulation of blood and energy, together with the body’s ability to adapt to the environment around it. Illness begins when that flow is obstructed.
You don’t have to adopt the whole system to recognise yourself in it. When we are shut in and frustrated, something in us gets stuck, and food is the quickest way to soothe it. If this is familiar, you may like to read where cravings come from and what they are telling you.
What does spring ask of your body?
We can learn to flow as nature does through the seasons. If we understand how energy moves through the year, we can adapt our habits and our diet to these cycles.
Spring is a season of expansion and flowering. The daylight increases, the birds are busier and sing more, the sap rises in the plants and the first shoots appear. It is the season of renewal.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring is related to the element of wood, which governs growth, development and expansion, just like the trunk and branches of a tree. If we want to live in harmony with nature, spring is a good time to start new plans, to open up, to expand. Any kind of stagnation or blockage, whether physical, emotional or mental, goes against the energy of the season, and is said to affect the organs associated with it: the liver and the gallbladder.
So when we should be outside enjoying the season and find ourselves stuck at home with our emotions, we are living the exact opposite of what spring invites us to do. It shows in our mood, in our eating habits and sometimes in our weight.
Do you need a detox?
More important than any weight you may have gained is your health, and how you can help your body function at its best.
Your body already knows how to clean itself. Your liver, kidneys, gut, lungs and skin do it day and night. What I mean by a gentle spring detox is simply making their work easier for a few days: taking away what weighs you down and giving your body plenty of what it uses well. No fasting, no powders, no going hungry.
Sustaining your body with healthy food supports your immune system, gives you more energy and helps you think more clearly. You might even lose a little weight along the way, but that isn’t the goal.
What helps? A gentle three-day spring clean
Choose three quiet days, a long weekend for example, and keep it simple.
1. Start the day with warm water
A glass of warm water, with a squeeze of lemon if you like, before anything else. You can read more about this habit in the health benefits of hot water. Then keep drinking water and herbal teas through the day.
2. Put green on every plate
Spring gives us exactly what we need: young leaves, herbs, radishes, asparagus, spring onions, sprouted seeds. Slightly bitter leaves such as rocket, dandelion and chicory are traditional spring foods in many cultures. Add a handful to each meal.
3. Cook simply, from scratch
Vegetable soups, steamed or roasted vegetables, a grain such as brown rice or quinoa, lentils or beans, a little fish or an egg if you eat them, olive oil, lemon, herbs. You’ll find ideas among my recipes.
4. Give a few things a rest
For these three days, leave out alcohol, sugar and sweet drinks, fried food and heavily processed products, and go easy on coffee. You’ll find more ways to clean up your diet in a separate article.
5. Move, outside if you can
A walk every day, some stretching, a little dancing in the living room. Movement gets everything circulating again, in your body and in your head.
6. Make room for what you feel
Before you open the cupboard, pause and ask: am I hungry, or am I bored, lonely, angry, tired? If it is an emotion, give it another way out: write it down, call someone, go round the block, have a good cry. Spring is also a lovely time to look at the rest of your life, your relationships, your work, your plans, which I call primary foods.
7. Sleep
Go to bed early these three evenings. Your body does much of its repair work at night.
After three days, don’t rush back to your old habits. Notice what felt good, and keep one or two things: the warm water in the morning, the green on your plate, the daily walk.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a detox in spring?
Your liver, kidneys, gut, lungs and skin clean your body every day, without any special programme. What you can do is make their work easier: more vegetables and water, less sugar, alcohol and heavily processed food, more movement and sleep. A few days of eating simply is enough to feel the difference, with no fasting or special products needed.
What does Traditional Chinese Medicine say about spring?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring belongs to the element of wood, which stands for growth and expansion, and to the liver and gallbladder. Anger, frustration and irritability are linked to the liver. It is a way of looking at health that can help you live with the seasons, alongside modern medicine and never in place of it.
Which foods are good to eat in spring?
Whatever is young, green and fresh: tender leaves, herbs, radishes, asparagus, spring onions, the first peas, sprouted seeds. Slightly bitter leaves such as rocket, dandelion and chicory are traditional spring foods, and a squeeze of lemon lifts almost any dish.
Why do I eat more when I am stuck at home?
Because food is close by, and because boredom, loneliness, stress and frustration all look for comfort. This is emotional eating, and it is very human. Noticing what you feel before you eat, and having other ways to comfort yourself, helps much more than willpower.
When should I talk to my doctor?
Before changing your diet noticeably if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, have a health condition such as diabetes, or take medication. And please ask for help if eating feels out of control, if you binge regularly, or if food and weight take up most of your thoughts.
Would you like some help?
Eating with the seasons, and understanding what your emotions have to do with your plate, is one of the things we work on in my group programmes in nutrition and health, such as Six Tuesdays in Montignac. If you’d like to hear when the next group opens, write to me at hello@catherinepolet.coach.
Would you rather work one to one? I also coach online. Book a free 20-minute call, and tell me what the last few months have been like for you. We’ll find one or two simple things to help your body feel lighter again.
About Catherine
I’m Catherine Polet, a holistic nutrition health coach, yoga and autogenic training teacher for more than 30 years, author and speaker. I help people find a way of eating and living that suits their own body, online in English, French, Spanish and German, and in person in Southwest France.
