The holidays are a wonderful time of year. It’s the time to see loved ones, catch up, and reminisce. The only problem is the inevitable stuffed mushroom, glass of champagne or iced gingerbread cookie that seems to have taken up permanent residence in your hand.

Now that the holidays are behind us, what better way to kick off the New Year than with a nice big green smoothie? Your body will thank you! 

1.    Our resident raw food guru and Integrative Nutrition guest teacher David Wolfe talks about getting started with detox in this short but super informative video.

2.    When detoxing your diet, food really matters. The film Food Matters offers a Detox and Rejuvenation Guide e-book that helps you apply the principals in the movie to remove processed, illness-causing foods from your diet.

3.    Integrative Nutrition guest teacher Dr. Mark Hyman gives you everything you need to complete a safe, effective, and medically informed detoxification program at home in The Detox Box.

4.    Find the right moves to twist and detox yourself into healthy bliss with Yoga Journal’s Go Podcast: Twist and Detox.

5.  Revamp and detox your current routine with the “Reinvent Yourself 21 Day Detox eProgram” by Find Your Balance Health (Michelle Pfennighaus—an Integrative Nutrition graduate).

6.    To prepare for a successful spring detox, check out this jam-packed foods and shopping list. 

7.    Take this quiz to see if you are a Detox Diva and get all the facts, even if you’re not quite the Aretha Franklin of detoxing yet.

8.    Serious about detoxing your home? Many toxins, especially indoors, are within our control to regulate. PlanetGreen gives a comprehensive Room-by-Room Guide to creating a chemical free home.

9.    Dr. Furhman’s Five-Day Super-Diet Challenge offers the chance to give your body a real cleanse with high-quality foods.

10.  Striving for health, but pressed for time? Check out Pressed Juicery, a juice company with a cult following of celebrities started by an Integrative Nutrition grad. Check out their shippable menu and cleanse programs.

11.   Ready to detox the meat out of your diet? Try Neal Barnard’s 21-Day Vegan Kickstart will get motivated.

12.   Feel like you can’t seem to find your life amongst all of the clutter? Check out this helpful guide to clear your clutter and find your life.

13.   Lemons & Loafers, a fashion and health blog Integrative Nutrition grad Julia Argenti, helps others look and feel great, and also offers guided cleanses through out the year. 

14.   Skin brushing can detox the largest organ of the body. Organic Passion’s “How to detox your skin” is a complete guide on how to use skin brushing for detoxification.

15.   Make your own. Since many cleaning products are full of harmful chemicals, Eco-cycle gives easy recipes for making your own cleaning products. 

16.   Need some ideas to get started on the whole decluttering process? Zen Habits shares its 15 Great Decluttering Tips.

17.   Debunk myths to clear out the space for decluttering! The Happiness Project reveals 11 myths of decluttering to help in your efforts!

18.   The skin is one of our biggest organs, so tea drinkers, try pairing Yogi Tea’s “Skin Detox” with an easy weekend skin detox from Natural Health Magazine.

19.   Detox the SAD (Standard American Diet) out of your life. Integrative Nutrition grad and author, Alex Jamieson, who also appeared in the film Super Size Me, gives us The great American Detox Diet.

20.   Crazy Sexy detox this spring with wellness warrior Kris Carr’s new book Crazy Sexy Diet for the ultimate guide to cleaning up your body and your mind.

21.   Integrative Nutrition guest teacher John Douillard shows you how the ancient science of Ayurveda provides a healthy daily routine and eating plan that will detoxify your body naturally on his Ayurveda for Detox DVD.

22.   We’ve all heard of detoxing your body, but what about detoxing your day?

23.   Top ten list on how to detox your home for babies and kids from author Alexandra Zissu of The Complete Organic Pregnancy. These tips go well beyond the standard advice.

24.   Easy-to-follow detox ideas from Frank Lipman's checklist of 20 Ways to 'Detox' Your Home.

25.   You say Juice, some say Joos. Joos To Your Health! is a juice company started by an Integrative Nutrition grad that helps properly support you through juice cleanses. 

26.     BONUS: Need to get rid of stuff? Recycle with Freecycle their mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills.

The spring and summer months are a very interesting time of year. Besides the weather being warmer and wanting to spend more time outdoors, people start to eat better and exercise more.

Many people strive for the “beach body,” and some even go as far to do a “spring cleanse.” Other people will do the less extreme and just incorporate more fresh fruits and vegetables into their diet. You don’t hear people talk about a winter cleanse, do you? People find it harder to get to the gym during the colder months. Why is that?

You may feel compelled to start working out more because you will be outdoors more and in the public eye. You may feel compelled to eat fresher fruits and veggies because they are cooling and in-season. It’s great that people are motivated to boost their health during the warmer months, but what about being healthy during the fall and winter? It is just as important.

Maybe instead of making one resolution every January to work out more and eat better, you can do it a couple of times a year. January is the marker of a new year, but so is September. Think of the resolutions you make in January as your spring and summer resolutions and September as your fall and winter resolutions.

We’ll revisit this in September to put you on track for setting healthy intentions for the colder months.

In Dr. Mark Hyman’s newest book The UltraMind Solution he takes a non pharmaceutical approach to healing. He talks about how millions of Americans suffer needlessly from a "broken brain," or what mainstream medicine calls depression, memory loss, attention deficit disorder, autism and dementia to name a few. Through years of research and seeing hundreds of patients, Dr. Hyman has found that when you focus on healing the body first, the brain fog will clear.

The key is undoing all of the damage caused by years of poor nutrition and other environmental factors. By healing many patients with brain fog, ADD and depression he says to achieve the UltraMind, you must balance out the body.

Here are a few ways to stay in balance and fix a "broken brain," according to Hyman:

Optimize Nutrition: We are made of the stuff we eat and nearly all of us are nutritionally imbalanced. We need the right balance and quality of protein, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins. This balance varies from person to person.

Fix your Digestion: Digesting, absorbing and assimilating all the food and nutrients we eat is critical for health. When our digestion isn’t working, illness occurs.

Enhance Detoxification: Our bodies must eliminate all of our metabolic wastes and toxins, which we take in from the environment through our food, air, water and medications. Today, the toxins in our food and around us are overwhelming for the body and leads to illness.

It would be nice to point a finger at one thing that leads to all illnesses, but the truth is many factors lead to millions of Americans feeling sick everyday. The key message in The UltraMind Solution is that with little tweaks to what you eat and your lifestyle, you can be at your best and live a happy, healthy life.

Newsweek recently came out with an article outlining the most popular diets for 2009. Some say eating Twinkies for breakfast, lunch and dinner are the way to ultimate health.

The Fat-Free Diet: This diet claims that you can eat whatever you want and not gain weight as long as it has zero fat. Fat-free products are often loaded with sugar and have little nutritional content. 

The Couch-Potato Diet: This one claims that if you cut back on calories you can lose weight without working out. The truth is exercise has more benefits than just losing weight and it is important to get up and move for at least 30 minutes a day.

The Detox Plan: Many people like to do a cleanse, such as the Master Cleanse, for a few days to clean out the toxins. This detoxing works really well for some people and not for others. Sometimes all you need to do is eliminate one food, like sugar, and add more fruits and vegetables for a simple detox.

The Beef and Bacon Diet: This is based on the Atkins diet. This diet suggests that if you stick to meat and cut out the carbs, you’ll lose weight. Some people do really well on this, but consuming large amounts of red meat is not good for long-term health.

These diets do seem to have one thing in common. None of them talk about eating more fruits and vegetables, which is probably why they are so popular in America.

Good health is really quite simply. Reduce junk foods and increase whole foods, like vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

Before going on any diet, ask yourself, “Why do I want to be healthy?” Once you have your answer, whatever diet you choose will be much more successful.