Pinkies Beauty Blog

On October 28, 2009, H2H and H2H 4 Teens hosted a special event at Pinkies Nail Salon in Los Altos–Girls Night Out: Manicures, Pedicures, and Breast Cancer Awareness. Women recieved services while a series of speakers discussed women’s health issues.

Hope to Health (H2H) and Hope to Health Teens (H2H) are two volunteer and philanthropic groups of the El Camino Hospital Foundation. They strive to bring women and teen health issues to light in the community as well as raise money for such services as health care for low-income women and care packets for women breast cancer patients.

On October 28, 50 women gathered at Pinkies Los Altos to learn about their health and get pampered. The program included a presentation on breast cancer risk factors, prevention, and therapetuic advances, a presentation on healthy eating tips, and a presentation on flu shots and the H1N1 virus. Dr. Vandana Sharma, Dr. Amanda Cooley, and Dr. Daniel Shim offered their expert knowledge and answered all questions.

Participants found the event not only fun, but educational and useful for their lives.

No alcohol, caffeine, sugar, chemicals, bad fats, unhealthy meats, nightshades, gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, corn, etc. Excuse me, but that just about covers every food group as far as I’m concerned.

When my partner Connie called and announced “we” were signed up for a bio-cleanse I thought, “fine, I could lose a few pounds anyway.” That was the last time we spoke about it until we met with Dr. Amy Day of San Francisco Natural Medicine just down the street from our Pinkies location on Potrero Hill.

Dr. Amy had 14 participants lined up and announced she too would “cleanse” with the group. We went around the room introducing ourselves and talking about our individual goals. The stories were all pretty familiar. Too much of a good, or delicious, thing isn’t good for you. We all know this but sometimes a bad habit isn’t all that bad, right? And what the heck is a nightshade anyway?

After the orientation, Connie and I raced off to Whole Foods with our grocery lists filled with items we couldn’t pronounce. We stood there staring into bulk food bins when a perky store employee approached and asked if we were participating in the cleanse. “We only have one bottle of bentonite left and we are out of Castor Oil,” she said excitedly. This forced us to move into immediate supermarket sweeps mode. Connie dashed off leaving me with two shopping carts and desperately scanning ingredients on every item.

That evening, Connie had me over for dinner. It was our last night of food freedom for 10 days so we did it up. Cheeses, bread, wine, Indian food, and more wine. It was wonderful.

By cleanse day 2 we were both feeling the effects of caffeine deprivation. During our frequent phone conversations I wasn’t sure if Connie was continually repeating herself, I was hearing double, or if she was intentionally trying to annoy me. Another couple of days passed and we were off and running. The great part about Dr. Amy’s plan is that she uses full body approach to the cleanse process. It was not a diet so we never felt starved!

The key to a successful cleanse is to get back in touch with your body and learn something(s)about yourself. I discovered that my diet was not in any way related to my chronic insomnia and that eating on a regular schedule is key to staying trim. Both Connie and I learned that eating and drinking is more of social experience for us. We enjoy the company and, trust me, it’s gets lonely eating a special diet for 10 days. If you are planning to cleanse do it with a friend or in a group. “The allowed foods get rather boring,” says Connie, “so you’ll want o swap recipes with a friend.” She also goes on record that it was me who was annoying her around day 2!

Both of us agree that our eating habits have improved as a result of the cleanse and we highly recommend this to anyone who is feeling a little toxic. You will have done something really good for yourself not to mention your liver. If we can do it, you can too.

So what is a nightshade vegetable you ask? Foods in the Potato, Tomato, Pepper, and Eggplant families contain naturally occurring toxins. These toxins may or may not be problematic for patients but all potential toxins are removed from the diet during this cleanse.

For more information go to http://www.sfnatmed.com/ and, as Dr. Amy says, “love your liver and be well.”

1447 20th Street

San Francisco, CA  94107