As the days are getting longer and we are watching snow storms become fewer as the daily temperatures ride, many are starting to think about swimsuit season. And cringing at the thought of being out in public with the winter weight they have put on. While detox diets may be all the rage to the celebrities we follow from day to day, many of them are unhealthy and destroy the good proteins our bodies need and send our internal water levels into dangerously low territories. Isis Holistic Clinic & Body Purification Spa in

Brookline offers a number of detox treatments and services that will help you to purify your body in preparation for losing extra pounds in a healthy manner.
ISIS was developed to follow European guidelines about health and healing, using therapies based on the philosophy of herbal and nutritional therapy. The detoxification techniques administered at the clinic are unique and performed by Naturopathic Physicians.

“Everything we do is to guide people to their best self – body, mind, spirit, not to lecture them about poor choices, or to lead them to believe that there is only one way of eating or one way to maintain optimal health,” Karen Clickner, N.D., L.M.T., L.C.T., and director of ISIS said. “Not everyone has candida, nor does everyone have thyroid problems.  It’s discovering the unique characteristics, strengths, weaknesses and lifestyle choices that bring you happiness and working with those to find the best solutions.”

According to Clickner, a healthy detox diet can enable the body to access stored areas, like the adipose tissue, to receive essential nutrition and allows for toxic materials to exit the body, causing it to have “symptoms” of cleansing and allows for the body to use pathways and metabolic systems that may have been inappropriately or insufficiently used for long periods of time.

“The idea of detoxification treatments is to prepare the body to release toxic material andencourage the efficient use of every elimination pathway that the body has.  These therapies can also access systems that are not easily reached through a simple detoxication diet, such as the lymphatic system which requires a structural approach, as opposed to a nutritional approach.  So a Detox diet really is geared towards only accessing certain systems and in certain ways.  These diets may also choke an already over-burdened elimination system, creating serious body symptoms,” Clickner said

Single day or weekend cleanses only partially clear out the digestive track, and no matter what, the detox cannot have an effect beyond what it has already been taken care of. In order to ensure the body is able to adapt and efficiently use its natural reserves, detoxing must be done over time.

“Detoxification is not something that should be undertaken on your own, nor lightly.  People have many weaknesses that may not appear until they burden the body with a cleanse. Sometimes that can have serious implications for their health,” Clickner said. “I truly advise everyone to cleanse their bodies regularly, but under the guidance of a professional so that their individual needs and tendencies can be monitored and provided for.”

Clickner also mentions that the clinic is not about diets, but working with the concept of eating whole foods and balancing intake for a healthy body.

“Essentially any dramatic change in food choices or intake will provide changes in the body.  It really doesn’t matter if it is high protein or complex carbs or organic vegetables or only apples.  Any change will produce a shift.  It’s the long-term issues of continuing diets for more than a couple of weeks that can throw off the body dramatically,” she said. 

ISIS offers a number of programs that are designed for specific body issues and lifestyles. For individuals who have many symptoms across various body systems, they do not recommend internal cleansing programs as they will need a slower, gentler program to encourage toxin release without causing the client to be bedridden for a week.

For those interested in purifying at home, the clinic offers the ISIS Nutritional Home Kit, which is a general purification regimen that last for 21 days and can be done without a therapy session. For those interested in visiting the clinic for a more therapeutic treatment, they offer services such as the ISIS One Day Intensive, a program that cleanses the lymphatic system. This is one of the key means of detoxing at a cellular level.

For more information about the services offered at ISIS Holistic Clinic & Purification Spa, located at 1 Harvard Street in Brookline, visit them online at www.isisboston.comor call (617) 734-4708.

Remember, while we are all concerned about looking good by the pool or at the beach this summer, there is no healthy quick fix to weight loss or getting in shape. Detoxing, maintaining healthy eating habits and getting yourself into a safe fitness plan is the only way to go.

One Bar, Two Bars, Three Bars, More

If you’re in a bar and suddenly notice an influx of Viking helmets, you don’t need to run home for your most prized possessions before they’re looted and your apartment is burned to the ground. Barring an unlikely resurrection of the Norse ravagers, those revelers at the bar are just on a pub crawl.

A pub crawl, in the most basic sense, is simply the act of drinking in multiple bars in one night. There is no quota for participants or bars, and themes are neither definitive nor required. “Pub crawls are something four people can do, or 4,000 people can do,” says John Vergato, who coordinates the annual Great Boston Beer Marathon as a partner with GreatBostonExperience.com. “They can be as spontaneous as calling a few friends, or something you plan in advance.”

Typically though, crawls are well-organized events with a few hundred people, held either to promote organizations, or just as massive ragers. In either case, the goal is to provide a more comfortable environment to mingle than the normal bar experience, with the crawl’s commonality sparking conversation among strangers.

“You’re with a group, so it gives you a little more purpose to talk to new people,” says Beth Murray, marketing and events coordinator with the Boston Ski and Sports Club, who organizes crawls for the club. “By the end of the night, you’ve made 20 new Facebook friends.”

Despite the party atmosphere, pub crawls aren’t just an excuse to get wasted and stagger, progressively less confidently, from bar to bar. Rather, they can serve as professional networking events. This is especially effective for new Bostonians, Murray says, as it helps to immediately form connections in a new city.

Event T-shirts are usually distributed to identify participants in a crawl or, for themed events, costumes can serve the same purpose—Santa hats on a Christmas crawl, or those ubiquitous plastic beads for Mardi Gras.

Yet finding a crawl isn’t as simple as spotting 500 Waldo’s might sound. Due to the spontaneity of crawls and the many contained bar pockets in Boston, finding an event by simply hitting a few nightclubs is unlikely. Most crawls also require registration and a small fee to cover shirts and schwag. However, several websites—boston.going.com,  pubcrawlnetwork.com, and crawlinboston.com—list upcoming crawls and registration details. Larger events are sometimes also promoted in local publications.

For intrepid partiers, setting up a crawl can take as little effort as making an itinerary and posting it on any networking site, like Facebook. Crawl organizers also recommend giving bars advance notice so they can staff accordingly, and to inquire about sponsorships or complimentary food; depending on the crawl’s size, bars may offer such aid in exchange for the business brought in or any advertising bearing the bar’s name.

Unsurprisingly, several Irish crawls are scheduled this month—including the Irish Pub Challenge, a 13 bar hop on the 13th where 13 trips to Ireland will be raffled off— to celebrate St. Patrick’s historic drunk driving of snakes from Ireland.