When I first thought about doing a green juice detox cleanse three years ago, my first thought was “No way in hell.”  After all, I’m a total foodie, I like my wine, and giving up food flashed me back to a decade of deprivation during medical school and residency, when I was lucky to get one meal a day because I was too busy working my ass off to eat.

Although I review the past year, and set intentions for the one to come every year, my friend Chris Guillebeau wrote a post challenging his readers to make their “Annual Review” public, so I’m taking him up on the challenge, in case it helps any of you.

Some of you know my friend Dr. Lee Lipsenthal. I wrote about him here and he wrote an article for Owning Pink here. A physician, author, and workshop leader who spent most of his career working with Dr. Dean Ornish and teaching physicians how to find balance in a medical life, Lee has inspired hundreds of thousands of people with his work.

I'm all for mental health days. And gentleness. And I think the world should take the month of December off. And for the love of God, a 4 day work week would revolutionize the collective human spirit and thusly, healthcare. But this pep talk isn't about taking it easy, this is about another form of self care: doing whatever it takes.