Juice Fast Progress

Friday, February 26, 2010

Day 10: Calm

First day I've not had the fruit bowl. I still haven't completely given up the morning coffee, though... and I think I'm basically okay with that.

Between the Raw Apple Cider Vinegar, the Sun Chlorella, and the morning body brushing, I feel very awake and alive. It's exciting.

I got some very frightening news last night. The building I own a condo in has been leaking in the rain severely, and we need to do a staggering amount of emergency repairs. What it means is that, basically, I'll owe our HOA between 20k and 30k sometime in the next few months.  Understandably, my mind is absorbed with this, and there's a dull, panicky anxiety suffusing through the day. I know that there's nothing to do but deal with it - go to the bank, ask questions, make the best decisions, and ride it out.  In a sense, it's almost not that scary because there really aren't very many things I can do. So I just have to walk the path, a step at a time.

I'm surprised, though, at how the panic and anxiety produced an intense and immediate desire for comfort food. I guess it's not that surprising, and I'm glad I resisted, but yeah - as soon as this thing hit, I was instantly dreaming of Stacy's Thanksgiving Turkey and all the carb-heavy joy that went along with it.

Mmmm. Mashed potatoes.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Day 9: A Juice-Fasting Pu**y

Chadd was kind enough to talk shit last night at yoga, upon hearing that I'm having a bowl of fruit in the mornings, he cheerfully told me, "That's called being a juice-fasting pu**y".  I have to admit, call me a guy, but this kind of thing makes it a lot easier to stay tough.

Class last night was great. I was weak, but it was so encouraging, it was such a touchstone of certainty that I'm doing something healthy. I can feel it, on my own, in class - that my body wants to do this.

Mary recommended a number of new additions to my daily regimen, all of which I've incorporated. They're interesting.  They are:

1. Brushing my body twice a day with a body brush, to help the skin shrink along with my body (which is shrinking fast).  I got a great bristley brush and have done this twice now. I feel like a well-groomed horse.  Seriously, though, this was invigorating, it made me instantly feel buzzy and alert and grinny.

2. Two shots of raw apple cider vinegar a day.  This is also related to helping the skin keep up with the change in body shape. This is not that much fun, but pretty easy to get out of the way.

3. Organic mouth wash.  The fasting causes your teeth and mouth to get covered in this weird film. Mary says that this is literally the toxins and crap being expelled. Even after you brush your teeth rigorously, the film comes back really quickly. The mouthwash helps this. But YUUUUCK.

4. Sun Chlorella.  I'm just shy of becoming adult-diabetic, and have pretty intense blood-sugar highs and lows. The Sun Chlorella helps regulate these, plus it's interesting - like a little packet of blue-green algae every morning.

Anyway, I like that things are getting weird.  I've taken Sun Chlorella before, and it's like Nature's Adderall - very speedy, kinda fun.  Plus it turns your spit spinach green.

NINE DAYS.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Where'd the Energy go?

Like a piano falling on a zombie, so too goes my Energy.

Seriously - I can't keep my eyes open. I slept a ton last night (over 8 hours, which for me is like a year). This is adding to the difficulty.

Fortitude! I hope! Zzzzz....

1/4 done.

As of this moment, I'm 1/4 done.

Day 8. Reflections on Minor Failures

Last night I slipped a bit.

I was not feeling all that great - weak, dizzy, and like I was starting to get sick. I really felt like I was missing something, not like I was just facing a crazy craving. I decided to have an avocado and some miso soup - both of which seemed reasonable.   We went to the store, and the avocados were just in terrible shape - gross and mushy.  The only miso soup we could find was instant, and this turned out to basically be liquid salt.  To replace the avocado, we got some mild, organic guacamole.

The instant soup was super gross, but I just inhaled the guacamole. Humorously, I felt super full, like I had gorged myself, after eating just a few forkfuls of this.

I would have preferred not to have slipped, but I really felt shaky. It's weird - today I have lost that feeling of being light and agile, and instead feel slow and heavy, like normal.

Still, I'm determined not to let this small feeling of failure corrupt the effort. Onwards and upwards!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Mental Game reveals its strength.

Much like Sauron held back the true size of his troops until finally opening the Black Gates to reveal the utter destruction of the free peoples of Middle Earth, so too has the mental challenge portion of this fast only now begun to reveal its true and epic strength.

For there are pictures, smells, suggestions, discussions, and dreams of FOOD, FOOD, FOOD, EVERYWHERE THIS FOOD.

I shall seek solace in distraction, which weirdly DOES feel like cheating.

Day 7. A week with no solid food?

I'm surprised that everything feels so normal. I've now almost completely cut caffeine out of my diet. I've gone from a triple-shot espresso drink, to a drink with only one shot, and a few more days from now, I should be off completely.  I am still having a small bowl of fruit in the morning, but this does not feel like a cheat to me.

The miracle of food, and the pure human pleasure of preparing and sharing home-cooked food is more vivid to me today than it has ever been. I am hungering for the human connection that food brings.  The names always hint at some mysterious past - the way that a piece of Mediterranean food can remind you of the wind from the desert, just because of its name.

Bring it on, 23 more days. Bring it on.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Day 6: Half awake, half dreaming.

I feel like the game is changing from a physical challenge to a mental challenge.

Last night I had a little bit of pickled cabbage and a quarter of an avocado. For some reason, I'm not troubled by this.  I was proud of myself for sitting at a table at one of my favorite restaurants and watching to great friends eat wonderful smelling food and not being overly tortured by it. I actually really enjoyed just drinking in the food smells.

I've really been noticing how food is so much more than food. It is the biggest experience of a 'culture' that we have, it's probably the first place where we start to get curious about the rest of the world, and dreaming of world travels. I also think food is the first place where rifts begin to be healed. I remember eating Afghani food shortly after the 2001 attacks and thinking that we must have more in common with each other than the news would believe, if the food from that mysterious place was so delicious to a white kid from the Chicago suburbs.

I also think food is essence of 'reward'. I was thinking about how I feel so safe and content when I am eating some kind of food that I associate with celebration, like Chicago Style Pizza, or a bad-ass Steak. It makes me feel like my life is where it should be, if I can facilitate something I love so much.

24 days to go. Then, probably, pizza, steak, and afghani food. Probably not all at once.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Day 5: Challenges appear.

Driving to Healdsburg last night, at around 9:30pm, is when the first of the freakishly intense hunger pangs hit.  They weren't so much a feeling of emptiness in the stomach as it was an intense psychological compulsion to get a steak. It was not, "man, I'd love a steak right now". It was, "YOU MUST FIND A STEAK RIGHT NOW OR YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.".  I did not succumb to the temptation, and I'm proud of that - I did have a few slices of cucumber and a carrot in Healdsburg, though.

The main thing that has me freaked out is that I don't know how to objectively reassure myself that I'm not actually hurting my body.  I feel alert, but I also feel very weak and this cough has lingered. I'm coughing up a lot of infected, gross, thick phlegm. I doubt that this cough was entirely caused by fasting, though I feel like I'm lacking something that I might need to combat it.

I've been doing this for long enough now that it doesn't feel novel to my body. Since the last 5 days have definitely felt longer than 5 days, there's less thinking about how many more days I have to go.

On the upside, I was around a fair amount of debauchery, chemical and otherwise, last night, and I did not feel any desire to participate. That's something of a new thing for me, actually - I often abstain from indulgences, but when I do so, it is an act of will to overcome the desire for participation and immediate gratification. This was different - I could imagine what it would feel like to be drunk, or various kinds of stoned, and I just really didn't want to feel that.  I'm glad I got to experience that.  I also laid down a fantastic Electro set kinda out of the blue, so... go go gadget new alertness.