Day 22: Parallels

So, according to the Juice Fasting 'what to expect' link that Nicole sent me last week, in days 16-30, the physical cleansing begins to be 'complete', and the body shifts to emotional, mental, energetic cleaning.

But, I mean... just because physical detoxification was physically challenging, that doesn't mean that emotional detoxification would be emotionally challenging, though, right...?    Right?   Oooof.

I'm going back to my blanket/couch-cushion fort. I shall only be disturbed for Cinnamon Buns.

(Also, 3 weeks DONE! First day of week 4!!!)

Day 21 pt 3: HUNGER

Man, this last stretch is challenging. I am really, really, really hungry.

Day 21 pt 2: One more thing

Hey, if you're reading this... throw down a comment. I could use the moral support! (Nicole & Stacy, you have been doing this, and it's awesome).

Day 21: Final Third

Today is the first day of the last third of my fast, and also the last day of the third week.

It's getting to the point where I don't really even know how to keep this interesting... I feel like it's just more of, "I feel great, I'm wearing clothes from 10 years ago (the stylish ones), I am more positive and happy, why don't we all do this all the time"? 

I am thinking more and more about how to make this feeling last beyond the fast, while still getting to embrace the loving preparation and sharing of food.  I don't have any answers yet.

One humorous thing that I've noticed is what I call, "subconscious eating". Yesterday I went to the grocery store to get butcher bones to make bone broth for a friend who just gave birth.  While I was waiting for them to package things up, there was a display with samples of chips & salsa.  And then suddenly I had one in my mouth. From a consciousness point of view, it was an immediate jump, as though my brain was like, "Right, so - the conscious part keeps thwarting my attempts to get us food, despite all the extra focus and alertness I gave it. Time for plan B. We need to turn off the conscious part for a few seconds - long enough to get chips, but not so long as to end up walking into traffic."  I'm not trying to shirk responsibility for phantom snacking, I just think it was funny that the willpower part seemingly got circumvented.  Very sneaky, brain...

Day 18, 19, 20: Enlightenment, Slips

This was an epic weekend. We had friends in from out of town, Avatar won the VFX Oscar, and I sat through not one, not two, but three gatherings of friends in which food was lovingly prepared and consumed. I managed to succeed at not cheating, other than a small taste of the homemade breakfast hash at one particular gathering.

At yoga on Sunday morning, I felt like my body had mostly adjusted to this new nutritional foundation. I felt light, strong, and entirely without panic. I think that's the thing I notice most about this process - a lack of panic, anxiety, and a noticeable decrease in stress, in every-day things.  I am calm and cheerful as a default, and that's really refreshing (and new).

I said to Mary after class on Sunday that I didn't know that this process would be a miracle. Indulging my love of hyperbole, for sure, but it really does feel somewhat miraculous.  My body has changed more in 20 days than I would have believed possible.  On Friday night, I wore pants that I got as a gift on my 25th birthday. On Saturday, I wore the pants that I'd been keeping around as a 'maybe one day' hopeful thing. They were loose. 

So... all of this makes me feel pretty bad about totally screwing up last night.  For some reason, our fireplace turned on in the middle of the night and I couldn't find the remote to switch it off. As I wandered around the kitchen at 3am, looking everywhere for the remote... it got me.  Our friends had ordered pizza from Little Star - deep dish, Chicago Style - and there was like a little less than half a piece left. A taste turned into more tastes turned into there-is-no-more-pizza.  It was phenomenal tasting, of course.  I feel like I weigh twenty pounds more this morning. I'm not beating myself up about it too much, but I can clearly feel that it has sorta damped the feeling of great change.

Still, I can't be too disappointed, overall. I feel wonderful, and today is a new day.

Day 17: Ow

A strange side effect of this fasting is that my flexibility has increased dramatically, seemingly by itself. It's not in response to any aggressive stretching on my part. This is fun and interesting, but it also means there's all these new places to find in the poses in Yoga class.

Last night I pushed too hard in class, I think. I managed to fight off the dizzyness, but my whole upper back and neck feel like somebody beat me with a bat. A small bat, to be sure, but a bat nonetheless.

I think this part of my back has basically been frozen - when I move my shoulders, my shoulder-blades make this gross clicking noise as the bones scrape against each other. The tightness back there is enough to make veteran massage therapists express surprise.  I think I'm just starting to heal and break down that area, and that's where the discomfort is coming from.   Still, I'm grouchy as hell this morning.  I'm reminded of something Mary says in class from time to time, variations on, "It's hard to be enlightened when your spine is in pain." (Pardon the misquote, if I have...)

Ow.

Day 16: Past Halfway

PAST HALFWAY!!!!!

I won't say it's easy.... but it's definitely easier. My focus and concentration have come back, and every day I feel lighter and more expansive. My dreams and daydreams are filled with leaping flips and flight.

I feel like my appreciation for food has (and will remain) changed. I don't want food in a hurry - just because I want to be able to savor and indulge every little bit of every little bite. I want to spend days making Thomas Keller and Grant Aschatz recipes. (Though I don't want to buy any sodium alcinate).

It's funny - I didn't get into this challenge for the purpose of doing a cleanse. Honestly, I mostly did it to see if I could, and because I could tell my body needed clean nutrition and this was the easiest way to do it. If I had decided to do something involving prepared food, I would not have been able to keep it up, or it would have been incredibly expensive.  But, though I didn't do this to cleanse, the cleansing effects have been so obvious and dramatic.  All the yucky crap that came out of my lungs and sinuses, to say the least...

I feel like the cleansing has moved out of the physical and into the emotional and energy. I have so much more conscious control over my focus than I did just a few days ago, I have such an easier time maintaining calm and not getting carried away or upset about anything.

I would recommend this journey to absolutely anyone and everyone.

Day 15 pt 2: So close to halfway...

I'm two drinks away from being HALFWAY DONE.

And... in some weird miracle... today I'm a focus machine.  Concentration, focus, all of them are through the roof.

Day 15: Through the fog

The dizzyness is gone! The dizzyness is gone!!!

I feel light and glowy today. I am curious how long my concentration will last. Most days it seems to fizzle out around 3pm. 

According to that juicefasting link, I should be getting into the last phase of cleansing - glowing for the next 15 days or so. Here's hoping!

Super helpful information

This describes my experience so far, pretty much to the letter. If this is to be believed, sometime around day 16 (Thursday), I should be in cleansing nirvana!

http://www.juicefasting.org/detox.htm

Day 14 pt 2: Soup Cheater

I went home early from work today. I was still dizzy from yesterday's collapse, and still felt weak. I slept for a few hours, and when I woke up, I decided, with some determination: I SHALL HAVE SOUP.

It's kinda cheating, but... I think the wise path through this fast is to listen to my body - not to be indulgent with cravings - but to listen. If I'm so weak I can't work and sleep all day, I need more than what I'm giving myself.  So... Let Them Eat Soup!  (but just a little).

Interesting info on dizzyness and fasting

This article describes pretty much 100% of how I feel.

http://chestofbooks.com/health/Isabelle-A-Moser/How-and-When-to-Be-Your-Own-Doctor/Common-Fasting-Complaints-And-Discomforts.html

Day 14: Collapse

I collapsed in yoga last night. It was gradual - nothing exciting or dramatic, but still a bit frightening.  I had noticed that, towards the end of the standing series, I was feeling weaker and weaker, and my balance was off. Then, just as the first set of Triangle finished, I felt a distinct 'moment' of release in my body, like the cords had all just been cut.  I was instantly super dizzy - as though my inner ear had been swollen or otherwise messed up.  I sat down and waited for the floor series - but when it came time for the sit-ups, I just couldn't do them. It wasn't like, "this is hard, and I don't want to push harder", but instead like a complete failure - the muscles were simply not responding to instructions. 

So, I left class. I haven't left class since teacher training. I probably would have felt embarrassed or ashamed, but in this case, I was so freaked out that I wasn't thinking about it.  My whole body was shaking. I drank a juice and laid down. Later, I tried to walk back to work with Stacy, but couldn't make it, and she went to get the car to drive me home.

Mary gave me a big bag of navel oranges, and when I got home, Stacy made me Lentil soup.  I've made a mental note of the brand and type of Lentil soup. I want to try it when I'm back in the 'real' world and see if it is, in fact, the most delicious thing in the world. Because last night, it was.

I couldn't sleep, so I stayed awake reading the new 'Art of War' translation. Today I feel a little better, but still dizzy, like something is wrong in my brain.  I can't help but ask myself the question - is this bad? Is this malnutrition? Or am I breaking through some serious detox walls?

I have enough strength to continue, and at this point, it's no longer that difficult to just have the juice. So, I continue.  BRING IT ON. 

Concentration

Still having tremendous difficulty focusing, particularly at the end of the day.

Day 13. Changes sinking deeper.

Coffee tastes wrong today. I guess this is the last thing to go - I've gotten rid of the fruit bowl in the morning, and yesterday I did not resort to the "part of an avocado" cheat.  But I've been perfectly content to continue drinking coffee - I figure you have to have an outlet somewhere, even if it does mean you're doing ten steps forward, one step back.

But today the coffee is bitter and stale tasting. I don't think they made a mistake making it, I think I'm just noticing how icky coffee can be, at its core. I sincerely hope this change isn't permanent. I love my morning coffee.

I'm starting to feel more and more small, subtle changes. My flexibility is through the roof, and I seem to just have a much more nuanced control over my body. I did cartwheels and roundoffs while we were at Pixar this weekend, and I was amazed at how light and agile I feel.

Almost half way.

Day 11-12. Starting not to notice...

It's getting easier, in the sense that it's no longer novel, and I'm no longer spending all of my time thinking about it.

I had another weird and wonderful abstinance brunch today. Brunch is overwhelmingly my favorite meal. My birthday meals are always "breakfast for dinner". I pretty much like it all, but I particularly love when traditional dishes have been refined in some interesting and clever way. Baked eggs in a metal crock pan, roasted tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms... I love it all. Today I went to brunch with a bunch of friends, sat in the sun, and sipped coffee while my friends ordered and ate. In some strange way, I feel like I got almost as much enjoyment from brunch as I would if I had eaten. The smells, the imagining the food from the description in the menu, the beautiful balance between soft and crisp where toasted...

The fasting magnifies my sense of smell. It's wonderful - I feel like I can smell fresh herbs from a block away, and smelling food, deeply, feels satisfying, almost as though there were some consumption involved.

I'm so glad I'm doing this. The journey is strange and inward. I like how it's about so much more than just food - about the idea of reward, the ways we show caring and comfort. I like seeing how food is a focal point for so much human expertise and the urge we have to create beautiful things... and eat them.

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.

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.

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.