Day Two: Still Getting the Hang of It

Got up and went to the gym first thing again this morning.  Had a litre of water to start the day.  Worked out and did a bit of rowing, arm machines (mostly for shoulders and back) and then got on an eliptical trainer that’s kinda like a stair-stepper, too.  When I did the 30 days of raw chocolate, I lost so much weight so quickly that I’m getting a flat butt, and I wanna pick it up.  So I put the machine on steepness level 17 (of 20) and resistance level 14 (of 20).  Did that for 15 minutes an my butt and calves are feelin’ it, especially my bum.  But I’m very glad for that.  Nice to know I got in a good workout.

Came home and made wheatgrass juice, then made a green juice that consisted of zucchini, cilantro, papapya, apple and lemon.  Don’t try this at home!  Yeesh!  It was not exactly what I would call delicious.  Cilantro is great in salsa and I love the flavor of it a LOT, but it’s not good juiced, in my opinion.  Not with fruit anyway.  If I was to make a savory juice, that might work, but I’m not real inclined to do that.  The further along I got in the glass, the more tolerable it was, but I definitely won’t be making it again.  Oh!  I remembered to have my salt with the juice today.

Once the juice for the morning (which was really late afternoon) was done, I had my digestive enzymes, then did some skin brushing.  Followed that up with a rinse in the shower and a good slathering of coconut oil all over.  It’s truly fascinating how clean I feel after I do that.  Sort of like that fresh feeling after you brush your teeth.  Then I took a 2-hour nap.

I tell you, I am REALLY feeling the need for naps on this fast!  I know that many would give up and say, “This makes me feel too weak.”  But I’m not falling for it.  I feel that what I’ve found in my investigations of fasts is true:  that once the body finally gets the fuel and tools it needs to cleanse and repair (ie. greens and zeolite), it takes a lot of energy to do so, so the body needs more sleep.  On just raw, I don’t feel this way.  Especially with energizing chocolate.  But alas, I cannot put off house-cleaning forever.  Whenever I take on a big physical project, I’m always tired;  well, this is a big physical project, too — I just can’t see what’s happening because it’s all internal.

This afternoon’s drink was 3 leaves of kale, a handful of parsely, a small cucumber, a pear, and about a cup of nectarine juice (the last of last summer’s nectrines were still in the freezer, all in a lump, so I took them out to thaw them to make something for the boys — probably green smoothies).  Quite a good juice combo!  Very fresh and summery, and I could really taste the cucumber and nectarine.  Still a bit bitter and weird from the kale and parsely, but nothing like this morning’s cilantro-lemon semi-disaster!!  I’ll put this on the list of good juices to repeat.

My Cucumber-Parsley-Kale-Pear juice (amongst the cuke babies)

I’m noticing that I’m very sluggish if I have more than 5 or 6 drops of zeolite at a time, and my body seems to go between the chills and a feverish feeling.  I guess it will take a bit of time to ramp up on the fast, and that it’s true what I’ve read about with detox — once you suppress a feeling from something emotional or a symptom from an illness, when you detox, your body has to “finish” it, by going through a feeling of partial emotional upheaval or a partially ill feeling.  With all the fevers I suppressed with over-the-counter medication back in my early 30’s when I had walking pneumonia quarterly for 3 or 4 years, I am not at all surprised that all this sluggishness and feverish feeling should be coming up.  I almost feel like I’m catching up on all the sleep I lost being sick all those years.

Still feeling QUITE full all day, which is excellent!  Hope to keep feeling this way.  The green juices are not strained, so if/when there is foam on them, I always just put the whole thing into my Vita-Mix and just blend the bejiggers out of it.  That makes it very creamy, and not at all lumpy, which is nice.  Green juice is enough of a mental challenge to get through without having to consume lumps!!

I am really starting to have an appreciation of and for my body that I’ve never had before.  It’s strange, but I find myself being so glad for all the amazing processes that my body can go through and the things it can accomplish.  I feel like, “WOW!  My body can do THAT?!?  That’s just AMAZING!”  I think I’ve become so caught up in what I do with my life that I forgot to be involved with what I can do with me.  Does that make sense, or do I just sound like a raving hippie?  Probably bit of both.  😉

We all went on another walk tonight for over a mile and stopped to pet the Clydesdales at the Clydesdale farm/ranch that is just down the road from our house.

The last juice of the day was grapefruit with 10 drops of zeolite in it, after having extremely intense cravings for ranch flavored corn chips with spicy cheese-like sauce on them.  About had a freakin’ breakdown I craved them so bad!!!  Michael was a good support for me, reminding me of the story he heard of a woman who was a bit overweight and had a terrible diet;  she got a colonic when she decided to get healthier and saw a full slice of undigested pepperoni go out the tube.  Now this is shocking, but then he told me that she could not remember having had pepperoni pizza in over a year!  Tell ME that stuff doesn’t get backed up in your system!  I don’t think so.

So it was a pretty easy day for most of the day, until I had to go fill up our glass water jugs, and had cravings for the chips and “cheese”.  But I got through it, and I’m proud to say that I stayed raw and on my fast.

Ah yes, one last thing.  Don’t put diatomaceous earth in a green juice.  DISGUSTING! Won’t try that again tomorrow.

The Schedule – What I Want to Do and Why

First off, I’d like to say thank you to those of you who followed my progress on 30 Days of Chocolate, and welcome to chapter 2!  If you think what I did then was odd-sounding, just wait until you see what I’ve “cooked up” this time!  I’ve included some pretty wild-sounding things in my fast, and I know that when you read the below list, it sounds a bit like a full-time job to do all I’d like to do each day.  Well … it probably will be like that!  But the way I figure it, if I take 2 weeks now to remove large chunks of the toxins I have consumed/absorbed/been exposed to over the last 39 years, I have every confidence that I will be able to avoid major health problems in the future.

Not only that, but I feel like I’m going to have a much better quality of life as a result of this fast.  Once I get lots of things out of my system like hydrogenated fats, DDT, pesticides and the like, I’m sure I’ll feel much better.  I don’t expect to have a perfect life as a result of this fast or anything, I just feel that this is the next step on my journey to the best health possible.

I have the goal of living to be at least 150 years old, (so does my wonderful boyfriend, Jason) and while I know that this sounds insane to most people, because we only think of really long lives as lasting about 100 years, many scientists now say that humans are designed to live to be 400 or 500 years old — it’s just that we are prematurely aging, getting sick and dying at an incredibly alarming speed, based on our diets, our lifestyles and the extremely toxic pollutants in our environment.

So like I said, I’ll be doing some stuff that many people have never heard of — all of which I’ve tried to some degree or another (with the exception of drinking green juice — never did that before, except for wheatgrass).  Here’s a brief description of each item on my list, what it’s purported to do for the body, and what I’m hoping to accomplish by engaging in the activity or consuming the food or supplement.

Oil Pulling – a 20 minute swishing of a tablespoon of cold-pressed sesame or sunflower oil each morning on an empty stomach, to remove toxins through the cheeks.  Oil Pulling.com is a great website for more information on how and why this works.  This technique/practice is AMAZING for removing gunk and renewing energy!!!

The Five Tibetan Rites – 5 exercises done each morning by Tibetan Monks (that can be done by anyone) that aid in detoxification, a sense of well-being, and physical fitness.

Pink Himalayan Crystal Salt – A 250 million year old salt harvested in the Himalayas, it’s actually pink, has a crystaline structure, rather than a square shape like table salt, and reportedly helps with the absorption of nutrients in food and stimulates bowel function.  Plus, it contains 84 minerals and trace minerals!

Wheatgrass Juice – Good for cleansing, very detoxifying and strengthening, several people report reversing gray hair after consuming it with a raw food diet for several months, and it helps the stomach increase its ability to produce hydrochloric acid until it’s doing so at normal levels;  hydrochloric acid helps in digesting greens (low amounts of this acid in the stomach are why many people report feeling sick upon drinking wheatgrass juice – anything your stomach has lost the ability to process will cause stomach upset and/or acid reflux).

Digestive Enzymes –  Help maintain healthy cholesterol levels, help ease occasional stomach upset, promote digestion and absorption of nutrients, provide enzymes and good bacteria that promote the absorption of nutrients, support a healthy digestive tract, support healthy immune functions and act as a scavenger in the blood for undigested food particles due to poor enzyme production in the body.  This particular brand, Isotonix, is VERY tasty (tastes like fizzy lemonade!), and I’ve used it for almost 3 years, now.  I like that it doesn’t have any wheat in it (as I’m allergic to wheat and gluten) and that it keeps my stomach from being upset if I’ve eaten something disagreeable.  Back when I ate cooked food, Isotonix digestive enzymes always kept my allergic reactions to a minimum the few times I ate anything with gluten in it.  I’ve tried tons of enzymes, and I feel this brand leaves them all in the dust!  (It even comes in little travel packets for life on the go!)

Green Juices – very chelating, nutritious, and cleansing juices for detoxification and optimal nutrition.  Green juices are highly recommended by raw food doctors and raw food experts for high energy, excellent health and cleansing.

Grapefruit-Ginger Juice – This one just seems really intuitive.  Rather than doing four 16-oz. glasses of green juice, I’ll be drinking 3 glasses of green juice and one of grapefruit-ginger juice every day.  Grapefruit juice has a lot of cleansing properties, the pith soaks up and removes cholesterol, and it has great enzymes for assisting in digestion;  ginger aids in digestion as well, and I just really like this combo for a juice.  It also has a very alkalizing effect, which is VERY good!

Workout, Sauna & Walking – sitting around while on a fast actually makes you feel really cruddy, and if you get up and move that body, it moves toxins out much more quickly.  Saunas help by making you sweat some of the toxins out.

Diatomaceous Earth – not the kind used in swimming pools.  This is the food grade stuff.  84% silica, this is excellent for colon cleansing, it kills parasites, the silica in it is converted to bio-available calcium only in the amounts I need (WAY better for me than milk products which have chalk, tap water and a whole slew of poisons in them which actually leach calcium from my bones and teeth), and it absolutely deletes my aches and pains in muscles and joints.  I take it daily, even when not on a fast.

Skin Brushing –  accelerates toxin elimination, stimulates blood flow and circulation, reduces cellulite, enhances lymphatic flow, provides exfoliation and removal of dead skin cells, assists in anti-aging through cell regeneration, stimulates both the sweat and sebaceous glands, thus contributing to the restoration of moist, supple skin.  I will follow it up with a cool shower, then coconut oil all over.  On days when I consume fresh aloe vera, I will follow the skin brushing with aloe gel all over my body, then coconut oil.

Aloe Vera Every 3rd Day, Internally & Externally – I can get huge aloe leaves at my local supermarket, and due to aloe’s ability to cleanse and heal the digestive tract, I will be taking it every 3 days, blended with one of my green juices.  The aloe skin that I don’t consume will have LOTS of gel on it, and that gel will be used all over my body after skin brushing.

Wheatgrass and Coconut Oil Facial – this is my own invention.  When juicing wheatgrass, a foam is created on top of the juice that is an EXCELLENT cleanser and toner!!!  It stings just a touch, but that goes away just seconds after it dries, it rinses very clean away, leaves the skin feeling wonderfully fresh, exfoliated, firm — and no, it doesn’t make your skin green!  😉  I follow this up with a little dab of fresh coconut oil as a moisturizer, just enough to spread it around, as this is also great for the skin.

Meditation – Just a nice way to relax and contemplate the day, stay relaxed and centered.

Colonic or Enema – A way to keep my bowels moving and the detox going.  Not the funnest thing in the world to engage in, but like I said earlier, I’m willing to go through a little discomfort to get to my health and longevity life goals.

Here’s what a typical day will look like for me (some non-juice items will be moved from day-to-day, depending on scheduling):

• Oil Pulling
• The 5 Tibetan Rites
• Drink 2 litres of water
• Take a pinch of pink salt, followed by a shot of wheatgrass juice
  
• Give myself a wheatgrass and coconut oil facial (within 5 minutes of juicing wheatgrass)
  
• 15 minutes after wheatgrass juice, I’ll take 1 capful of digestive enzymes
• Drink 8 oz. of water
• Take another pinch of pink salt, then 12 oz. green juice with zeolite, then digestive enzymes
• Drink 8 oz. of water
• Take a pinch of pink salt, then drink a large glass of grapefruit ginger juice, followed by digestive enzymes
• Drink 8 oz. of water
• Work out
• Take a sauna
• Yet another pinch of the ink salt, followed by green juice with zeolite, then  digestive enzymes
• Drink 8 oz. of water
• Meditate for 15-30 minutes
• Last pinch of Pink Salt, followed by last green juice with zeolite of the day, followed by digestive enzymes
• Take a 30-minute walk
• Drink 8 oz. ofwater
• Take 1 tablespoon of diatomaceous earth mixed in 1/2 a cup of fresh apple or pear juice
• Do skin brushing
• Aloe vera every 3 days internally and externally
• Colonic once a week administered by a professional, and home-administered enemas as needed

Whew!  It really DOES sound like a full-time job!!!  But I’m looking forward to seeing how much weight I can lose and how much my body can change in just 2 weeks!  I’ve heard that the results can be nothing short of astounding!  Here’s to my health (and not just the absence of illness)!