Cleanse summary

So day 6 was... meh. About the same as day 5. I ate a banana, an orange, some almonds and some greens right before my Bikram class and felt pretty much fine during the class.

Day 7 I was surprised at how hungry I wasn't. I drank about 600 calories' worth of juice before dinner and wasn't really that hungry. I learned that if you make your own juice, you should peel your citrus before putting it in the juicer. My mom said I could just put it in with the peel, so that's what I did at first, but it imparted a disagreeable bitter taste and made my stomach feel not so good.

I was actually a little worried my metabolism might slow down due to the low calories all week and the fact that I was getting suspiciously not-hungry, but I kept exercising all week and have eaten two quite-large meals now, so I hope any slowing will quickly reverse itself.

I doubt I will do something quite like this again. The individual components (liver support herbs, laxatives, various diet restrictions) might be useful, but the salt restriction in particular (which my mom said was the most important part) really didn't do much for me. I felt crappy when I stopped eating salt, and yeah I got used to it, but I felt weaker than usual the whole week and now that I've reintroduced it, I feel much more robust and am experiencing no ill effects at all adapting the other direction. If I do the raw thing again, I'll have to prepare ahead of time, looking up raw recipes and making sure we have a food processor and maybe a dehydrator and sprouting some beans and such. People who live a raw lifestyle have those additional tools to help them get good nutrition, especially protein, which was very much lacking in our raw phase.

For the sake of interest, here was my diet during the cleanse. The last dinner on Saturday was obviously breaking the fast, and the Saturday before, not shown here, we had a psyllium shake as well as our Cascara sagrada after dinner:

---END CLEANSE---

Saturday 12/11

12 oz apple-lemon-ginger juice (180)
12 oz carrot-orange juice (235)
6 oz unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
8 oz apple-tangerine-lime juice (120)
Tofurky, yams, greens, and chocolate (500+150+20+105+40=815)

180+235+60+120+815=1410

-BEGIN JUICE FAST-

Friday 12/10

Banana, soaked almonds, and 1/2 small apple (100+200+40=340)
Banana and unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (100+60=160)
Banana, orange, almonds, and greens (100+100+200+10=410)
Greens under avocado, dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds (20+150+130+50=350)
Psyllium shake in water

340+160+410+350=1260

Thursday 12/9

1/2 green pummelo, 1/2 pear, and sunflower seeds (30+50+210=290)
Unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
Peppered large tomato (60)
Baby carrots (35)
Dates with coconut butter and grapes (130+140+75=345)
Tangerine (40)
Psyllium shake in water
Spinach and tomato salad with avocado, apple, and sunflower seeds (60+100+40+50=250)
Dried cranberries (130)

290+60+60+35+345+40+250+130=1210

--BEGIN RAW PHASE--

Wednesday 12/8

Apple with unsalted peanut butter and 1/2 grapefruit (100+180+30=310)
Salad with nuts, raisins, avocado, and a rice cake (30+65+100+100+70=365)
2 tangerines and a rice cake (80+70=150)
Psyllium shake with grapefruit juice (90)
Nutritional yeast (25)
Rice, sweet potatoes, and broccoli (320+150+50=520)

310+365+150+90+25+520=1460

Tuesday 12/7

1/2 grapefruit, 1/2 apple with unsalted peanut butter, and unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (30+50+90+60=230)
2 tangerines (80)

Rice and beans (160+115=275)

Dried cranberries and walnuts (200+130=330)
Psyllium shake with dilute apple juice (60)
1/2 tangerine (20)
Rice cake (70)
1/2 acorn squash filled with rice, raisins, and almonds (85+120+30+50=285)

230+80+275+330+60+20+70+285=1350

Monday 12/6

Oatmeal with unsalted peanut butter and raisins (150+90+65=305)
Apple (100)
2 rice cakes, walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, and date pieces (140+200+130=470)
Psyllium shake with grapefruit juice (90)
Baby carrots (35)

Rice and beans and broccoli (160+115+50=325)

305+100+470+90+35+325=1325

Sunday 12/5

Rice cake with unsalted peanut butter and dried cranberries (70+180+65=315)

Date pieces (130)

Vegetables and chopped nuts over rice and dried cranberries (150+200+130=480)

Unsweetened blue/cranberry juice (60)
Psyllium shake with dilute apple juice (60)
Rice noodles and tofu in seaweed broth (200+200=400)
Grapes (100)

315+130+480+60+60+400+100=1545

--- BEGIN CLEANSE ---

On the cleanse

Last paper is now turned in and I have a few days of breathing/studying room before exams, so I finally have time to talk about my cleanse. The funny thing is that this ended up being the "lets celebrate end of classes with yummies" week (perfectly predictable, I just wasn't thinking) and so I had the unique opportunity to observe my reactions to unusual temptation under unusual restriction.

Day 1 was horrible. Note to self, if I need to withdraw from any substances taper off BEFORE the cleanse starts. I had a nasty caffeine headache and basically took naps all day, which compromised my ability to do work I needed to do. It would have been okay, though, if it wasn't on top of the salt withdrawal. There's plenty of sugar and fat in natural foods, but it turns out there's not a whole lot that naturally grows with significant salt. I felt thirsty and drank and drank but water hardly helped, my skin became dry, and I felt so sluggish and hungry. I felt like I was starving on a perfectly normal amount of food and calories. My body suddenly had no help holding onto its water. At the end of the day, I saw a packet of ramen seasoning in the kitchen and involuntarily twitched toward it. I had to just walk myself away.

Most of those salt issues were gone on day 2. I felt kind of rundown and messed-up physically because I took too much of the laxative herb the night before, but mostly I was just frustrated at all the food I couldn't eat. "This must be what it's like to be on a restrictive diet", I thought, and then realized, oh wait, I AM on a restrictive diet. It's just not one that has weight-loss as its primary aim. But seriously. I went to my conference class where people bring snacks and it was the last class so lots of people brought something, and you know what the menu was? Baguette, cheese including BRIE, crackers, jams, lemon curd, and mixed nuts. All delicious, and not a SINGLE thing on my fucking diet. I was so annoyed.

On day 3 I pretty much felt normal. Donuts appeared in one of my classes, which brought back a brief wave of "god damn it why did I do it THIS week," but there were also tangerines so I took a couple and ate them, allowing me to save the one I'd brought from home until after my workout. I didn't particularly want the donuts at the moment, just regretted passing up the opportunity, so I considered wrapping one in a napkin and putting it in the freezer, but then I decided what did I want a calorie-bomb like that for? If there had been a cream-filled donut I probably would have, but I didn't see one. At this point I began to notice that I was eating only as absolutely necessary, and really not caring very much, because food I was allowed to eat just tasted so boring.

By day 4 I just felt like a weirdo, or maybe an anorexic, as I accepted chocolate kisses from my yoga teacher and cupped them to my nose to smell them, then put them in my pocket knowing I wouldn't eat them until Saturday. I was merely amused as I passed over the donuts, bagels, cream cheese, and coffee outside my 9am class for a cup of Tazo Wild Sweet Orange, which happens to be my favorite herbal tea on the planet. On the way out I grabbed a cup of chamomile. There were kisses at the front of my 10am class too but I didn't take more. This was the day I remembered why I chose this week: next week is finals when I can't be compromised, and the week after is Solstice.

It wasn't until day 5 that I started fantasizing about off-cleanse food. Cheese bagels with asiago cheese-flavored cream cheese, Annie's macaroni and cheese from a box, Caesar salad, Indian curry. And coffee, oh my, I would love my coffee back (funny enough, I haven't thought much about pot in the course of all this). Yet it was in such a way that if someone put it front of me, I'd feast my eyes and my nose and not be tempted at all to put it in my mouth. This was the first raw day, and it was just so hard to eat enough. Coming to dinner and realizing our only chance to top off our calories and get some protein was avocado and a shit-ton of seeds on the salad... well, okay, it works, but geez, no rice and beans even.

It's now day 6. It's not a moment to moment struggle or anything, but I'm ready for this shit to be over. Honestly, I don't particularly feel cleansed - I feel nutritionally depleted. I need some fucking protein (among, I'm sure, other things). My strength in my workouts has been on the decline this week, and I just hope the bananas and almonds I'm going to eat today will pump me up for the Bikram class we're gonna go to this afternoon. I have lost a ton of weight, but I'm not saying how much until tomorrow when I weigh in officially, because I know it's largely bullshit, that is to say, water that was attached to salt.

Today is one more raw day, and then tomorrow will be the juice fast until dinner. I'm actually looking forward to the juice fast a bit, it's just so extreme, I think I can't help but enjoy it for that reason. Also, I'll know that at the end of the day I get to eat Tofurky and yams, and it will be amazing-delicious. Until tomorrow...

Late weigh-in and first day of the cleanse

Yesterday I weighed in at 147.6 pounds and 31.1% body fat.

I went to a Bikram class and got the introductory package, as planned. I went to my mom's birthday dinner, which was Ethiopian food, and had this yummy bread called injera made from a gluten-free grain called teff. After dinner I had a psyllium shake, which was disgusting and should probably only be taken on an empty stomach, and some Cascara, to kick off the cleanse. We (my boyfriend is doing most of it with me) were too tired to wait an hour between the shake and Cascara, so we took them together, and I think the Cascara might have gotten absorbed by the psyllium because it didn't seem to have much effect, but we'll solve that later by taking the psyllium midday.

This morning I took a milk thistle and dandelion supplement and had a delicious rice cake with unsalted peanut butter and dried cranberries. I also had a piece of kombu (a kind of seaweed) steeped in hot water. I've had a little bit of a cold (just some sore throat/itchy nose in the morning) which I think is making me want salt more than would normally be the case. More than that, I'm feeling very low energy, which is partly because it's cold and probably mostly because I'm not having caffeine.

The official program, then, is this:

Liver support herbs with breakfast
At least 1 psyllium shake per day at any convenient time
Cascara sagrada before bed
Nothing with added salt, sugar, or oil (my boyfriend is allowing honey, I'm not)
No meat, eggs, dairy, or wheat
No mind-altering substances

Sunday-Wednesday: just wheat-free vegan
Thursday-Friday: raw food
Saturday: liquid fast until dinner (my boyfriend will just continue on raw)

Diet is going well this week

So far, I am proud of my diet this week. It has been good quality and my calorie counts have been 1740, 1335, and 1500. Today is planned between 1310-1510 (depending on whether someone brings snack to my conference class) and tomorrow is planned at 1415. My strategy has been to eat a fairly low-calorie (~300), but delicious and balanced breakfast, bring two snacks that together would constitute a balanced meal (combined ~500), but eat them separately at about 11am and 3pm so I don't get "bogged down" or distracted by lunch, and then eat a larger, balanced dinner (~500). If I'm doing cardio in the morning, I'll bring an extra post-workout snack and reduce calories in other places. Altogether this adds up to 1300, which leaves room for the 15 here and 10 there that go over the targets, for a coffee-with-milk I didn't plan on, or for a random cake to appear in front of me.

... I didn't talk about the cake yet, did I? On Monday, I walked into my 10am class and there was a half-eaten cake at the front of the room. No explanation was given. My instructor didn't say anything about it at all. Before he started lecturing someone from the back of the room came up and spooned some of it into a jar, so after class, I broke off one bite for what I called 50 calories. By 2pm when I had another class in the same room, it was gone. I have no idea why it was there.

So hopefully this week will go well and show results. I am certainly pushing enough deficit to merit them, and I will get to work out hard tomorrow and Friday. Then it's my mom's birthday, yummy dinner, and next week I start the cleanse! I'm excited about that for the most part, although it will be hard to stop using caffeine and pot. Hopefully determination and elation from the restricted diet and detoxing will carry me through.

Late weigh-in and more "new plan"

Yesterday I was 149.8 pounds and 32.1% fat. It's true that by the numbers I should have gained about 0.2 pounds this week, but not a whole pound, so I'm calling it largely water fluctuation.

However, I've decided I need to re-tune. In this vein, a few things:

First, go back to really paying attention to my dietary quality. This morning I again ate an egg on toast with half an orange and a glass of milk, which is basically my ultimate yummy-healthy breakfast. No more leaving out the complex carbs, or leaving out the protein, or eating junk food for a while.

Second, I'm going to do a cleanse/fast from the 5th to the 11th. It will involve liver detoxing herbs, psyllium shakes and Cascara sagrada each day, starting after dinner on the 4th. There will be no mind-altering substances and no foods with added salt, sugar or oil throughout. The diet will be vegan for four days, raw vegan for two days, and liquid fast on the last day until breaking for dinner. Hopefully this will a) jump start my weight loss again, b) be fun/get me high, and c) produce the benefits people usually cleanse for. I picked the particular week because my mom's birthday is the 4th, so I will be going out to dinner, but the week after has half a week of school, so by the time the harder part starts I won't have those responsibilities to deal with.

Third, it's time to tighten down again on the calories. I have three weeks and change until Solstice and I do believe I can lose 3 pounds in that time. If the cleanse has its hoped-for effect, I may be able to push it to 5. I won't sweat it too hard (literally) on weekends, because it's hard to resist snacking, hard to get out for exercise, and rest & repair time is important. However, I will insist on staying beneath the magic 1888 and maintaining quality on those weekend days and think about trying to get a run in on Saturdays. On weekdays, I want to keep calories really buckled down by eating a good breakfast, bringing a light lunch to be eaten early and an afternoon snack or 2 large snacks, depending on how you want to view it, as I was talking about recently. Exercise will happen everyday, which shouldn't founder now that the below-freezing mornings have gone away. The goal is to have a 500-700 deficit every weekday, one way or another. I hope to be able to maintain diet between 1400-1600 with 200-500 cals of exercise, for a total range of 550-1050 deficit (my maintenance level being about 1950 right now).