End of the juice fast

I ended my juice fast last Monday!  I can’t believe it was over a week ago – life really does seem to get in the way sometimes.

I’m really pleased with how it went.  My face and skin are almost normal now.  I say almost because they are still dryer than before I had the allergic reaction – however the colour and shape of my face is massively improved.  I lost a few pounds as well.  I think I was about 11 st 12 at the beginning of February and at the start of the juice cleanse would have been about 11st 8.  At the end I was 11st 2 and was back up to 11st 4 yesterday.  Must be careful!  My trousers are significantly loser than before. OK so I’m still overweight for my height, but that’s the first lot of weight that has shifted in a while.  I’m pleased it is going in the right direction.

Reading my last post I had forgotten how miserable I was on the Thursday and Friday.  Found out it was all hormonal.  I was fine and happy on the Saturday and Sunday.  Went shopping, saw friends, everything was fab.  Next time I won’t pick the week I am due on if I want a good experience! 

I saw Lynne on Thursday and she tested to find out how effective the cleanse had been.  For optimum health she thinks I got rid of 50% of the toxins that I needed to get rid of and that I need to do another cleanse.  I have the week off work from 2nd so will do another juice fast that week.

I didn’t end the cleanse very elegantly.  I had forgotten to take my shakes to work and was doing ok on just juice.  I went to the theatre that night and caved in and had a sandwich and crisps!  Hardly the apple followed a few hours later by some brown rice that I was intending.  The food tasted nasty but I still ate it.  Must continue to work on that deprived feeling.

The week in between has been ok.  I’ve continued to avoid wheat and yeast where possible – although I haven’t been very good at planning and preparing my meals in advance.  In my mind I just need to get through this week and back on a juice fast next week.

I really would recommend it as way towards health.  I do feel so much brighter and happier than before.  Am feeling very peaceful and content.  Wonderful.

The Juice Cleanse – Day 3. Wednesday.

Again I only managed to take 4 sachets of the toxin absorber yesterday. I missed my 2.45 and didn’t take that till 4pm, I had one more in the evening and just couldn’t manage another one. I don’t feel hungry at all, but I do miss the taste and texture of food. It’s a mouth feel thing that I want rather than the full sensation. I’m finding that you need to drink the toxin absorber quickly otherwise it puffs up into a gel which isn’t a very nice texture to swallow. The taste of ginger and apple is nice, like a warming winter punch.

So results today. I was getting worried earlier as nothing had come out even though I had taken 7 digestive stimulators the night before. Then at about 11am I started getting horrible cramping pains. I kept trying to go to the loo but nothing was coming. I wasn’t a happy bunny. I went for a walk at lunchtime to try and get things moving which worked and I discovered after lunch why it was so painful. The most enormous fat lump of mucus came out of me, then over the next 3 hours another 3 loads. It was so big and fat, it no wonder it hurt. Seeing the size of it I’m not surprised that I wasn’t able to poo for a month I must have been completely blocked up.

Looking at the pictures on the website of other people’s placque, theirs tends to be stringy in places, like it was coating part of the colon wall. This is like a big fat glob that must have been jamming up the whole of my insides. I wonder how much of my colon has cleared out and how much is left to go! I’m also wondering about the state my my small intestine. I need to read up and understand how the digestive process works. It’s a long time since I studied this.

I can’t describe the relief that this is clearing. I’m not sure if I will be completly sorted by the end of day 5 and have just ordered another pack so that if I can I will go for a whole 10 days without eating and doing the detox. I will see how it goes. Given that I feel fine at the end of day 3 I am sure that carrying on till day 5 will be easy. I may start to eat again after day 6 or 7 and keep up with the supplements, I will see how my energy levels are, I seem to have more energy today than I did yesterday. I don’t have any major plans for the weekend so can take it easy. Oh and I’ve just booked the first week of April off and because it is Easter I finish work on 30th March and don’t go back till 10th April and it’s only 4 days holiday. Although it will be too soon to do a juice fast then, I will be doing a gentle detox during that time.

It’s funny how I still keep worrying about meals. Like this morning I was panicing because I hadn’t made a packed lunch and it took a few moments to remember that I’m not having food at the moment! Before this I have never gone without food for so long before. I have always been (too) fond of my food. Seeing what comes out is giving me the strength to keep going.

I AM THE MUCUS QUEEN!

The Juice Cleanse – Day 2 Tuesday.

Yesterday I only took 4 of my toxin absorber shakes. You are supposed to take 5 every 3 hours and I was due my last one at 7.30. I had made the broth that they recommend and after that I forgot to take my last shake. When I was eating the broth (strained vegetable soup) I found myself picking at the vegetables that had been strained out. It wasn’t because I was hungry, it was more because I felt deprived not eating and wanted to chew something. I need to work on that! I took 7 digestive stimulator capsules before bed.

Today I have had 2 normal poos before 10am! I didn’t take my first toxin absorber shake until 8.45 so I will take my last one at 8.45pm. I will skip the broth this evening and stick to apple juice.

The main crisis point of my eczema has moved to my thymus area. My neck was less sore and oozing this morning when I woke up than it was yesterday. My face is still very dry and my chin area very flakey and puffy but I think it is improving. I still don’t look like myself. I miss my old face! I was 11st 6 this morning so think I must have had some water retention yesterday due to the non-detox food I had on Sunday.

H and I watched the Spa of Embarrassing illnesses last night. The guy with eczema is really struggling, although he has just gone cold turkey on his immuno-suppressant medication. He his having the backlash that I experienced when I came off steriods. He seems to be improving more slowly than the others. I am getting so impatient. I just want to be well now. I’m fed up with waiting.

11.50 update! OMG! I just went to the loo twice in the space of 20 minutes and out came about 2 lots of about 10 inches of thick green mucus! It was like the biggest snot you have ever seen! I can’t believe all that goo was inside me. This is only day 2 – how much more is there to come? Immediately afterwards I got the shakes in my stomach for a few seconds that seem to come just before and just after a big release (either physical or emotional). I am so pleased and relieved that things are finally moving and clearing.

The Juice Cleanse – Day 1. Monday.

 As I was finding the reducing potions size part difficult I decided to go straight into the juice cleanse.  It’s easier to cut out food completely rather than have a little bit.  I know this isn’t recommended, but I had completely changed my diet in the month previous and done lots of enemas so hopefully this will work.  This part of the cleanse you have the ‘toxin absorber’ in apple juice, followed by a large class or water at 3 hour intervals, 5 times a day.  Before dinner you take your number’ the ‘digestive stimulator’.  In between times you can have apple juice, water or vegetable broth and that’s it.  So far it is lunch time. I have had 1 packet at 7.15 and another at 10.15 and am due one more in a few minutes.  I don’t feel hungry, although I do have the internal cold shakes.  Hope I have the strength to keep this up for a few days.  I have had at least 4 movements this morning.  I am so pleased it is coming out.  It is such a relief to get things working normally instead of being packed solid with poo.

Weighed myself first thing this morning and I was 11st 7.5lbs.  How I have managed to put on 2lbs in 2 days is beyond me especially with so much coming out.

The Pre- Cleanse – Day 2. Sunday.

Attended the second day of the HypnoBirthing course which was wonderful and met some great people.  Again didn’t reduce my portion sizes and as I had forgotten to take a packed lunch there was only really unhealthy food on offer.  I had a bowel movement at about 4pm!!!

A real one.  When I got home I had to decide again how many ‘digestive stimulator’ supplements I needed to take before dinner.  As I had only had 1 movement and not 3 I increased the dose.  I was supposed to only take 7 pills, but I took 8, then had another four movements that evening!  Hope that wasn’t too many.

The Pre-Pre-Cleanse. – Friday.

Stuck to my detox diet and in the evening came home and did a warm water enema.  Strangely not of lot of faeces in it, but loads of little bits of mucus about the size of a grain of rice!  Not really sure what that was all about!

Felt as though there would be a big emotional release after that although nothing happened that night.  Felt very tired and would have happily slept all evening, but had a really bad nights sleep again.

Sugar Rush

I massively over did it on sweet fruit!  I thought other raw foodists were wimps when they talked about feeling sugar rushes – but now I understand what they mean.  I binged on medjool dates, Innocent smoothie (realised afterwards it is pasturised so not raw) and mango.  It really is unpleasant feeling all spaced out with nervous energy.  Have been balancing with greens which helped me come down.
Today I was angelic eating raw veg.  I made the ‘golden curry sauce’ from Detox Your world which was really nice, however the chopped veg were raw and really hard and I bruised the top of my mouth expecting them to be soft like cooked veg!  Was nice to have a curry flavour – am potentially out for curry this weekend although I’m not sure what i will have.  There is nothing raw on the menu.  Maybe will have to treat myself to some sag aloo.

I phoned about my detox kit today and was told it would be another 2 weeks at least!  I have now ordered this colonic cleansing kit.  Hope it comes by the weekend – I’m feeling very blocked up.  Warning don’t look at their site if you are squemish – there are some very graphic pictures of poo and mucus on it.  This is a really interesting article about what mucoid placque is made of.  Can’t wait for my kit to arrive so I can clear out mine.   Is it weird that I’m hoping to have a poo picture to post!  Gosh I’m obsessive about poo at the moment.  People will think I am strange or something.

My whole face was flakey this morning when I woke up and flaked off during the day.  Is really hard to face people when I look like this.  My skin improves very very slowly, then relapses a bit then creeps up improving.  It is SO SLOW!

Had a very lovely gentle session with my healer (Lynne) yesterday.  She was using the BodyTalk protocol and we were both surprised with what came up.  The protocol uses kinesiology to communicate with the body and find out what needs to be ‘linked’ together and then healed.  Apparently normally the link chain is very short, but we kept having to find more and more links.

The first session, involved linking my liver, spleen, skin, lymph amongst others as well as my parents divorce.  Normally when this issue comes up I disolve into a weeping heep, but I was really calm throughout, even when Lynne explained that what she was picking up that when my dad left part of me died and whole energetic circuits switched off including my rage centre.  That would normally leave me in pieces, but I was so calm and just replied that it made sense.  It turns out I needed healing at an astral level (whatever that means) which she did and then I slept for about half an hour.

The next session again related to liver, skin, spleen and she picked up that my digestive problems had been happening for a long time.  We traced it back to my first school where the bullying started from the headmaster down.  I was so stressed and upset all the time, especially as I found as school meals  really stressful, my body stopped working effeciently.  Added into the mix was an emotion she piced up ’self image’.  I knew at the time what I was experiencing wasn’t how it was supposed to be, but my whole world was wrong.  I didn’t know how to defend myself.  I think it was from then that my ‘I’m not good enough’ belief started.  It was a very academic school and although I excelled in my class I still felt stressed by the focus on attainment.  Another fix, another sleep.  I found a few tears welling up when I thought about what my brother experienced at that school, and then when that passed I felt very calm and peaceful.

I find it hard to describe what happens in a healing session as I’m aware that it sounds a bit woolly and new-agey.  All I can say is that I am aware of profound changes happening.  Today the lymph areas that were so sore and painful before don’t hurt the way they did.  When I got home the first comment from H was that I seemed brighter and I hadn’t said or done anything out of the ordinary for him to think that.

Lynne thinks that the coffee enemas I am having are helping for these emotions to release.  Her theory is that emotions and trauma get locked into the cells and it is only by detoxing that they are released.  I have read elsewhere that coffee enemas help the liver to detoxify and it is probably for this reason that these emotions are coming out.  She is also very keen for me to do the proper detox with the support herbs.  Unfortunately she will be away for 2 weeks from next Sunday, so if a load of emotional stuff comes up I’m going to have to deal with it.

When I got home I made a mistake with my dinner.  I had soaked some pinenuts before leaving to make vegan cheese on my return.  I didn’t fancy it much for dinner, but thought I would make it anyway.  I had it rolled up in romaine lettuce for my dinner and although it tasted nice I felt slightly queasy afterwards.   I settled down to read the SunFood diet and realise that I had far too much fat for my dinner in that meal.  David Wolfe suggests balancing sweet fruit, chlorophyll (green leafy veg) and fats.  However if you want to detox (or lose weight which I do) then you should reduce the amounts of fat and increase the greens and sweet fruit.  I realised that my dinner had put too much of a fatty load only my liver, not a good idea given all it is going through at the moment!  I had a class of green powder and felt more balanced.  Just goes to show that just because something is raw doesn’t mean to say it is good for you there and then.

I’ve not eaten much today.  I’ve had a dragon fruit, a passion fruit, several warm lemon waters and some green powder.  I had my first natural bowel movement in over a week this morning (finally) then did another coffee enema and feel much better.  I also tried using flax oil on my skin and that felt nice.  The hemp was feeling too heavy and the evening primrose didn’t seem to work either.  Will keep on with the flax oil for now.

I really need to do this detox, just wish my pills would arrive.  I’ve been so ill for so long I’m impatient to get started.

beautiful morning

Gorgeous morning today.  Blue sunny sky, clean fresh air.  One of those wonderful crisp mornings that makes you realise that spring is on its way.  H was all cuddly this morning that meant I didn’t want to get up, but once I was outside I just wanted to get out into the day but instead had to drive to work.  We go onto flexi time on 1^st April (incidentally it will be a year since I started this job) and I’m thinking that rather than starting work at 8.15, I’ll start at 9.30 and use the extra time in the morning to walk down to the banks of the Thames and do the Tibetan Rejuvenation Rites or just a general all over body stretch.  I could probably get up later at 7am instead of 6.15.

7am up and put on exercise clothes

7.10 out of house, walk down to
Thames, exercise and return (need to time this!)

7.55 shower and dress

8.20 breakfast

8.40 get ready to leave

8.45 leave house

9.30 arrive work

 

Need to do 7.5 hours so could take 30 mins for lunch and leave at 5.30 and be home by 6.15.

 

At the moment I get up between 6.15 and 6.30 and arrive at 8.15.  I waste a lot of time in the mornings just ‘coming to’ as I’m tired and generally end up staying late anyway faffing.  I never feel like I have enough energy to exercise at the end of the day even if I leave dead on time.

I could try coming in later 3 days a week at first to see how that works, getting some morning exercise in on some days might give me more energy for the evenings I start earlier.

 

Felt very emotional and tearful yesterday.  Could be that I’m releasing stuff, could be that I didn’t get outside yesterday and I’m feeling caged in.  I’ve been asking my guides for clarity about my purpose.  There are so many directions I’m drawn to at the moment, but when I take a step forward my interest feels blocked.  So for the moment I’m taking a step back, focusing on eating really well and asking for clarity.

 

I also think I am very ‘yeasty’ still.  If I look closely at my skin there is a white bloom on it, just like on the surface of plums or grapes.  My dad has been saying for ages that what sorted out his skin was using canesten on his face and an anti-fungal shampoo.  I’ve got some of the shampoo but haven’t used it yet as it has sodium laureth sulphate in which is a known skin irritant.  I might consider buying some canesten at lunchtime today.  I’m hoping my giant pack arrives from the detoxyourworld site as I’ve ordered some Pau D’arco tea which is a known antifungal.  Being yeasty might explain why I feel so tired even when I’ve had a full nights sleep.  I definitely feel better for not having yeast in my diet so maybe that is a factor.  I’m taking strong pro-biotics but maybe that’s not enough.

 

My diet yesterday was about 60% raw and about 2000 calories.

 

For breakfast I had 3 red delicious apples.

At about 11.30 I had my green powder which I am getting used to the taste.

For lunch I had some brown rice with hemp oil and lemon juice plus about half of a M&S stir fry pack. (I prefer this to salad as less lettuce!) with some walnuts.

For dinner I had lunch leftovers with some seaweed and a whole avocado.

I had a chunk of chocolate that was in the fridge afterwards as I wanted something sweet which just made me crave more sweet food, so I experimented with whizzing up a mango with some raw cacoa nibs which was lovely and chocolaty.  The mango wasn’t a great one otherwise I’d have felt bad adulterating it, but as it was only a so-so one the cacoa nibs were a lovely addition.

 

All of this was washed down with lots of warm lemon water and cups of ordinary tea with milk (one of my few remaining vices).

 

On TV last night there was a programme about a guy who only ever eaten grated cheddar cheese and crisps and they were getting him to try new foods.  He was ok with introducing spinach leaves, but tinned tomato soup made him gag.  Looking at it from a raw perspective it’s a really shame that they didn’t get him eating more raw or healthy foods rather than trying to wean him onto commercial foods.  Anyway, it reminded me that it can take 10 – 20 tastes of something for a child to accept a new food, so I got out the maca powder that I couldn’t swallow before, put about a sixth of a teaspoon into some lemon water and drank it.  It was ok, so I had a little bit more.  I’ll keep trying it for 20 tastes to see if I can get used to it.

A few days ago I tried it mixed into melted chocolate but that didn’t work either, so I’m pleased that the lemon water was ok. 

 

Still really cold, am wearing a long sleeved thermal vest, a shirt, a cotton jumper and my coat!  Everyone else is just in one or two normal layers. 

 

Hope I get much better soon.

 

 

Bad enema – bleugh

Oh god, had such a bad enema last night.  Don’t read on if you are squeemish as this post contains way too much information.

My previous three enemeas had been made using 2 pints of water and half a teaspoon of organic coffee.  I had held the first two in for 10 minutes and the third for 15 easily so I was feeling confident that I could increase the dose.  I made up 3 pints of water using a whole teaspoon of coffee, but couldn’t get the temperature right so ended up adding another pint of cold water.  Well I only managed to hold in the 4 pints for about 3 mintues when I developed the most painful cramps and just had to expell it all.  A lot of putrid stuff came out, but I don’t think I am doing a very deep cleanse.  I think this is just getting rid of what ought to be coming out day to day.  I wish my detox kit would arrive as I need something to kick start my bowel into working.  I was really thirsty for warm lemon water afterwards, I must have had 4 glasses over the rest of the evening.  I think the combination of enemas and lemon water does make a difference along with the diet.  My skin on my face was slightly improved this morning.

I ordered £100 worth of goods from detox your world yesterday!  I’ve been thinking about going raw and I don’t this going 100% is right for me at the moment.  I feel ragingly empty after a totally raw meal so I am aiming to go about 75% raw and make up the rest with brown rice, quinoa etc.  I’ve been looking to see if there are any raw support groups in Reading.  I went to the RISC centre and looked at the noticeboard, and while there is an organic food co-ops and a big fairtrade movement I couldn’t see anything about raw groups.  On one hand it means there isn’t any established support, but on the other it means there is a big opportunity if I wanted to set something up.

Still feel confused about where my contribution lies.  At the moment all I can think about is getting well and getting my skin healthy and glowing.