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On January 5th, per my Oh Nein Revolutions, I started a month-long detoxification. Here’s my report back, just a couple days shy of my four weeks.
YES: eggs, nuts and seeds (except peanuts or pistachios) preferably raw, green veggies, fish (the smaller the better because of the mercury), and a small amounts of lowfat dairy like yogurt and milk.
NO: everything else, including any sort of carbs, even whole grains, or veggies that convert quickly to sugar like carrots, potatoes, yellow/orange squashes, tomatoes, peas. And no fruits. No legumes, since the experts were on the fence re their inclusion. No funghi. No alcohol, obviously. As little caffeine as I can manage. And nothing fermented/with vinegar, which makes sushi, and much restaurant food (the sauces, the sauces) out of bounds.
Basically, I’m eating a lot like a bear in the wild. Thank goodness I don’t have to catch my fish with my bear paws.
WEAK ONE: How to manage breakfasts without any breads, cereals, or fruits? Eggs become my favorite food in the world, but after several days in a row of eggs with greens I need some variety. I start eating sautéed chard, leek and broccoli soup, mashed brussel sprouts—for breakfast.
In three days I blow through the green veggies that used to be enough to last me for a week. Back to the market with me! I spend over a hundred dollars on herbal supplements recommended to assist my liver in detoxifying, the heavy metals in making their exit, and the candida in dying off. I’m hungry all the time, despite handfuls over handfuls of nuts and seeds.
Shushing constant thoughts that there is NO WAY I can make it a month on this diet.
Weird sweats and moments where my whole body gets flushed and hot. Sugar (and maybe wheat or coffee) withdrawal? Probably.
I have to wake an hour earlier to prep lunch and snacks, since learning that if I get caught out and about without my special food, there is almost no place I can turn. On the one day this happens, I roam the aisles of Safeway (the only market around) until finally buying a bag of pre-washed broccoli and cauliflower florets, and a bag of almonds. Yes, it’s true, there are always salad bars. Since I hate and usually avoid salad bars, this realization only strikes me in Week Two.
All I can think about is my new diet. I feel like I’m taking care of a newborn baby: my body.
Insights about how privileged an activity this is: the ability to take so much time to think about and prep my food and the requirement to take it easy in my life so that my body can process all the toxins. I realize how many of my social engagements revolve around food and beverages.
I mostly withdraw from the world, except to talk the ear off of any friend who checks in, regaling them with tales of my inputs and outputs. I’ll spare you the details of the latter.
WEEK TWO: Buoyed by the pride of making it to a second week. It’s taking distinctly less time to acquire and prepare my food. Staunchly I ignore the cravings for pizza.
The joy of Rooibos tea! It’s what I order now when I meet someone for “coffee.” When I really crave a glass of wine at night, I indulge in a hot bath or an episode of Buffy. My other big indulgence is good fish. A hefty chunk of halibut-y goodness! Escobar! I make friends with the fisherman at the farmer’s market.
I pick up my hoop. I have some good sessions with it, letting it be mostly on my core and therapeutic, closing my eyes for stints. No bouncing, leaping, squatting, or whooshing it around off-body.
I have a date near the end of the week. I’ve informed him that a meal can’t be part of the activities but he makes reservations at a fish place for after the movie. To my delighted surprise, the grilled fish platter, minus the papaya salsa, minus the carb side, but with the spinach merely sautéed in olive oil and butter, is something I can eat. I apologize profusely to our waiter for my high-maintenance-ness.
I have developed into a fiendish consumer of hot water with lemon juice. I’m polishing off at least four lemons a day.
WEEK THREE:
Old hand at this cleanse thing. It’s re-set my tastebuds: raw nuts and plain yogurt and eggs register as sweet! Sweet.
And then, the day before the Inauguration, I come down with a flu. It might be a flu bug, or it might be that I wasn’t being low-key enough in Week Two for my body to manage it all, or both. Plus I’ve read in all the candida cleanse materials that the starving yeasties get VERY angry and lead violent uprisings in your body that may feel like a severe flu—a fact that makes many people give up this particular type of cleanse. The literature says to push on through it.
So I keep at it, although I’m occasionally nibbling on rice crackers and Mary’s Gone Crackers (aka “Nothing Crackers”). My sore throat is a bitch, and I can’t suck lozenges or use honey in my hot lemon water.
Grumpy, low-energy HoopGoddess watches the inauguration at home online and forgoes the celebrations.
The flu thing only lasts 4-5 days. Just as the week ends, I am overwhelmed with cravings for doughnuts. Crème-filled, sugar crusted. All I want in life is just one bloody donut, or a dozen. Heavens help me.
WEEK FOUR:
I’m incredibly proud of myself. HoopGoddess is not known for her self-discipline. I’m generally Dionysian, a hedonist. I’m thinking I can maybe leverage this accomplishment with the cleanse into discipline in my professional realm.
When I peer at my face in the mirror in the morning my skin looks firmer, the pores cleaner and smaller. I haven’t lost a lot of weight, probably because I’ve done very low levels of physical activity for almost a month– but losing weight was not the point.
I don’t feel super energetic and light, the way some friends who do the Master Cleanse or an all-raw diet talk about their experience. What I do feel is not depressed.
As I launch into this final week I’m incredibly, undeniably randy. It’s one of those happy spells where I walk around constantly enjoying the rub of my jeans at my crotch.
I try out cinnamon sprinkled on my sautéed asparagus one morning at breakfast. Yum! A new favorite. Inspired in part by Neurobics—which proposes that stimulating several senses in new combinations builds and strengthens your neural pathways. For example, listening to a piece of music while simultaneously popping popcorn.
I’m looking forward to my pastry and red wine, but not with feverish intensity. It occurs to me that I could keep this up for another week…
1. Learn Spanish, finally.
2. Hoop more again, for me, for the Joy of it. Take it public only in low-key formats that may or may not include a new hoop troupe. Stay tuned.
3. Digestive cleanse. No sugars, period. Four weeks. Starting, um, tomorrow.
4. Heartspace cleanse. “Don’t even do lunch. Make it a phonecall.”-said the Seer I saw in December, commenting on how many people I meet and will further meet with whom I feel Connection, en route to Love. But there remains, apparently, a shadow of a wall around my heart from back when I was a Wife, and I still have to work it away.
