6/26/08

Purging

It's been close to a year since the last "Cleanse". This is the detoxification program I did twice last year and had marvelous results with. Like dropping 54 points on my cholesterol levels. True, I was exercising more but a 25% drop? It's not for the faint of heart though....it's hard. No dairy, grains, nuts, seeds, beans, eggs or meat for 10 days, then one small serving of fish or chicken per day for the next 11 days. Lots and lots of vegetables, fruits and a couple of protein smoothies a day. No alcohol, coffee, black tea, chocolate, bananas, potatoes, green beans, avocadoes, canola oil, soy sauce, artificial anything, blah, blah, blah. You get the point. It's harder than you might think to find food that doesn't contain one or more of the no-nos. And let's just say it's difficult to find a 21 day stretch where there isn't some activity where I know I will most definitely want to partake of something on the list due to a party, guests, traveling, etc...

So when it came to my attention on Friday that the next 19 days would be mostly party-free, CCC, Bubble Boy and I committed to another three week Veggie Marathon. Already I am experiencing lovely results. I slept, YES, SLEPT all night long. I didn't wake up at 5 am and toss and turn and try to get back to sleep only to finally fall back asleep 10 minutes before the alarm goes off. I slept until the alarm beeped. No shorter. No longer. Woke up ready to go. Bliss.

Another apparent side effect of this purging process is increased energy and mental clarity. These are areas where I have been severely deficient these last few months. Kind of a mental dullard, if you will. I look around and see what needs to be done...oh, I can identify problems with great acuity! But when it comes down to resolving the chaos and focusing for more than say, 34 seconds? Well, that just wasn't happening.

But today! Today Big E and I spent HOURS in the hellhole known as her bedroom purging her dresser, desk, cabinets, closet and bookshelves of any and all superfluous junkity-junk. We didn't get to the abyss under her bed, but you can rest easy that a peek in that vicinity tomorrow will not elicit tears of shame, frustration and/or fear.

This feeling of lightness from removing the accumulation of stuff is a heady thing. Almost euphoric. Or maybe that's lack of food. Either way, the mere thought of loading my car with all this stuff, this House Cholesterol, that's been clogging our house and hauling it away is exhilarating. Liberating. Maybe even worth giving up chocolate for three whole weeks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Girl, you have some excellent willpower! Did you read dooce yesterday? She, too is doing a cleanse and then got a horrific sinus infection. She went to the doctor, who told her that the cleanse CAUSED her sinus infection. HUH?! She added some previously forbidden foods back, but is committed to significantly paring down her intake of caffeine, sugar, wheat, alcohol, red meat, etc.

Bubble Girl said...

Dooce has a history of sinus infections so I can't see how the cleanse caused it. But what do I know? All I DO know is that I feel ridiculously good. I tried a different cleanse a few months ago (same diet, different supplements) and felt bad, bad, BAD. NOT GOOD AT ALL. CCC either. So we quit after 3-4 days. It just wasn't worth it. But this? This is totally worth it.

Anonymous said...

We did the cleanse of M's room over Spring Break. I couldn't believe how much stuff she had in her room. I loaded up my entire van to haul off. Your gonna love it.