Recap: Detox Challenge

Well.

Seeing as I'm too bleary to even remember which day I stopped recapping, I'm just going to tell you how the rest of the detox went.

On whichever day I was supposed to be doing all fruits and veggies - I did. I did it a day early, in fact. Yeah. All that water I tried drinking obviously diluted the best of my brain cells.

Once I got off track (and had to keep looking back at the first post just to remember which day I was on), I decided to just stick with the fruit, veggies and water. I did okay until about 2 this morning. That's when I came wide awake to have a full-on anxiety attack.

I should have done this detox challenge at a better time. I started right when we had visitors coming into town (which meant lots of meals I had to cheat with or miss out on); I'm in the middle of trying to get packed to move; and I'm obviously feeling the stress to the point where my brain is rebelling against being on good behavior.

Oh - and to top all of the other stress going on, I got a jury summons. Really? I'm moving away, people! And, because I have a new doctor who's out on vacation, I get some stand-in who knows nothing about me. He refuses to write a disability excuse. I wish it was his jury I'd be sitting on. I can't keep my own life straight, but I'm supposed to sit in judgement of some other poor soul's fate?

Anyway, here is what I noticed overall about the last days of this challenge:

• I only sensed some increased energy once. Since then, I just feel water-logged (even though I never made my water limit). My fatigue is hitting a high.
• My mind isn't any clearer. The stress of moving may be causing some of that, but the challenge didn't help.
• My skin is a lot less dry, including my lips. Usually, I have to use balm throughout the day to stop chapping. Even my feet (which are dry and rough as Arizona pavement in July) are not as scaly and don't take as much care.
• I peed. Lots. And then lots more. 
• My bowel movements didn't increase or decrease. (But I never did get around to drinking any prune juice.)
• My hair feels great. Like my skin, it's lots less dry. It just feels really soft and moisturized.

I don't know what all of this means. I'm guessing that there is something in coffee that makes my brain work better. There might even be something in it that decreases my sarc symptoms. I say that because, when I decreased my daily coffee intake, I became a little more clumsy and off-balanced than I have been in a while. Again, this all could be due to my stress and anxiety levels. 

Since this challenge didn't go as well as I liked, I plan to do-over once I get settled in my new town and calmed down.

Peace

--Free

Recap: Days 2 - 4 of Detox

To recap of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of my detox challenge, here is how those days went and what I consumed:

Sunday (Day2)

I didn't feel as stressed because I knew I'd be able to eat something (minus breads). My energy level seemed good and I wonder if that's because of the water from Saturday. I did have to pee a lot throughout the day - but not as much as I thought I would. My other bathroom use didn't increase.

One of my hopes in detoxing is, that by clearing my body of toxins, I will be more clearheaded. My illness messes with my brain and I'm praying that cleansing my body will give some relief from the fuzzy-headedness and the frustration that causes.

• Coffee with flavored cream (at 6:30 a.m.)
• 40 oz water
• Snack of 1 oz plain goat cheese, 5 Triscut crackers, three pieces of pickled garlic, 1.5 oz of beef summer sausage (lunch at 3 p.m.)
• 16 oz water (while cleaning and packing)
• Coffee with flavored cream (around 4 p.m. because dinner isn't until 7 p.m.)
• 1 cup collard gumbo (shrimp, tomato paste/sauce, okra), 1 small piece of hot water cornbread and  fried chicken wing  (Yeah, I said "fried"! It was a family dinner, sorry.)
• 16 oz water before bed.

I almost think I ate too much food today. Even though I ate a very small amount at dinner and skipped the candied yams and sauce, I felt too full afterwards. I almost didn't have room for the last serving of water. I was really disappointed that this is the second day of not making the full 80 ounces of water.

Sausage, cheese, garlic, crackers

"Grammy's Gumbo"
Usually made with pork chops, not shrimp

Monday (Day 3)

Didn't feel as energized this morning. Probably has to do with feeling too full at bedtime. Noticed that my urine was super clear every time I got up to use the bathroom during the night - which was about four times! Maybe that's why I was a little groggy. Told myself that I am not going to eat as much today. Thinking I will stick to cheese and cracker snacks, and maybe a little bit of sausage.

• Coffee with flavored cream at 7 a.m. (but not as much because of feeling so full already)
• 16 oz water while running errands
• Goat cheese, sausage, crackers and garlic for lunch around 1:30
• 2 servings of water 16 oz each while making calls and folding clothes (feeling a little headache-y and tired, but not hungry)
• 1/2 cup leftover gumbo at 4 p.m. (made my headache go away, but I'm still really tired)
• About 1/2 ounce (3 slices) sausage and 8 oz of water for dinner at about 7 p.m.
• Cup of chai tea at bedtime 

Felt really super tired all afternoon, but at least I wasn't running to the bathroom every 10 minutes. I did have to pee about every hour. And, yes, I realize that I am falling short on the water intake.

Tuesday (Day 4)

I woke up still feeling a little groggy and un-rested. This could be an effect of the water cleaning some of the toxins from my body. I hope.

One positive: my skin doesn't feel as dry as it usually does. This apartment holds heat like a roasting oven, so most nights I can almost feel the moisture being sucked out of my skin. The air is still super dry in here, but I don't feel the need to roll out of bed reaching for my body lotion.

Some of our out of town guests are leaving tonight so someone had the really good/really bad idea of meeting at Lucky Wishbone for a family lunch. (Any time family comes to visit there are 2 places on their list to eat: Lucky Wishbone and Arctic Roadrunner - both are burger joints.) I'm going to attempt to remove the bread from my Jumbo Burger, but I'm probably going to cheat.

• Coffee. Yes, with flavored cream. Around 6:30 a.m. I'm so tired, I wanted to chew grounds right from the can.
• 2 16 oz bottles of water, back to back, between 11:00 and 12:00

Here is where I feel off the wagon y'all: today we hit Lucky Wishbone. I stuck with just a burger (bread included) and then downed another bottle of water (about 12 oz). I babysat DJ from noon til about 4, then the whole family spent the rest of the day together. I just got home and it's almost 11 p.m.

The nieces and nephews (and my sis)

This kid. 'Nuff said.

We had a family seafood night

I stuck to crab and shrimp

And salad

I feel like I'm going to have to do much better with my water intake. This is ridiculous. How hard should it be to drink plenty of water? Apparently, I'm struggling with it. (I even went off and left my water bottle at the fam's tonight.) I am promising myself tonight that I'm going to do much better with the challenge in the next few days.

I'm still fatigued. If I'm not feeling better by the end of the week, I'm going to have to check with the docs to see what is going on. I don't need to get sick when I'm trying to get moved... My brain is a bit fuzzy, so I hope that I kept all this straight. I tried drafting a post for each of these past few days, but had to edit here and there. For now, goodnight.

Peace
--Free

Recap: Day One of Detox

(My morning-after recap of Day One - Saturday)

Everything was great until I finished off my first (and only) serving of coffee for the day. The whole time I was writing the intro post, I was feeling mostly very confident. I even wondered if I shouldn't be doing a 14-day challenge.

The first few hours zoomed by while I worked on sorting, packing and labeling boxes for storage. I downed 2 16-oz bottles of water while I did laundry. I was doing great.

Then I started craving a second coffee.

There are lots of days when I don't have a second cup of coffee and never think about it. Saturday was a day when I was thinking about my second coffee before I had finished the first one. It was a day when I began having involuntary fantasies about coffee. I almost had to take a cold shower to get my mind off of coffee.

I made it past the cravings by drinking more water. I was saving the prune juice for later. I decided that I could think of prune juice as a treat. Prune juice is dark like coffee, so I was hoping that I could satisfy my java cravings by visualizing the prune juice as very sweet, creamer-free coffee. How sad is that? Is that normal while in caffeine withdrawals, or is that bordering on needing-help-from-a-professional? (I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I was thinking of ways to add a few grains of coffee to my water just to tide me over. Thinking about it was just getting to be masochistic, so I put my tub of coffee where it was way out of my sight. I need to #SeekHelp.)

After around 2 in the afternoon, I was okay with just water. I wasn't even very hungry, which surprised me since I had been so physically busy all morning. When I was getting weary of the taste of water, I brushed my teeth. I love the taste of water after I brush my teeth. PRO: Helps that I hate the taste of coffee right after I brush. CON: what a waste of energy. What am I brushing off my teeth? The stains of cravings? Whatever.

I noticed something interesting about drinking so much water just partway through the day: I wasn't peeing a lot. Not nearly as much as I expected to, since there was no food intake to absorb any liquid... Maybe because of my java withdrawals, I spent a few minutes in the throes of a hallucination about my kidneys being damaged or my urethra being clogged by my junkie-like need for a hit of Yuban. My brain went into shock from all that damned water and fluoride and I swear I saw Juan Valdez out of the corner of my eye trying to hawk me some coffee like a beloved friend of the worst influence.

Yeah. Things were getting tricky.

The hardest part of the day was when I went shopping with my sister. It was late afternoon, I was starting to think about food more and more often. Bad time to be in the grocery store. If I could have focused more on all the wonderful food I was seeing, I might have given in. Thing is, I had to pee. Every ten minutes. I hate using public restrooms, but for the hour that we were in the store, I used up all the "rest" out of the "room"! I think my brain and bladder were playing Tag with each other. I'd see something edible that made my mouth water and my brain would Tag my bladder. At least being in the restroom so much kept me (temporarily) away from the temptations of food.

Now it's confession time. I slipped up once. Or twice, depending on how you count it.

I blame it on the olive bar at the store. I love olives. I love olives with pits. I love olives stuffed with garlic. I love garlic. This dang olive bar has all kinds of olives. And garlic. So I had an olive (just one) and some garlic (some = two). I hope there is an olive bar in Heaven.

To pay for my slip-up, I drank a whole 16 ounces of water as soon as we got to the car. Sixteen ounces of warm-from-sitting-in-a-hot-car water. Ugh. (And I chewed two pieces of gum. To save some vampires from my breath. My sister gave me the gum. She dang near shoved it into my mouth.)

So. I made it through Day One. I only made it to 3 seconds past 10:30 p.m. (because I hadn't had solid food since the same time the night before), but I made it. Then I broke my fast with a treat that my sister bought me: goat cheese. I never thought I could fall as in love with a cheese as I am with olives and garlic. I never thought I'd want anything to do with nourishment from a goat. (I'll tell you about the goat cheese in a separate post.)

I made myself drink another 16 ounces of water before I went to sleep. That brought my daily total to around 75 ounces. Short of the planned 88 ounces, but I'm okay with it. I'm just happy I made Day One of my challenge (except for the olives and garlic). By the way, I didn't drink the prune juice. I counted the olives and garlic as a replacement.

I had an epiphany while writing this post (as I start Day Two) where I identified my enemy as my habits, not my hunger. Just like everything in life.

I made it through Day One, mainly by keeping busy and focusing on how badly I want to feel well. I have this sarcoidosis that's disabled me, but I don't have to give the disease any more weapons.

My sleep last night would make Rip Van Winkle look like a coke addict. I dozed off knowing that morning was going to be the end of a rainbow where my coffee was waiting. Of course, I woke up about five times to visit the bathroom, but I had no trouble getting back to sleep each time.

This morning, I got out of bed so fast to get to my coffee maker that I almost pulled a ligament. By the way, this coffee... best coffee ever.

Peace
--Free

My Natural Detox Challenge

The past week or so, my body and brain have been feeling sluggish. My water intake has dropped the last few days. Too much going on, what with moving, having my birthday, the Fourth of July celebrations, and family here for a visit from the States.

All of this (except the moving) has been fun, but is starting to wear on me. I think it's just stress and fatigue, so I am trying to cleanse myself from the inside out. I'm going to set myself a challenge to do a 7-day natural detox. I will update here about my progress.

No cheesecake? Well, that sucks.

When I looked at various detox "systems", I decided against anything involving pills and powders. I take enough prescribed meds as it is. This WikiHow lists several natural ways to cleanse the body. I took what I liked from parts of this list into what I think are the best for me:

• Through healthy eating and drinking. I am going to be better about drinking lots of water and I'd like to give the Dandelion tea a try. The Burdock tea interests me, but I'm worried about how will taste... Still not giving up my coffee, but I can limit myself. 
• Specific Cleanses. The only one of these that sound safe for me is the Green Tea Smoothie. Not as tasty-sounding as a Cheesecake Smoothie, but safe. There's no way in Hades I'd ever mess with a "salt-water flush". My blood-pressure would probably shoot up high enough to explode across the sky in sparkles. Drinking salt-water doesn't sound safe for anyone unless their doctor is present with some of those emergency paddles and an ER team.
• Lifestyle Choices. No duh. When it comes to my lifestyle choices and managing my stress, I face challenges every 5 minutes. Water instead of coffee; green and leafy over creamy, sweet and gooey; walking away from an irritating situation instead of facing assault charges. 

Basically, all this is common-sense stuff. Very do-able. I call it "The Spirit is Willing" plan. My weak "flesh" is why I'm looking to detox in the first place.

 ~sigh~

Here's my self-challenge (starting today and ending on Friday the 11th):

Day 1 A (solid) food fast. I'm limiting my non-water liquids to 1 (12oz) coffee with flavored creamer; 12 oz of prune juice.

Day 2 - 4 No "simple" carbs, and no pasta (a "complex" carb). Adding tea to my fluid intake of 100 ounces. (Info on simple vs complex carbs)

Day 4 - 6 Limiting my white bread intake to 2 slices per day. Fluid: 100 ounces (water, teas, prune juice). Unless I'm working off too many calories running to the bathroom with "prune juice issues". Shut up.

 Day 7 Limiting myself to vegetables, fruits, prune juice and 1 8oz coffee with creamer. Fluid: 100 ounces.

Hopefully, on Day 8, I will feel better. During the challenge, I'll post on my mood and energy level and whatever effects I'm feeling.

By the way, about teas: I thought about using Dandelion tea and/or Burdock tea, but some of the warnings are worrying me. Green tea is one that I know is safe for me. I love chai tea, so I should learn to drink more in place of my massive amounts of coffee.

Add a good book & it's a prescription for depression

I figure this challenge is going to definitely be good for my body. That's what I figure. What I know is that I'm going to be resentful every time I see someone else chewing food that I can't have or drinking a really good cup of coffee after I've had my daily limit. What I am hoping is that I will be able to do adopt this challenge into my life on a regular basis. Drinking more water is definitely going to be a constant. I'm shooting for 80 ounces a day.

Also will decrease my lotion budget

I'm tired of being tired. I want to really work on getting well for the long-term. So... here I go, off to my challenge.

I'm almost to the bottom of my 12 ounces of coffee and I keep looking over at that gigantic bottle of prune juice I haven't opened yet. My water jug is waiting, but I refuse to think about it until I've licked my coffee mug free of every last drop of the International Delight Heath bar-flavored creamer. Every. Last. Drop.

Peace
--Free