Awesome Apple Fast: Days 4 & 5

Alrighty so let's discuss how this went.

On the morning of Day 4, which was Thursday, I woke up filled with energy and optimism.

It was a great day.

The sun was shining (or would be soon...I get up early).

My body felt amazing - I've never felt so clean and good!

Today was the last day of the cleanse, so, after some unpleasantness in the afternoon,

I'd be able to eat tomorrow.

Awesome.

So I went on my merry little way, preparing for the wedding, sending out emails, working on lots of new and very VERY exciting changes going on around here (stay tuned, lots of posts to come), drank some apple sauce/juice (which is what you get when you juice apples yourself), and then 3:00pm rolled around.

It was time.

(scary)

T and I filed into the kitchen. I meticulously measured out our olive oil - 6 ounces for me, and 8 for him (he was optimistic).

He squeezed lemon juice for us, the same amounts for each.

I went and got his computer to video record this momentous occasion (which video promptly deleted itself - weird, but true, and I'm kinda glad about that).

We tried to wrap our arms wedding-toast style, but were too paranoid about what we'd do after taking the first sip of olive oil, so we just faced each other instead.

After a clink, and a count down, bottoms up.

Oh.

My.

GOSH.

Seriously? Seriously. I am all for cleanses - with how amazing this one felt, I'm all about doing a different cleanse a month til all my body organs are spic and span, but I will not lie to you.

It was probably the worst thing I've ever experienced.

If I believed that Hell was a place where you have to do the most unpleasant thing imaginable forever, I'd be sitting there with a never-ending glass of amber olive oil.

It was really THAT bad.

I can't even describe it. It isn't that the taste is terrible, I mean, it tastes like olive oil. If you've ever taken a tequila shot (guilty, of course) then this is child's play. The problem is the TEXTURE. Your throat doesn't like it. And after 3.5 days of only apple juice, your stomach isn't a fan of the incredible richness either.

Really, it was horror of horrors horribleawefuldisGUUUSting. I asked Terry (only half joking) whether he thought David Wolfe put that in the book just to make his readers feel inadequate compared to him - I mean, he didn't even warn you about the terribleness, does that mean he can just sip it with a smile? If so, I suck in comparison. Maybe this is his raw foodism scheme to take over the world, psychologically.

I don't believe that. But, if he can drink that with no problems, he's a better human than I. Or a worse one. Depends on how you look at it.

We tried straws. (which worked better for me than T)

We tried to, since we were filming, pretend that we were doing a commercial and that the drink was delicious. I mean, I'm sure people have to do that sometimes. What about cooking shows? They ALWAYS look like that stuff tastes amazing. And I know from experience after trying their recipes, that those faces are faked at least some of the time.

That didn't work.

In the end, Terry downed his entire glass (I'm getting queasy just typing about it). I, on the other hand, could only get 4 ounces down. We figured that since I'm pretty small and light (under 100lbs), this was probably fine.

So we followed up with the lemon juice, during which T made faces I've never seen on a human before and that were highly entertaining, and put on our inventive liver compresses, which consisted of cloths with warm castor oil on them, against our livers, under a layer of plastic wrap that wound twice around our torsos. Awesome. (and sweaty, ew).

We laid in bed, on our right sides, with the mattress heater on, and watched movies - a little of Alien, then some of As Good As it Gets - about then T got sleepy so I watched some Gossip Girl and videos on wedding hair (very interesting, notsomuch, but necessary).

As the sun went down, we got lethargic and weird and T got downright sick. He was bad off. Just goes to show you, listen to your body! Don't force yourself to finish the doggone olive oil! Be like me, and once you start dry heaving, PUT THE GLASS DOWN.

Anyway.

And, as for the passing of the gall bladder stones, did it happen on the morning of Day 5?

Yes.

No, it wasn't painful at all. I won't go into specifics cause that's a little TOO much detail for a random googler who's ended up on my blog, but feel free to email me if you have questions.

We spent the day Friday in the city, going to a dress fitting for me and running errands and breaking our fast with Mexican food over at Ruby Tequilas -

-NOT a good idea. I felt so polluted after I left that place. No offence to RT, I just think I'm off cooked food.

I've been so spoiled with my mental acuity and mood and energy and physique, and now that I've successfully formulated a delicious flax cracker recipe to curb my tortilla chip addiction (for a later post, that), I'm on my way.

I will miss that quinoa bread though. Make a loaf, have it with honey for me. YUM.

I'm off to google raw bread recipes....

Happy Weekend!

Awesome Apple Fast, Day 3 report

Well, another day has passed on the fast!

(and it went by quickly too)

I spent the day cross-legged on the floor, embellishing invitations and tying ribbon (pics to come soon).

This morning, upon awakening, I felt amazing. I'm serious. I wasn't hungry at all. The interesting thing about eating raw, fresh, organic food and doing cleanses and such is that after you go through the withdrawal, you feel great. Energy is up, mood is great, body rocks (I have "flu abs", or so I told my friend Bebe today - you know when you get the flu, but look awesome afterwards? Yeah, I have those, but healthy.), thoughts are clearer, and there are a whole bunch of other great side effects.

NOT, however, that you should fast all the time - that would deprive you of stuff you need. But, once in a while? As a cleanse? To give your digestive system and such a break? Very smart.

Toward late morning I'd get a little light headed if I stood up too fast - there was that low blood sugar. I'm also not doing my daily morning yoga (which I loooooooooooooooooove) during the cleanse to give my body lots of time and energy to clean out everything that ought to go (acne included, we hope), and that could be part of the lightheadedness. I miss the yoga though, and can't WAIT til Friday when I can do it again. I've only had this practice for a couple of weeks, and already my body is changing, no joke. Who'd've ever thunk I'd be able to do the wheel pose these days?

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And yet, after a few days, I could. Amazing. My balance has improved, my mood certainly has, and I just don't feel right when I miss it in the morning. Not to mention the fact that it's a challenge, and I know that by the time I can do this series without breaking a sweat I'll be in fanfreakingtastic shape. That day has not arrived. Maybe in a month. Or two.

But, back to the cleanse.

So this evening, after our last apple juice glasses were empty for the day, T and I laid in bed with the mattress heater on (I was shivering, which was better than this morning, where I felt as if I were drunk after my first glass of apple juice on an empty and lightheaded stomach - I celebrated St. Patty's day after all!). We were fantasizing about food. We talked about recipes for Friday (which will be the first day off the cleanse, and also when we get to go and take a look at my dress, to see if the alterations are done! YAY!). We're planning to make lots of delicious things to welcome us back to the eating person's world.

I'd never done a real fast like this before, and although I was excited, I was also a little nervous. Could I do it? Would I turn into a bitchy monster?

The answers were yes, and occasionally. (Sorry, T.)

Tonight we have to take herbal laxatives (not attractive, but we're all honesty on this blog), and tomorrow at 3:00, after not having any juice for at least two hours, we have to drink 6-8 ounces of straight olive oil followed by the same amount of straight lemon juice.

Scary?

yes.

Am I fascinated too, to see what the heck happens?

absolutely.

Then, we take another laxative, lie in bed for the rest of the day on our side with a compress over our livers, and wait it out (we'll be watching James Cameron movies, if you're wondering. Random, I know. But we saw a TED talk of his today and made the decision then.

Then, Friday morning, supposedly we'll eliminate gall bladder stones from our body. Apparently anyone who's regularly eaten meat and dairy over the course of their life has them. You have from 300-1500, and they range in size from smaller than a bell pepper seed to the size of a (freaking) brazil nut, according to David Wolfe. (Again, scary, and strangely fascinating). My only thought is, good lord get that outta me! So there you go. Looking forward to Friday.

And tomorrow as well, other than guzzling down a glass of olive oil. Gulp.

Happy St. Patty's Day! Have a green beer for me!

Awesome Apple Fast: Days 1 & 2

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I don't know if y'all would automatically know what a fast is, at least in the sense that I'm doing one right now. Of course, Lent is upon us so I'm sure some of you are familiar with the concept of fasting (which isn't why I'm doing it, but it is a charming coincidence).

Just in case, answers.com defines a fast as simply "abstention from eating." (that's an awfully hard core definition, and no, obviously cause of the picture above, I'm not going that far...). Antonyms, according to the same site are "binge, eating, engorgement, and feast." So there you go.

So back to the fast. T and I have been reading an excellent book by David Wolfe (a nutritional guru) when it comes to raw, living, and super foods. Here's the link on Amazon.

This particular fast, which is officially a gall bladder cleanse (which supposedly supercharges liver function and other things that are healthily awesome), consists of first, three days of eating nothing but freshly juiced apples and water.

That's it.

We're currently on Day 2, and so far, it's not that bad. Of course, gorging on Mexican food and chocolate chip cookies (gluten free, of course) on Sunday night due to a fear of the cleanse's start on Monday morning probably made yesterday an easier day than it might have been otherwise. Our bodies were still going off of the huge overeating Sunday. That's cheating, by the way.

But back to the cleanse - yesterday and today I spent all day (and I do mean All. Day.) working on wedding invitations and reception invitations - all in all, I have to make roughly 200 total, and there's lots of ripping and gluing and stamping and embossing and ribbon tying and such involved, so my fingers are tired and the rest of me is slightly cranky.

For me, right about now is the hardest part. My clock reads 7:23pm, and right now is my "hungry time" because I ordinarily do my major eating at dinner time. In fact, that's usually my only real meal of the day - the rest is made up of grazing here and there - a handful of sunflower seeds or pine nuts, a date, an apple, a handful of spinach, that type of thing.

You may be wondering WHY in the heck we're doing this, but actually I'm pretty excited about it. We're mostly raw anyway already, and this type of cleanse helps you get out the yuckies in your body that have accumulated over a lifetime of eating meat and dairy. In this case, it's gall bladder stones, that should be eliminated on Day 5, or Friday, morning. On the afternoon of Day 4, the fast is broken by a glass of olive oil followed by a glass of lemon juice. I'm thinking that'll be the hardest part. But eating raw food makes me feel amazing overall (as it will you too, after the initial struggle) and I'm painfully aware that these feelings I'm having about potato chips and guacamole and cookies are basically drug withdrawal. (If I sound crazy, buy the book - it explains everything).

All in all, it's a good thing. I just happen to be in my hungry time. Ask me again tomorrow morning :)