Late this afternoon, I had a professional colonic.  The colonic hydrotherapist did a good job of massaging my lower belly while the water went in, so that I didn’t feel very much pressure down there.  But I couldn’t really tell if anything much was coming out.  It seemed to be working, but I don’t feel radically different right now.  Basically, I feel a little lighter, and a little tighter, in the abdominal region.  I had a wheatgrass/celery/garlic juice on the way home from my appointment to help fight any candida that might be lurking in my colon (candida causes crazy sugar cravings, which I most definitely DO NOT want).  Then I hung out with my family and took a nap.  Naps seem to leave me feeling really gross — slimy mouth, foggy head — these days.  Maybe because the extra sleep assists my body in directing more attention to the detoxification.  I’m glad I was able to have the professional colonic, though.  It’s supposed to equal the effect of 10 enemas…so hopefully, it helped my body get rid of some unwanted gunk!

As of today, I have exactly 21 fasting days left.  My weight has dropped to 144, and I’m feeling much more energetic, much lighter, and much better than I did before beginning this fast.  The mouth sores, however, do continue to be a problem.  They hurt so much, they practically give me a speech impediment.  I’ve tried adding enemas, to help my body get rid of the extra toxins through other channels, but the mouth sores persist.  Tomorrow, I’m getting a professional colonic, to see if that will help.  At this point, I’m just really eager to be finished with this entire thing.  But I need to knock off the last 10 pounds and finish detoxifying, as my fasting coach would say, “a lifetimes worth of toxins” before I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment in what I’ve done here.  It is very nice to have people telling me I look great, that “I’m glowing,” and so forth.  But only I know what my true goals are…and I need to drop the last 10, get rid of whatever’s still making my colon filthy, and emerge from this fast RENEWED!

I feel humbled on so many levels today: humbled by the compulsive eating habits that still swirl around in my neural pathways, humbled by the amount of weight I’ve been blessed to lose in such a short time, while so many others struggle in vain, and humbled by how much I miss food…without food as a distraction, I find that I am bored…can you imagine?  I’m bored because I cannot overeat “for fun”…pathetic, really.  But, especially within the past two years, I tend to use food more as recreation and as a way to socialize than as an objective source of fuel – especially now that we have a baby, and our social outlets feel more limited. 

That said, I need to meditate more in the evenings for these next few weeks, or I fear the “rogue elephant”-in-a-candy-shop aspect of my mind will go nuts after I finish this fast.  It’s really been quite arduous this time around, even though I feel, physically, much better than I did 30 days ago…the difficulty is more psychological than anything.  There’s something about being home alone all day with an infant who can’t yet talk that – although I am incredibly grateful for this time with my son –leaves me lonely.  And loneliness, in my psychological lexicon, translates into hunger!  I find myself dreaming of foods I can’t eat even when I’m done with this fast…for example, things that contain gluten: just today, I was obsessing over eating not just one, but maybe, oh, five (5!) sticky pecan buns from a great little local bakery…then I reminded myself to visualize myself on my meal plan, eating from all of the many choices that WON’T leave me feeling bloated, depressed, and so forth…  It’s a constant struggle, to keep my mind off of that crap.  Sometimes, it also helps if I get out a Tony Robbins book, and really remind myself what happens, how much of my vibrant personality goes underground, and how hard it is for people to see the “real” me, when I stuff my face like that.  But I try to divert my attention, most of all, to the positive alternative of really ENJOYING food on a meal plan that doesn’t feel isolating or draconian…a meal plan I can live with!

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, here’s my post-fast meal plan, including some supplements I adapted from the book, THE DIET CURE.  I’m taking a page from the good old 12 steps, which encourage people to “meet life on life’s terms.”  I’ve tried going all-raw, all-vegan after two fasts in the past ten years, and have long idealized the apparently “ageless beauty” of those who adhere to that lifestyle, only to end up with such insanely up and down blood sugar that I found myself bingeing on “healthy” vegan baked goods with reckless abandon.  You may notice my plan includes plenty of animal-protein choices.  This is not because I advocate eating animal protein, only because I find it difficult to get all of the amino acids I need without it and, given the way I’ve over-taxed my insulin receptors with my sugar jones over the years, I think I may be a bit more sensitive to natural sugars than some folks are.  If you’re going to eat animal protein, too, I encourage you to choose organic, free range meats, which are available at Trader Joe’s and at your local food coop.  Also, probably the most successful period of sustained weight loss in my life occurred when I was following the PROTEIN POWER diet.  I didn’t feel great, because I definitely binged on protein, but I didn’t yo yo around, and my blood sugar was very stable.  So I’ve decided on a more gentle version of that plan, one that doesn’t eliminate ALL carbs, while taking what worked and leaving the rest from those plans I’ve experimented with over the years (the aforementioned PROTEIN POWER and DIET CURE, as well as the FAT FLUSH, the SUNFOOD DIET SUCCESS SYSTEM, THE ATKINS DIET, THE RAW FOOD DETOX DIET, WEIGHT WATCHERS, and others…). Here’s my personalized plan:

MY 1800 CALORIE PER DAY MAXIMUM, GLUTEN FREE LIFETIME OPTIMAL HEALTH PLAN (as one of the women in Julia Cameron’s The Writing Diet suggests, I aim “to wear this food plan like a loose garment” — it’s a plan, not a rigid thing.. if I have a sample at the farmer’s market, I don’t have to beat myself up, think “what’s the use?” and go off on an eating spree…instead, I can just go forward to the next right snack, the next right meal, have a glass of water, say “oops,” and remind myself how hard I’ve worked for this weight loss…and how important it is that I stay open, clear, and able to feel, instead of stuff, my feelings, for myself and for my family — those days of being SO incredibly harsh on myself are OVER):

• 6:00 am - do Morning Pages and 15 minute Ashtanga yoga short form, dry brush, and shower
• 7:00 am - take Everywoman’s One Daily, 1 L-Glutamine, 1 T Essential Woman Oil Blend, 1 Next Chapter St. John’s Wort, and any of the following breakfast choices: 1/2 cup Lydia’s cereal with 1/2 cup raw milk; a two-egg omelette cooked in butter and filled with spices, veggies, and goat cheese; 1 cup goat milk yogurt with 1/2 cup of any fresh fruit AND 1 cup of regular, plain coffee
• 10:40 am (breaktime, when I’m back at work) - snack on 12 raw almonds, 12 Bragg’s flavored cashews, a hardboiled omega-3 egg with salt and pepper, or 1.5 ounces of raw cheddar-style goat cheese (measure these out in baggies on the weekend, so you can just grab and go without worrying about portion sizes!)
• During afternoon naptime - do Stott Pilates mat work (MWF), the Get Ripped DVD (TH), and prep cook dinner (if not done the night before)
• 1:00 pm - for lunch: 3 cups of any yummy salad with protein, such as: quinoa tabouleh; Mary Beth’s raw broccoli salad; spinach with bacon, egg, and avocado; Alt’s Caesar with warmed chicken or other protein on top; Asian chicken; Ashram-style tuna in a tomato; OR a restaurant salad, hold the bread and croutons PLUS an optional cup of soup and 1 peppermint flavored Gaba Calm sublingual as a breathmint
• After lunch - more playtime, walktime, reading-, and music-fun time with baby!
• Around 3:00 pm - run, sing, or tennis, and any low-carb snack of 150 calories or less (veggies with miso-tahini dip are good, as are rolls of turkey with Dijon, Bubbie’s sauerkraut and thin slivers of swiss cheese rolled up in turkey pastrami, microwaved for 30 seconds, and dipped in Annie’s organic Thousand Island dressing, or a few Bubbies pickles with a few feta- or almond-stuffed olives…then finish making dinner
• 6:00 pm - one 5-HTP, 2 digestive enzyme tablets, and one deck-of-cards-sized serving of chicken, fish, beef, lamb, or other meat with 1 cup salad, soup, or veggies and 1/2 cup “good” carbs (sweet potatoes, brown rice), except on your once-weekly “whole bowl of gluten-free pasta OR meat-on-a-gluten-free bun” nights…when rushed, the “Mediterranean supper omelette” with a radicchio and haricots verts salad is always good!
• ENJOY 1 optional glass of wine or cider with dinner, OR have an optional cocktail before or after the meal
• ONCE a WEEK, enjoy a full serving of a gluten-free dessert, such as 3-4 ounces of dark chocolate or a slice of flourless chocolate cake, and a second cup of real coffee, if you even want it
• 7:00 pm - baby’s bedtime, laundry, clean, grade, read, write, prep dinner (for slow cooker recipes), and have herbal tea with your probiotics
• 10:00 pm - Buddhist practice
• ASLEEP by 12:00 pm MIDNIGHT
• ENJOY Saturday’s extra-long runs and big brunches (eggs, potatoes, and coffee…plus one (that’s, ahem, one as in “1″!  savor it!) gluten-free waffle, pancake, sweet roll, or muffin, if available) followed by a great dinner out, whenever possible (nix the snacks and lunch on Saturdays!)
• On SUNDAYS, weigh in, do the full primary series of Ashtanga yoga, adn get back on your plan.
• NOTE: if you weigh over 140 on any given Sunday, eliminate all carbs, sip cranwater all day, and add 1 T Essential Woman to dinner for 2 weeks
• ALSO: after phasing out the majority of your daily supplements, stick with the Everywoman’s One Daily multivitamin and daily T of Essential Woman oil blend.

I live in a valley, where the air slows down and becomes sluggish.  Here, everything that falls from the trees, everything released from the flowering plants and grasses that abound in this agricultural area settles into the valley’s bowl of air like sediment.  And we, the valley-dwellers, breathe it in, for good or for ill.  Sometimes, the sweet smell of fresh compost, roses, and jasmine almost makes up for the amount of dust and pollen we inhale, but on a windy day like today, even those of us who don’t normally suffer from allergies find ourselves shutting the doors and windows and waiting out the wind, nursing a post-nasal drip and its attendant sore throat. 

And that’s what I find myself doing today: hiding out indoors after a morning walk that left me sniffling.  I’m dosing on powdered vitamin C dissolved in Recharge (the fasting program I’m on allows a little organic Recharge, which is rich in electrolytes and all-natural), and trying to get my immune system firing again.  Usually, when I’m fasting, I have absolutely no problems with allergies of any kind — so I know today must be bad for everyone.

Other than that, I feel well.  Today, I could wear some pants I hadn’t been able to fit into for a while.  And I’ve had pretty steady energy.  So things are good!  I can’t believe tomorrow is my thirtieth fasting day!

Four weeks left.  Even though I’ve already completed four weeks, and it went by pretty quickly?  That seems like a lot of time.  But I’m determined to get down to 135, so that I’ll stabilize in the 135-140 range, once I’ve refilled my stomach and colon.  If I take it just one day at a time, the time will fly by.  And time seems to fly by anyway, now that we have our little almost-one-year-old son.  It’s odd: we’re both at home and bored more often, so the individual days seem long.  But the weeks and months all seem to blur together, like things have been sped up by his arrival.  And I don’t want my overeating and/or negative eating habits to spiral out of control and have a negative influence on my family.  That’s why I’m really doing this.  I want to be a high-energy, attractive mommy and wife who my son and husband, respectively, can feel proud of.  I’m also wrestling with some pretty awful allergy symptoms on this fast — symptoms I haven’t had to deal with since my first long fast, ten years ago now.  I know the juices, vitamin C, broth, and teas are doing everything that can be done to combat this nasty post-nasal drip and itchy nose, and I shudder to think how bad my allergies would be this year if I weren’t fasting right now.  At least I can rest easy, knowing I’m doing all I can to make them better.  But back to the topic of my motivation for staying on this fast all the way through.  First off, I weaned my adorable baby boy so that I could go on this cleanse and lose this weight, and I’m not going to stop early, thereby making a waste of all that time when I could’ve been continuing to breastfeed my little guy.  I have to lose this weight and finish all 52 days, or I’ve denied my son a month or two of breastfeeding for no good reason, and I can’t live with that.  The slightly-early weaning has to have a greater purpose, or I won’t be able to live with myself for having done it.  Also: at 146 today, I’m not even as slim as I was when I conceived William.  I’m actually a pound heavier, and that’s with an EMPTY colon and an EMPTY stomach, to give you an idea of how totally HUGE I became during and even after my pregnancy, as I ate for comfort and entertainment.  So…I’ve been working on ways to keep myself from overeating, and I’ve decided that my “neurolinguistic reprogramming routine,” at the advice of a friend, will go like this, starting NOW: every time I feel like eating something that’s not on my meal plan, or at one of my scheduled 3 meals and 2 snacks, I’m going to pull out a book of poetry and read something, then write something in response to it, however bried.  So I’ll be carrying a little volume and my journal everywhere, and doing something I love in a low-pressure way, while at the same time retraining my mind away from the compulsive eating habit.  I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes, and I’ll start posting my little poems on the “Poetry” page.

Well, I’m lucky today, because there’s a festival down the street from my house where Lydia’s Lovin’ Foods has set up one of their vendors, so that I can ORDER my fresh, organic juices without having to run (or clean) the juicer today.  A nice Mother’s Day present.  I feel fine today, except that I took an afternoon nap, then woke up to feel my mouth sores absolutely pulsing with pain.  This means that a lot of toxins are trying to find their way out through my mouth, because they aren’t getting out through other channels.  So I’m doing an afternoon enema, in addition to the one I did upon arising today, to help with the mouth pain.  Ever since that nap, I’ve felt sluggish and pretty vile.  So I’m hoping these mouth sores, and some fun hula hooping to live music later on, will get my energy flowing again!

This has been an interesting day, because I’m now exactly halfway to my goal of 52 fasting days.  On the one hand, I’m very proud of this accomplishment, and it is very nice to hear from people who haven’t seen me in a while that I’m “glowing,” and “looking very well.”  One friend even joked that only half of the me she’d known before (she’s only known me since I was pregnant) showed up at a gathering today!  On the other hand, I feel impatient with these next four weeks.  My “monkey in a fruit tree mind” is clamoring for food.  I have a really great food plan, complete with supplements to help stabilize my weight, all ready to go for after the fast.  And I know food is never as exciting as I think it will be.  It is, in fact, quite boring.  Yet, in the past, I have foolishly entered into the insanity of TRYING to make food into entertainment, only to realize that I’m being insane by doing the same thing over and over, and never getting any better results.  So this time, it’s different, and I know that on a deep level, despite the impatience.  I’m ready to eat a reasonable diet of three meals and two scheduled snacks each day, and I know that my particular body chemistry demands that I eat a little protein at each of those sittings.  I also know that I should take a few of the key supplements suggested in the book THE DIET CURE, which has a very high success rate with people who have a history of yo yo dieting.  I’ve already found sources for L-Glutamine, Gaba Calm, a good healthy-oil supplement called Essential Woman, as well as some good digestive enzymes and 5-HTP.  I know I’m ready to eat normally and healthfully, and to maintain a healthy weight of 135-140 for the rest of my life.  I even know that I won’t need to eat my head off the next time I’m pregnant; I’ll just gain the required 25 pounds, then lose it after giving birth WITHOUT having to do something radical like fast for 52 days!  But right now, fasting is necessary.  Drastic situations demand drastic measures.  And I started out this program feeling sluggish and having a miserable 43 pounds to lose.  Now, I’m down to 147 from 178, and able to wear some of my old clothes again.  In just 4 short weeks, I’ll be able to wear ALL of my old clothes…and believe me, I really miss my favorite jeans.  So 4 weeks shouldn’t seem long.  It’s hardly any time at all, when I consider how long traditional diets and other, less effective “cleanses” take to deliver results.  I need to remain grateful.  This impatience is my enemy, and I WILL defeat it by completing my fast with flying colors.  52 days is the number of days suggested for a “total body detox” for someone my age.  That’s how I settled on that number.  And it will settle me into a nice, slender, healthy, and fit 134 pounds…from there, I’ll gain about a pound once my stomach and colon are full again…then I’ll stabilize at my target weight of 135-140!  Hurrah!  I’m on my way:)!

Throughout this fast, I’ve been preparing dinners for my family.  Since I am, for the next few months, staying at home with my son full time, I really want to use this time to get us all into the habit of eating wholesome, home-cooked meals as often as possible, not just for nutritional reasons, but also because it’s important to me that we sit down at the table together in the evenings, and that this ritual becomes an ingrained part of our family life.  I mentioned my purchase of a slow cooker previously, and so far I’ve used it to prepare two great entrees, all while my son naps in the afternoons, one of which — braised organic lamb shanks with rosemary — turned out to be absolutely AMAZING, according to my husband.  It certainly smelled incredible.  But of course, I won’t try it until I’m done fasting.  Today, I prepared spinach-and-feta-stuffed organic chicken breasts.  They’re in the slow cooker right now, and I have to say: not shoving the extra feta, sundried tomato, and basil mixture into my mouth was an exercise in true psychic aikido.  It smelled so good, so fresh.  Honesly?  It was killing me!  The only way I could keep from tasting it was to promise myself that I will prepare this same nurturing meal a month from now, when I can enjoy it. 

When cooking for my family, I always use the best ingredients I can, knowing that quality matters when it comes to getting the most nutrition out of a meal.  And those quality ingredients do smell fantastic.  So it was hard today.  Ultimately, cooking good meals makes my life easier, because we then have leftovers that my husband and son can eat on nights when I just don’t feel like cooking.  They are still working on a gluten free penne pasta dish I made a few days ago.  It included the new and improved gluten free Bionaturae penne, which is indistinguishable from regular penne, broccoli florets, cherry tomatoes ( I recently read that broccoli and tomatoes eaten together slowed tumor growth in rats by 52%) and organic chicken tenders with parmesan and olive oil.  My son loves the soft pasta, broccoli, and bits of chicken, all of which he can feed himself if I cut it into little pieces.  And my husband is just really happy that we’ve finally found a gluten free pasta that doesn’t taste like goo (gluten is another trigger food for me — once I get started on it, I crave it endlessly, then feel depressed and bloated).  So I’m getting better at this cooking thing, and it’s good to know that I have a game plan for eating healthy, organic food at home once I finish this fast.  In the past, I’ve tried to go raw or all vegan after fasting, only to end up bingeing on starches and sweets.  This time, although I really respect the ethical concerns that motivate many to adhere to a strict vegetarian diet, I know I need to eat protein every few hours.  I’m trying to focus on nuts and seeds, legumes, eggs, goat milk products, and tofu until dinner time.  But at dinner, I’m going to let myself have a 5 ounce serving of animal protein.  I don’t know what it is about my blood sugar and animal protein, but for some reason, if I don’t eat a little fish, chicken, lamb, or some such protein in the evening, I am absolutely ravenous all night…not a good state to be in for someone with my eating history. 

So yes, I’m cooking for others while fasting.  It isn’t easy to make a beautiful meal, then not get to eat any of it.  But I know I will cook these same meals again in just one short month from now — and perhaps, then, they will taste better than ever, because I’ll be eating them guiltlessly, and in a noble effort to nurture myself with the right kind of food at the right times, so as to maintain the benefits of this weight loss I’ve worked so hard for.

Even though I have done several long fasts, the last one being about two years ago now, my body still needs to detox through channels other than my colon, one of them being my mouth.  I continue to do 1-2 enemas per day, yet I still have three giant canker sores in my mouth.  The one on my front upper lip is so big and painful that I can hardly talk.  I know, as my fasting coach says, that this is “just a sign of how badly my body needs to detox, and of how much I’ve abused myself since my last fast,” but it seems odd to me that my body ALWAYS gets these mouth sores, no matter how much cleansing I do.  I can’t wait for them to go away, I really can’t.  The mouth sores may well be one of the hardest things about fasting, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m also continuing to feel rather bored with my fasting routine, somewhat homesick for food and the emotional role it’s played in my life, I suppose.  I’m still cooking for others, but I’m not getting to eat any of my creations right now.   I tell myself that I will make all of these dinners again for the rest of my life, probably, but that I only have this one opportunity to “cleanse my temple,” drop these last annoying 15 pounds, and reset my body’s odometer.  It’s worth it, I know it is.  And when I think of it in terms of “only four-and-a-half weeks left,” it doesn’t seem long at all, not with the way these past several weeks have flown by.  I can do this.  I will do this.  I’m doing it!  Goodbye, toxins and fat, hello real me!

I feel good today, despite some pesky mouth sores related to the detoxification process.  They hurt, badly, but a little lysine from the food coop seems to be helping.  On other fronts, I went to my private Pilates session again today, and while I clearly have 15 pounds of belly and thigh pudge to lose, I now have much more of a figure than I did a few weeks ago.  It’s frustrating to feel how stubborn this post-partum fat is…and doubly frustrating to remember that, a couple of weeks after getting back from the hospital, I was down to 158 from the 192 that I weighed when I checked into the hospital.  Then, as I attempted to quell the ridiculous bone-hunger that accompanies breastfeeding for some women — others say breastfeeding makes them thin — I went up to 178 before January!  Yuck!  The next time I have a kid, I’m going to need to make sure I have some support around that deeply hungry time…because with my history of compulsive overeating, I really didn’t need a physiological trigger to add to the psychological storehouse of triggers I’ve acquired over my lifetime.  Nonetheless, it was all worth it, because I love love love my beautiful baby boy, and I always had enough milk for him to have breastmilk only up until 10 months, which was in no small measure because I ATE in response to that hunger.  I tried NOT eating in response to it, and found I couldn’t keep up with his demand for milk.  But I don’t know if I’ll have it in me to undertake a long fast when I have TWO kids, so I’m going to watch my weight more with the next one.  I mean, I’ve been fasting for 23 days, and I’m still not down to my pre-pregnancy weight of 145.  I’m going for 135, yes, and I’m doing a total-body-detox, mostly because I just look better with those last 10 pounds off…but man, this has been hard.  My work now is to stay in the moment and “not push the river.”  I’ve been meditating, reading spiritual books, and doing my best to keep my mind off of food — with great success, I’d say.  But there’s still a stubborn little part of me that thinks it would be cool to weigh less than 135 at the end of all this…to be “model thin,” or “actress thin.”  I’m 5′9″, and the truth is, I wasn’t blessed with that particularly skinny-skinny build.  Even at my most slender, I’m athletic, and I have muscular legs.  So I’m focusing on being happy with where I am now — I sure FEEL a lot thinner, lighter, and healthier than I have in almost a year and a half now — and telling myself that 135 is a fine weight for me…at this point in my life, what I really want is to be stable at a healthy weight…and I think 135 is realistic.  I’m ready to settle into my set point and make maintenance my goal.