CSD Adventure Cleanse, Day 9: Digging A Hole To China With My Knife, Fork And Spoon

Feeling much better today. Doubled up on my EnergyPlus and green tea with mate and took lots of immune supplements because I felt like I was getting sick. Really have been enjoying the simplicity of my lunchtime salads. I don't have to think or fuss, and I don't feel sleepy after.

B: Green smoothie, 2 E3 live shots, sublingual B12, green tea with mate
S: apple juice with kamut grass
L: big ass green salad, a tangelo (OMG! que sabroso!), multivitamin and extra vegan vitamin D, green tea with mate
S: lara bar
D: quinoa with curried coconut tempeh, asparagus and carrots. I used soy yogurt to make the curry sauce. So good and I have leftovers for tomorrow!
S: mary's gone crackers black pepper crackers, edamame hummus

I barely even considered the Girl Scout cookies piled up under my desk. I gave myself permission to eat them, and then I was like, "eh, maybe not."

In the evening, I sat zazen and ignored the ghostly voice of my ex-boyfriend repetitively  saying, "My vipassana teacher says that practicing zen meditation is like digging a hole to China with a spoon." I love you, dude, but stop talking to me like that! And stay out of my head.

And there was 45 minutes of hip opening, ass kicking yoga, a serious kitchen purging and then dry skin brushing followed by a nice hot shower. I feel so grateful, lucky, blessed, (whatever lingo people are slinging these days) to have the time and space to take care of myself like this right now. When I finish, I will have so much more energy to give to others, and that's the whole point, right? Right.

CSD Adventure Cleanse, Days 7 and 8.5: It's Not Always Easy Eating Green

Today, I feel like ass. Or maybe roadkill that's been backed over a few extra times. To top it off, the girl scout cookies came today to my office. Sigh. This is the part of the cleansing process where I have to rememeber: this is my choice. I can do this. No one is making me do this. When I am done, I will feel awesome. This is not punishment--this is renewal and transformation. And sometimes, trasformation hurts like a bitch and is uncomfortable as hell and it's OK. It's also OK to stockpile my girl scout cookies for another time. Or, give them away to someone who would really love them. It won't kill me, and there will be more next year.

It's not always easy eating green. There's a lot of pukeyness involved for me. Then again, I have to remember how far I've come. Two years ago at this time I was binge eating burger king, cheetos and quarts of ice cream. So hey, I am doing freaking awesome right now by comparison. This morning after I crankily finished my green smoothie (I was wishing it would transmogrify into vegan waffles with strawberries and vegan whip cream with a side of sage apple field roast sausage!), I noticed my tongue was a lovely shade of light green! Luckily, it went away. I was feeling like Kermit's angry doppleganger for a couple of minutes.

Ironically, Day 6 and most of Day 7 I felt amazing. Seriously, ecstatic wellbeing just oozing out of every pore. I had so much energy yesterday that I went hiking for the first time since my ankle surgery in 2008. And nothing bad happened!  I did not wrench my ankle on a rock. I did fine, although I hiked very slowly and carefully and kept it to about 45 minutes since I was also fasting that day. The fasting ended up becoming kind of difficult, which I was surprised by. I felt fine and dandy until about 8pm, at which point I became ravenously hungry, angry and totally unwilling to drink anything green, period. The eating disorder voices started yelling in my head, and I don't want to trigger that kind of behavior so I need to come up with a better plan for the next fasting day.

I must be better prepared if I want to fast, and I should probably end the night with something warm, like miso soup with vegetables so that I don't feel like beating someone's ass by the end of the day. I probably shouldn't juice fast all the way through until the next afternoon unless I feel very, very OK with that. I definitely didn't last night. Visions of Uncle Eddie's vegan cookies were dancing in my head.  Although hiking was amazing, it was probably a little too much activity. I'd be better off with yoga and a nice long sweat in the sauna at the gym on fasting days.

What I ate and did today:
Breakfast: green smoothie, green tea with yerba mate
Snack: apple juice with kamut grass powder and activated barley powder
Lunch: humgo green salad with carrots, purple cabbage, tofu crumbles and dressing
Snack: 2 ounces of wheatgrass and a handful of almonds
Dinner: sunshine burger with pickles and a little vegenaise, baked sweet potato fries with truffle salt and asparagus

In AM: meditation and affirmation
In PM: yoga, dry skin brushing, sinus flushing.

And yay, my 2oz of wheatgrass didn't make me almost hurl today! Progress, not perfection.

Day 3, Kris Carr's 21 Day Adventure Cleanse

Well, it's been a little rougher than I thought it would be so far. I keep meaning to write, but I have been feeling really nauseous for the last 2 and a half days. Actually, I've been feeling so physically crappy that I didn't exercise for the last two days. I did get up extra early and meditate, which has been awesome! I never have been a good morning meditator, but I actually find that I am getting more out of it for some odd reason.

Today I was less hungry, which was fantastic because I was really hungry on days one and two. I haven't done a cleanse for almost 2 years, and the last one I did was Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness Cleanse which I really enjoyed. CSD is a little more hardcore with the greens, and you are basically eating a 2/3 or more raw vegan diet if you do it strictly. I can't wait to get my juicer on Friday!! Also, I love Kris Carr's daily words of wisdom for the cleanse. She really makes me feel strangely giggly and motivated. I hope by the weekend I will be feeling better physically.

Here's how my day went today:
Breakfast: yerba mate and green tea with peppermint,
No. 9 Dream Green Smoothie (named in honor of the David Mitchell book, not the song):
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
squirt of agave and a splash of apple juice
1 tbs of Barlean's vegan 3/6/9 EFA blend
filled rest of blender with raw spinach and kale
blended, and then added rice protein powder, chia seeds, fiber aktivated barley powder and powdered barley grass
finally, added cherries, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries
Snack: apple juice with kamut grass and aktivated barley powder
Lunch: big green salad with shredded carrots and cabbage, savory baked tofu and vegan "honey" mustard dressing, vanilla coconut rooibos tea
Snack: lara bar
Dinner: big salad with hemp seeds, balsamic dressing, southwest sunshine burger with daiya cheese and a pickle, baked sweet potato fries with truffle salt (OMG!!), teeccino with stevia and unsweetened almond milk for dessert.

Supplements: multi, B12, E3 Live Renew me!, EnergyPlus, Candisol (thanks, surgery and antibiotics! Thank God for this stuff or I would go crazy).

I am going to wait an hour or so and see if I feel well enough to do some Kundalini yoga with Ana and Ravi. Sat nam, bitches!

PS. Speaking of Kathy Freston, I watched a clip from the Oprah vegan episode yesterday. Good for you, 378 staffers who are willing to try vegan! And I loved the clip on her website where she talks about Steadman asking if things are vegan on the plane. So cute! Good for Oprah for getting the word out to more people, although I wish the clips of the slaughterhouse had more impact. It was all a little too peaceful and sanitized compared to most of the undercover video that's been in the news in the past few years. It was very telling that they didn't let them film the actual slaughter part. Imagine that.