Life since the detox ended has been really interesting. I feel like I gained some strange kind of clarity that I wasn't even aiming for, it just showed up as a happy side effect.

So first of all, the physical stuff. I've pretty much gone right back to not eating any dairy whatsoever, and I think I'm going to keep it that way. The other morning I had some milk in my tea and it made me feel quite righteously sick to my stomach. Cheese ... the same thing. And ice cream, well that's pretty much always made me feel sick, I just kept on eating it. That remains true now.

I'm having a hard time avoiding sugar. Truth is, it doesn't make me feel particularly good, but it also doesn't make me feel particularly bad. I think the most interesting thing is that I seem to have a much smaller tolerance for it than before I detoxed. Now two cookies is a bit too much for me, whereas before I could have eaten the entire box in one sitting ... no joke. But still, the fact that I can now have sweet things means that I want them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, as long as I can continue my relationship with them in moderation.

One of the biggest lessons I want to take away from this entire experience is actually avoiding the foods that make me feel sick. Novel idea, huh?

I've decided that my newest cooking project is going to be Indian food. I'm getting really interested in Ayurveda and have been thinking about trying to eat only Ayurvedic foods for a month or so, see how that makes me feel. So I figured I should try to cook some Indian food since I've never had any experience with it whatsoever. Dinner last night was amazing ... mulligatawny soup with homemade chapathi. For my very first foray into Indian cooking, it was spectacular.

Then there's yoga. I've come to realize that at this point in my life, yoga is the only kind of exercise that I actually enjoy. Besides that, it really fits in perfectly with every other direction I'm going in my life, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop trying to force my body into other random strange kinds of exercise which I don't actually enjoy at all. Instead I'm going to stick with what makes me happy. So I'm going back to taking it seriously.

And I guess the biggest news is that two days ago I think I officially broke up with J. Obviously things change (and they so often do with me) so I'm not suggesting that this is the absolute be all and end all of the relationship, but I think that this is it. As much as I love him, as much as I've spent the last 9 years of my life convinced that it was our destiny to be together, I just don't think that we're going to be able to make it work.

Yup, so that's me, in a nutshell.

And on the 11th Day ...

... the detox was over. Started out pretty much the way the rest of the last week and a half has, and it finished with a bang.

Breakfast: Kashi with banana and rice milk.
Mid-morning snack: red lentil and coconut soup with brown basmati rice.
Lunch: big green salad and a fruit salad.
Afternoon snack: coffee tasting at Starbucks College, haven't had coffee in about a year so I got WIRED.
Dinner: teriyaki chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, ice cream, bread and butter.

Water: 45 oz.
Exercise: 45 minutes walking.
Sleep: 6 hours.

Weight lost: 3 lbs.

Lessons learned:
- I don't need dairy and meat and sweets in my everyday life in order to survive.
- My body feels so much better when I'm eating the way that I have over the last week and a half.
- I have it within my power to control my eating.
- Even when this was all over and I had the potential to eat whatever I wanted, none of it really appealed (except for the ice cream).
- I don't need to have milk and honey in every single cup of tea I have (although I'm really excited to be drinking just that right now).
- I would be happier if I ate this way more often.
- Brown basmati rice and rice milk are fabulous (my two new discoveries).
- I can cook really good vegetarian food.
- Sushi is the greatest invention of all time.

I feel amazing. Truth is, I'm going to pretty much go right back to this way of eating. I will, of course, add in some meat and dairy and sweets sometimes, but not as often as I used to, that's for sure. And if I do, and I need a reminder, I can always do this again.

It's good to be alive.

Day 10

I think that this was the hardest day for me so far, and I'm not even sure why. I just broke down at school, completely freaking out because I couldn't eat what I wanted to. I brought all this food to eat while I was there and then NONE of it appealed to me. It was terrible! I just wanted to sit and cry and mourn. Ack. I can best describe it as I had a total panic attack yesterday as related to food. Not so good.

Breakfast: Kashi with banana and rice milk.
Lunch: Vegetarian chili, half a rice cake, celery and peanut butter.
Afternoon snack: one bite of an apple, celery and dried mango with peanut butter.
Dinner: red lentil and coconut soup with brown basmati rice, cauliflower, and peas.

Water: almost 64 full oz.
Exercise: 60 minutes massaging.
Sleep: 6.5 hours.

For dinner on Friday, I think I'm going to be having a burrito or nachos, some ice cream, Tuscan wheat bread with butter on it, Cadbury mini eggs, and a big fat piece of gruyere. Then on Saturday morning I'm going out for breakfast and having eggs and bacon and toast.

And you know, the weird part is that none of that even looks particularly inviting to me. I know I want it and I'm sure that when the situation presents itself I'll be hysterically happy that I'm eating it. But the truth is that I'm really excited to go back to eating this exact same way ... just with a couple of key differences (like being able to eat my precious fucking bread whenever I want to).

Day 9

Breakfast: Kashi with rice milk and banana.
Lunch: leftover veggie chili and brown rice.
Dinner: sushi.
Dessert: an apple.

Water: around 50 oz.
Exercise: 30 minutes walking.
Sleep: 6.25 hours.

Well, yesterday I caved, but only for a moment and then I was back on strong. See, I had my first day of work yesterday and I was learning how to make the mocha base and frappuccinos and other random crap. It all smelled so damn good that I just had to have a hot chocolate. I deserved it, right? But even though I cheated I still managed to be back on strong and finished the day with sushi and an apple. Damn proud of myself.

I'm getting to the point though where I just can't wait for this to be over. I've learned my lesson, no worries there. This detox has done exactly what it was supposed to do for me. I now understand that I feel amazingly better when I eat this way, both physically and mentally. I now understand that this really is how I should be eating all the time. And I'm pretty sure that once this is over, I'm pretty much going to continue in this vein. But lord, come Friday after school (which is when I'm done) I'm going to have me a big fat burrito and a pint of ice cream. I'm ready for it.

Day 8

Breakfast: Kashi with banana and rice milk.
Lunch: finished the homemade hummus with many, many baby carrots.
Dinner: vegetarian chili over brown rice with avocado cubes and fresh cilantro on top.

Water: again, only about 40 oz.
Exercise: oooh, slim to none.
Sleep: about 7 hours.

You know, one of the most exciting things about doing this is figuring out how to cook really good vegetarian food. Number one, I've never made chili before. Number two, I was terrified that because it was vegetarian chili, it just wouldn't be as good. But it was tasty! And I've got a giant pot of leftovers, so you know what I'm surviving on for the next couple days! :)

And in other exciting news, I got a job yesterday! It's not the most exciting job in the world, and I really am going to work for the man, but it's still a good thing. That's right, folks, I'm going to work for the world's largest coffee corporation ... Starbucks. Yippee!

In Reponse To Mia

I was going to write a response to you in the comments section, but I decided that I'd be better served doing a full post for this.

You commented on the difference in my posts over the last week and I wanted to write a bit about that. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't even noticed it, but then it became clear as day ... I have been a very different person over the last week. You guys wouldn't know this, because you pretty much get my unbridled truth, but I am generally a pretty fake person. I bounce around, being enthusiastic about everything, because that's what people always expect from me. It's only my closest friends who really get to experience the "darkness" that exists inside of me. Most of the time I'm "happy-fun-girl" because it's easier than being true to how I feel inside and actually being sad. And that's just how I live my life.

(Huh. Isn't it interesting how sometimes things sound so reasonable in your own head and then when you write them out they just look utterly ridiculous?)

Ok, back to the changes. The thing about it is that over the last week I've begun to have faith and hope and joy in my life again. I've begun to actually be that happy person I so often seem to be. Sure, everything in my relationship is absolute crap right now, but I actually believe (for the first time in god knows how long) that I can make it through this in one piece, no matter what the outcome is. And sure, I struggle like a maniac trying to figure out how to actually succeed at something ... namely school. And yes, I always feel like I'm desperately looking for some kind of an answer to life's most difficult questions. But it's all ok. I'm ok.

And it's not even the use of willpower over this week that's doing it to me. It's almost as if I've opened myself up to the possibility that there could be something better ... in my diet, my body, and my life. I feel like right now I can look into the future and not be as terrified as I've been over the last several (ok more like 15) years of my life.

Truth is it seems like I'm rising out of an almost life-long depression and giving myself a chance to life my life in another way.

Boy. This all sounds unbelievably sappy. And as much as I might want to right now, I'm not going to erase this post. I'm leaving it up here for the whole world to see.

Day 7

Before breakfast snack-ish thing: couple of bites of vegetarian chili.
Breakfast: Kashi with rice milk (very late ... about 6 hours after I got up).
Dinner: homemade hummus and homemade sushi! We made sushi with tuna and salmon and avocado and cucumber and crabstick. It was fucking fabulous.
Dessert: rice cake with peanut butter and honey.

Water: I think I actually had under 32 oz and not even any tea. Ouch.
Exercise: 75 minutes yoga.
Sleep: 7.5 hours.

Going to yoga today was an interesting experience. I have lost all flexibility and strength and it made me feel really depressed. But, I guess the most important thing is that I actually went, right? And I'm going to either go again tonight or tomorrow night and then once more this week and hopefully once more on the weekend. I'm going to do this. I am going to go back to being serious about my yoga practice. It's something that I love to do and something that is really good for me, both physically and emotionally. Those are two things I need to be taking pretty serious care of right now.

Day 6

Breakfast: Kashi with rice milk.
Lunch: one rice cake with peanut butter and jam.
Dinner: red lentil and coconut soup with cauliflower and kale, served over brown basmati rice. And holy crap, let me tell you it was THE BEST dinner of all time!

Water: 1 cup of tea, 40-ish oz. (I'm doing really badly on the water).
Exercise: 20 minutes *hard* walking, really got my heart-rate up.
Sleep: a full 8.5 hours, absolutely amazing.

I just can't get over how good I feel. And now, all of a sudden, I'm having these strange thoughts about eating this way for the rest of my life. Obviously not completely, because I refuse to absolutely give up the foods I love. It's more that I'm coming to realize that I don't NEED chocolate or cheese to survive.

The strangest thing for me is limiting my bread intake. I've given up everything else that we're not eating now. In highschool I didn't eat chocolate for a year, I became a vegetarian for a year. I've given up dairy for a month or two in the past. But bread? Nothing could ever take my beloved bread away from me. It's been the hardest part, but even then, it's not as hard as I thought it would be. The hardest was being in Whole Foods the other day and realizing that I was standing in the middle of the baked goods section, none of which I could eat. I swear I almost went into hysterical eating rampage right then and there.

And I'm off to yoga shortly. Working on taking care of myself.

Days 4 & 5

Day 4 ...

Breakfast: Kashi with rice milk.
Second breakfast (really): oatmeal with peanut butter and jam.
Lunch: taboulli, an apple, peanut butter, 1 baby carrot with hummus.
Dinner: big salad.

Water: not enough, probably right around 50 oz.
Exercise: snowboarding for 3-ish hours with L.
Sleep: about 7 hours, up at 5 again!

I was strangely not hungry all day long. Even though we were snowboarding and totally exerting ourselves, I just wasn't hungry for either lunch or dinner. Very strange.

Day 5 ...

Breakfast: Kashi with rice milk again (I *really* like this).
Morning snack: dried mango, banana.
Lunch: Salad, two rice cakes with peanut butter and jam (still the unsugared stuff).
Afternoon snack: half a blood orange, which tasted kind of funny so I didn't finish it.
Dinner: sushi, love of my life right now.

Water: I did really badly today, only 32 oz and 1 cup of tea.
Exercise: 1 hour massaging, also not so good.
Sleep: 7.25 hours, up at 6:30 ... luxurious!

Yesterday, day 5, was the most amazing experience. I had this ridiculous quantity of unbridled energy all day long. I felt like if I just stretched out far enough I could become Peter Pan and go flying around the room. But instead I just chose to dance around like a maniac all day. It was wonderful. And L and I discussed how we're feeling and decided that the word for it is light. I feel airy and wonderful and like I could do anything right now. It's amazing.

Woo hoo!!!

The Boardin' Bitches went out and had a totally rockin' day! It was great to be on the mountain for the first time this year, getting my boarding legs underneath me again. And, well, I totally sucked, but I won't next time. Next time I'll be better.

Something I spent a lot of time thinking about today was the idea of trusting your own body. It's not something I have any experience with and so it's not something that I do naturally or easily. But then occasionally trust in my own body shows up and surprises me.

Like when a friend of mine was trying to teach me how to do a crossover while ice-skating. I kept on telling him that it just doesn't make any sense ... you can't be leaning that far over the leg which you then pick up and not fall flat on your face. And he said to me that all it took was a little bit more trust in my own body. The day I finally figured out how to do a crossover I just closed my eyes as the turn approached and thought, "Trust it, trust it, trust it." And hey, it worked.

So I'm out there on the mountain today and I'm watching L carve like a maniac (you have gotten SO much better since the last time we went together) and I'm trying to imitate what she's doing and having a hell of a time of it. And I realized that the reason I can't do it, the reason I am currently NOT doing it, is because I'm not putting any trust in my own body. I'm struggling for it to happen and it's not coming and I'm getting frustrated and then I'm struggling harder. If I can just for one second put some trust in my own body, make that leap of faith, then I'll be able to do this ... and I did. I had one glorious run when I didn't think about what I was doing but instead just trusted my body to do it. One glorious run of carving, not falling but instead speeding down the mountain with grace. One glorious run, and then I fell on my ass and was back to struggling again.

That one run has me majorly inspired.

Day 3

An easier day, thank goodness.

Breakfast: Steel-cut oatmeal with unsugared strawberry jam.
Morning snack: Half an orange.
Lunch: Big salad, taboulli, baby carrots, apple sauce, fruit leather.
Afternoon snack: Dried mango and peanuts.
Dinner: 8 pieces of brown rice sushi ... tuna and avocado, salmon and cucumber. Yummy!

Water: 32 oz, 2 cups of tea, and whatever I drank with the herbs. Not very good.
Exercise: 60 minutes massaging, 30 minutes walking.
Sleep: 6.5 hours (woke up at 5am for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!!).

So, the big issue of the day was the temptation provided by being at school. Number one, L and I almost always have some sort of a super sugary, candy snack in the afternoon. Hell, it keeps us going, so not having it was kind of an issue. Second of all, somebody in another one of the classes brought in a birthday cake and when it wasn't completely devoured, left it in the kitchen for anyone else to eat it. And, third of all, one of the women in our class brought in the Girlscout cookies that everyone had ordered, so we were *surrounded* by people munching on them.

And today I'm going snowboarding!!!!!!

Day 2 ...

... SUCKED!

Had a big fight with J and instead of reassuring myself with junk food, like I normally do, I just didn't eat. Bad, bad, bad. I can't remind myself of how much I like starving. Especially right now, when it would be so easy to do. It's funny how I take comfort from food both in eating it and in restraining from it. They are almost equal in their "seeking love from food" factor. No wonder my relationship with eating is so royally fucked.

Ok, back to day two.

Breakfast: Steel-cut oatmeal with raisins and unsweetened strawberry jam (yum).
Lunch: Didn't eat it.
Mid-afternoon snack: More oatmeal, an apple.
Dinner: Big bowl of Kashi with blueberries and ricemilk.

Water: 64 oz, 2 cups of tea, and all the water I drink with the herbs (probably another 20 oz).
Sleep: Asleep at 10 (an absolute miracle) for a whole 7.5 hours of sleep.
Exercise: 20 minutes walking. Unfortunately, that's it.

See what I mean ... a really bad food day.

Chris, I do mostly agree with you that there's no point in doing something if it sucks so much that you don't want to do it. I totally agree that what that leads to is total and utter failure. But this is actually something that I want to do, especially because it's only for two weeks. I know that if I had to eat like this for the rest of my life, I'd probably rather shoot myself. But for two weeks, to try to detox my body, I can handle it. And if I complain, it's only because I feel comfortable enough here to do so.