Diary of a Detox – Part 3
It’s been a bit of a hairy week for me and even though I only had 2 days left on my detox, I decided to eat solid protein on Sunday, Day 12. Now that didn’t mean that I could go out and have a full blown dinner, it just meant that I could start introducing some fish or meat back into my diet. So, for 2 days I had some salmon along with the green veg and now I’m on turkey for these 2 days and then onto steak, and so on, slowly reintroducing a little bit of different veg as I go along. I will be keeping a diary and watching for any changes, or bad reactions that I might have to any food eaten.
On Thursday, day 9 I tried cabbage for the 1st time on the detox, and maybe overdid it a bit, as my stomach did not take to it so well. I had a bad reaction to it, which lead to me not eating that evening or the next morning. That night the girls and I made Chocolate Rice Krispies Squares for the school sale of work the next day, which I can tell you was not easy. I have never made anything nice without tasting it or being able to enjoy eating afterwards. I didn’t stick a finger, spoon or knife in my mouth the whole time, which amazed me. This from the woman that would fight the kids to see who gets to lick the bowl.
On Friday, day 10, I trained and thought I was going to die for the first 2 rounds of the class, but then I got a little bit of energy towards the end. I got back on track with eating that day and started to come round again.
On Saturday, day 11, I woke up all stuffed up, coughing and I felt like crap. I’m not sure if it was part of the detox or if I had just caught a cold, as I did feel extra chilly all week. I just put the cold feeling down to the fact that I was losing all my insulation (my extra layers of fat). So it was a glass of vitamin C and back up to bed for me to try to recover. Later, I had a clove of garlic mashed into my cauliflower and broccoli, and got to sit on the couch in peace catching up on a lot of TV programmes.
So, Sunday morning I woke up nearly all back to normal and was very impressed that I was not miserably sick. But I was tired and around midday I just decided that I had done enough and was going to start eating some solid protein. I started with salmon and on Monday I got to have carrots with my dinner. Yippee, they were yummy. Today I’m on turkey and tomorrow I get to try another type of veg – I’m deciding between peppers or tomatoes.
From the very beginning this has not been about weight loss for me, it was about cleaning out my body and starting fresh. I am amazed at what I have learned about myself over the last 14 days and I now have a whole new attitude towards food as a result. Which to me is equally important as the other results. Now I don’t think of food as being there to comfort me, it’s there to keep me healthy, fit and strong. I lost nearly 6kgs over the 14 days (some of which will go back on as I begin to eat more normally) but I will work very hard to keep it off.
The thing now is to find a balance between eating healthy and enjoying life and food. There’s a big part of me that’s afraid that I will just get sucked back into old bad habits like sitting on the couch and munching my way through a big bag of crisps, chocolate and half a bottle of wine, but I know you have to have some fun too, so that will be my goal now to find a happy medium.
This detox is not suitable for everyone as it is extreme, but it does not stop anybody from doing some type of detox, even on a smaller level. A detox is simply giving your liver a break from working so hard and can be any length, even as little as 1 day.
I had tried a similar 7 day detox, back in Oct 2010 and didn’t even last 5 days and was absolutely miserable from it, so what’s the difference now? Since January last year I have cleaned up my diet so much, by making a small change every week and learning to choose the healthier option. By the time I started this time, I was really only eating meat and veg for dinner anyway, with my “bad” carbs being rice cakes and chocolate.
I’m so delighted that I did this and feel extremely proud to have lasted so long. I’m also very grateful for the fantastic support that I got from everybody, people on Facebook, other class members, friends, family and people that didn’t even know me. A very big thank you to all of you.