i was prepared (so i though) and took in all of the smells (two people now think i’m very weird) and sights – it was a beautiful to see the table laid and enriched with colors and i could smell so much texture in the food and chocolate but at the same time, i was feeling the fast today so it made it a little difficult to abstain from eating. also, i made goat cheese latkes which are deep friend heaven with grated potatoes and onions. anyway, now that i have made up my mind to break my fast on Tuesday, i feel a lot better. So it’ll be a 4 and half day fast because you are basically fasting on the day that you break it. I made the decision because i think this amount of time has been good for me. also, it’s very very difficult. i’ve reached a balanced cleansing spot. and did i mention that this was difficult? i’m flying home on thursday and don’t want to deal with fasting at home (previously this was an upside to choosing this time, but i’ll be cooking alot and i really want to eat!). i have become conscious of what i want and what i need in a way that will make me much more careful about the ingredients that i choose and the recipes I make…i will cook with such love and enjoy each flavor so much and start to pay attention again to the smells and tastes. god i miss food……okay, now i’m gushing and its time to sleep.

don’t it always seem to go …

the first half of the first half was okay, and i thought, this won’t be too bad. too soon. i realized i hadn’t given the bottle a good enough shake and so I did, spilling, cleaning and then chugging only to almost gag after three gulps. I went as far as i could and then silently took myself to bed. back to the dreams, which took no time to play with my brain and a chill that i remember accompanied my last cleanse – but this was kind of early for it to start. I was awake again in half an hour, with the nudging feeling that i would regret not finishing the SWF, and so back again i went to my kitchen and took it like a woman.

At 8:45, I was awakened again by an unfamiliar sound, but was too late for work to think about it and quickly dressed and made three servings worth of the lemonade. Today we would have our holiday party and i wan’t sure if i’d feel compelled to take a bite.  10 am rolled around and  i pulled myself from out of a pile of work to make an appearance in the party. I found a colleague that I like very much. She’s from Malaysia and had a plate full of food with her. I had poured some of lemonade in a cup so as not to draw attention to my empty hands but she still urged me to get some food. “I’m fasting,” I blurted out. Damn, what the hell is wrong with me, I thought. And of course we spoke about fasting and her culture and health and fasting – maybe in the split second before i confessed i had decided she’d have references to it in her culture and therefore would not grill me. I was mostly right, we spoke about it for a little while but i instantly regretted telling her because then it takes over conversations. I lied and said i was only doing it for the day to try to move on to something else. But when another colleague came and interrupted our conversation to talk to her, I took the chance to slip out of the party, not trusting myself to keep the damn fast to myself. I couldn’t deal with – but you’re too skinny, or why do you want to fast, or why today look at all this food, what about protein and blah blah.

Anyway work was waiting. Time went fast, and happily, i wasn’t at all tempted by pineapple on my colleague’s plate (a favorite of mine usually) or the quiches and cheese and bread – which is a surprise. Back to my desk for the rest of the party I got a lot done. At times I would think about food – it’s amazing what it does: it takes up time, gives you company. And tea, i love tea. For a whle, I know i’ve been overeating and oversweetening my tea – but especially eating more than i need just for the taste of it, which is not how i usually eat or like to. I like eating whatever i like, whenever i like, until i hit the place of satisfaction and no more and I hate the feeling of being overfull – i am active enough that it all balances out. But lately, with chocolate abounding (thanks to my friend k who is addicted) and the cold of winter making it easy for me to avoid running and my busy schedule, it was easier to reach for something oozing with melted cheese or say yes to that whole veggie burger and plate of fries.  Then I would feel bloated and annoyed with myself, but of course, overeating breeds more of the same and its a hard cycle to break. So in comes the master cleanse. I’m still “releasing” (sorry, but it’s gonna get a little real and a little gross). Which makes me wonder how much toxic I got going on…
Anyway, the best part of the day was -is- that it’s a snow day! As I type, we’re in the middle of a snow storm and about 12 inches of snowfall are predicted! It’s beautiful (from inside). After the holiday part, our director said we could leave! So most did, but I stuck around to finish up some things, and gave myself until the end of my lemonade to work. At around 1:30 when the snow began to fall, i got on my bike, wrapped up in the most comical way you can imagine, and rode home, against a wind that has some mad issues she needs to work out. Anyway, once home, I felt suddenly as though i couldn’t keep my eyes open, most likely from the lack sleep, but maybe also because of the fast… and because it was snowing and I was home, I could fall straight to sleep! So after a convo with my bestest friend, I went into the deepest sleep i’ve had in a while for three hours!  i then woke up and took a short bath with epsom salts and almond oil – which i’d been promising myself for a while – and am back in bed again.

Interestingly enough, a new voice has taken over and is not at all concerned with checking of items on any lists of things I have invented. So applications and books have been tossed aside and I feel very relaxed, which is unfortunately a rarity. I think the move is to watch movies and fall asleep whenever i want and wake up whenever i want..and enjoy.

Besides a very very slight headache and general sleepiness – i feel great!

Having eaten a fantastic meal tonight and, more pleasantly, having imbibed the nectar that is burdick’s hot chocolate I’m feeling as though it won’t be very easy to abstain from food in this cold when my body is doing everything it can to keep warm and friends and family are sharing feasts. But it’s the right time for me – the end of a significant year that i want to mark in some way but more importantly, holidays and likely snow days have conspired to give me the most time away from an office cubicle where sitting in one place for 8 hours straight without something to munch on will require nothing less than the sheer and total focus of my willpower.

I don’t remember the senna tea tasting as badly as this one – well not bad, but the one I had the last time I did this clease about two years ago was slightly sweeter. i know i’m going to hate myself in the morning for having slept so little – I’ll be waking up extra early to take in the dreaded salt water flush and let it do its work. we’re expecting about 6 inches of snow in the early afternoon so i’m hoping that i’ll be able to come home early – following the small holiday party we have in the morning, where I’m sure cookies and cakes and coffee will abound and where it’ll be me  and my lemonade. I hope I can be discrete about it, everyone has something to say about fasting and i have no desire to get into long explanations about why I’m doing this and what effect it will have on my body and all that shit about protein. i hope i don’t do that thing that i do which is to do something i don’t want to do anyway (like tell people I’m on the Master Cleanse or blah). I wonder where the impetus to spill my guts in a neat twenty secnds like that comes from. Anyway, I’ll save such self-indulgant mining of the psych for another time, when i have the energy to attempt humor.  See, friend who has the address to this blog, this is hard and i know you’re bored!

Here are my goals for the cleanse:

- deal with my cravings for excessive amounts of wheat and sugar  (and chocolate and cheese). I love bread, alot. and i put too much sugar in my tea and drink at least 2-3 cups a day. I need a break.

- realign my diet and excercise with my goal to eat food that will support my body and bring energy and vitality rather than lethargy (as cheese and chocolate tend to do!) I am secretly afraid of getting cancer or alziehmers and have managed to hide my hypochondria from all but a few. Most of it is rubbish, some of it is rooted in this equation – i worry = i eat = i don’t excercise = i feel unattractive = i eat = i worry = i am unhealthy … a self-fulfilling prophesy. i’d rather blow this system out of the water and replace it completely, break a cycle, which is what i hope this cleanse will do

- have a mental break and exercise willpower and discipline. In the next few months, as i move closer to living my dreams out loud, I know i’ll require a lot of discipline – I hope that the attention to habits and patterns that comes with the cleanse will help me on my path to being more disciplined.

now i am sleepy. i know this first entry is undeniably boring but i’m very very tired. dear reader, i promise to make the next few funny, spilling over with witticisms and the kind of entry that gets you noticed by the publishing world and garners a one million dollar contract and an article in the New Yorker. but this is not then i had to start now and so i have. thank you you for braving it to the end.