End of Cleanse Day 3

Today was alright. The cleansing part, that is, keeping on schedule with all the herbs and such and eating right, has been pretty easy. Tonight I had a lot of pain in my upper neck and jaw muscles. I’m no stranger to that, that is where my pain has been centered for the past 17 years. I’m hoping the reason the pain is so intense there is because that is what I am eliminating. I’m fighting the urge to take Ibuprofen. I used to take 9 a day just to take the edge off the pain. I haven’t taken even 1 in at least 6 months that I can think of. I know that if I take it it will halt the detoxification process and cause me to need to take it again… and again, and again. I’ve come a long way in eliminating the pain. Most of the time its strong tension, up the back of my neck, around to my jaw and up my ear. It is typically worse on the right. I’ve got constant or frequent pain in other areas, but I don’t notice them often because of the pain in my neck and face. All night it felt like my head weighted a ton and was crushing down on the back of my neck. My jaw felt incredibly tight and swollen and throbbing. Now (halfway through the next day) the pain is still there and has moved across my eyes. My eczema is driving me crazy itching so bad. For a day it was flaking off and I thought it was improving, now it’s back to just hard dry itchyness. Anyway, I didn’t sleep well at all last night, then woke up late today and was an hour and a half late for church. When I walked in Kolby asked me if I was okay, apparently it looked like I’d been crying. I guess the combo of allergies, rashes all around my eyes, and the minimal amount of makeup I put on them didn’t make me look so hot.

I’ve reached a point that I do in all my cleanses where I want to go on cleansing forever. I see progress and in a lot of ways I feel so good I don’t ever want to mess it up again. I don’t know yet if I will go back to eating any cooked food besides the occasional steamed vegetables. I don’t want to. I really want to be 100% raw for the rest of my life. But the Boca burgers have been calling me! Blast you Boca!

I tried to do the gall bladder flush tonight. That was the part of the cleanse I’ve been dreading and terrified of for the past 2 months. At bedtime you drink a combo of fresh garlic and ginger with olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon juice. I don’t like a lot of lemon juice. I gag at the smell and taste of olive oil. And I can’t eat raw garlic or ginger because I can’t handle spiciness at all. I also gag at the smell and taste of ginger. So I knew it would be tough. After tasting a few sips I added fresh squeezed orange juice, as recommended in the instructions, for flavor. Didn’t help much. Then I added some water. That helped a little, so I added some more. After a few more sips, and gags, and burning of my lips and tongue from the lemon juice, I added some pure maple syrup. The Master Cleanse (google it) is a similar concoction and it uses maple syrup. I was trying to think of something to balance the flavors. There was sour, spicy, and fat (oil), but no sweet. The syrup helped quite a bit, but after 40 minutes I only had about a quarter of it down and I was really feeling like I might vomit. So I left it at a quarter dose, layed down on my right side like the instructions said, and drank my tea which made my mouth feel better but I was nauseous for quite a while and kept burping these huge monster burps. I could say that it was an awful experience and I just can’t get the drink down so I’ll just have to have a toxic gall bladder for the rest of my life, but I don’t go down like that. It was a first attempt. There will be more. My will to be healthy is extraordinary. There is nothing that can stop me. I WILL get that drink down. The only reason I didn’t keep forcing it down until I threw it up was that I wanted to keep as much of it down as possible, so I figured it would be better to keep down ¼ than it would be to spend an hour gagging just to lose it all. I plan to try again tonight or the next. I had originally planned to take the flush every other night of my cleanse, but I’m thinking this may have to extend well beyond the cleanse before I get it right. I don’t feel like I’ve failed, I feel like I’m learning, and this is only the beginning.

Here’s what I consumed today:
8:15 G.I. Gel, Herb Tinctures
8:30-9:30 32 oz green smoothie (same as yesterday)
10:45 almonds
11:00 Spring Tea
11:15 orange
Lemon Cream Pie
11:45 3 slices cantalope
12:15 G.I. Gel, Herb Tinctures
1:00 strawberries
1:30 Namaste Tea
2:30-3:00 32 oz green smoothie
3:45 4 lettuce wraps with raw chkin salad
4:30-6:45 Spring Tea
6:00 orange
6:45 green salad with veggies
Cilantro-Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms (recipe below)
7:30 Herb Tinctures
7:45 orange
8:15 G.I. Gel, Herb Tinctures
10:00 apple
10:15 L.B.T. Caps
10:50-11:30 ¼ dose gallbladder flush
11:30 Namaste Tea

Cilantro-Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms
From: Raw Food for Dummies

16 large crimini or button mushrooms
¼ cup Nama Shoyu (raw soy sauce)
1 ½ cups broccoli florets
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2 TBS cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
2 TBS nutritional yeast (find it in the bulk bins at Whole Foods)
½ cup raw walnuts
3 TBS pine nuts
¼ cup red onion, peeled and chopped
1/8 tsp sea salt, or to taste
¾ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne (optional)
½ cup celery, cut into 1/8 inch cubes


1. Remove stems from mushroom caps and set aside.
2. Pour shoyu into a bowl and roll mushroom caps around in it to coat. Arrange caps on a plate and either set aside or, if dehydrating, put plate in a dehydrator at 105 degrees for 20 min.
3. Pour remaining shoyu into the bowl of a food processor with mushroom stems, broccoli, cilantro, olive oil, nutritional yeast, walnuts, pine nuts, onion, salt, pepper, and cayenne (if using). Process on high speed for 40-60 seconds or until a uniform pate forms (some chunks are okay). Transfer mixture to a bowl.
4. Add celery to pate and stir well.
5. Scoop pate into mushroom caps, forming a rounded top. Serve immediately or refrigerate in a glass or plastic container with a tightly closed lid. Mushrooms will keep in the refrigerator for 1 or 2 days.

Variation: Use crimini mushrooms if you like the earthy flavor of mushrooms and can find them in a large size. If you prefer a milder mushroom, get button mushrooms. Small mushrooms work great too, but you’ll need twice as many.