The Many Misadventures of an Aspiring Raw-Foodist

The purpose of this blog is to give you a realistic view of the transition to a raw vegan life and the restoration of health. It isn't always easy. I don't always feel amazing. But in the end it is worth it. My hope is that I can inspire others to make positive changes in their own lives.



12.13.2011

Healing Crisis???

I’m currently on day 15 of this cleanse, and it has, by far, been the most interesting cleanse I have ever done. First of all, I had to count the days on the calendar just to tell you where I’m at. That in itself is interesting to me. This is the first cleanse I’ve ever done where I’m not counting down the days until it’s over, fantasizing about what I’ll eat when I’m able. The last no sugar/carb cleanse that I did was 2-weeks long and pretty much torture. I didn’t think that I could do that ever again. So when I decided to do a similar cleanse, take away the nuts and nut butters and do it for a week longer I was pretty intimidated. It’s actually been just fine, with the exception of a few recent events. Several days ago I had 2 days where I was just feeling low. On the second day I called to make my colon hydrotherapy appointments (I got a groupon for 2 at an affordable price, so there was only one place I could go). I’ve been saving these appointments since last July specifically for the end of this cleanse. I called a week and a half in advance expecting that they would have plenty of open appointments (after all, colonics are something you need to be able to do at a moment’s notice at the first sign of illness). Not so. The first open appointments they had were on the first 2 days after we leave town for Christmas. The lady said the last appointments on the days I wanted JUST went… and I’d been trying to call but the line was in use so I was sent to voice mail. Talk about a moment too late. So, I won’t be getting to really get a good cleaning out of all the toxins I’ve awakened during this cleanse, which means they will reabsorb to some extent and I will have to start over. I felt so low after this phone call I spent the next 24-hours considering quitting the cleanse. In the end I decided to just do the best I can with enemas.
But something far more interesting happened, and if you’re new to this concept I’m probably going to sound like a big cuke here. That’s okay, I’m quite used to it. For a week I had a sore throat at night. I figured I’d caught some of the cold that the kids have been passing around since Thanksgiving. And I very well may have. However, I also had the thought in the back of my mind that the grime that’s been festering in my lungs for years from the mold that was recently remediated from our house was stirring. Perhaps it was both. After a week of nightly sore throats I woke up last Saturday morning with a more-sore-than-ever throat, a not-all-there voice, and proceeded to cough stuff up all day. Toward late afternoon I lost all energy. I got very weak and a little nauseated and became a lump on the couch where I slept for a bit. Sunday morning I felt a little bit better, I had a manly voice and a cough but I went to church since I had a class to teach. About 30 minutes before church ended I started to feel weak and sick to my stomach. I thought it might be my blood sugar. After all it was 1:30 and I’d only had half of my usual consumption of juice and half of my pumpkin pie in a bowl (blended carrot juice, avocado, sweet potato, stevia, pumpkin pie spice), so essentially 60 ounces of liquid food. This is the longest I’ve ever gone with so little food, and remember, I do struggle with hypoglycemia. So I continued to sip my pumpkin pie, but it just didn’t feel right. I had to force it down. Normally I can’t stop myself from guzzling it. I got home, took care of the kids, and started dinner. I ate a carrot at 4:30 as I was cutting veggies for soup, this was my first solid food of the day. Between 5:45 and 6:30 I slowly managed to get down a large, plate sized salad and 2 small bowls of vegetable soup. I was gagging a little on it. I kept getting waves of nausea with what felt like hunger in between. I forced myself to eat because I thought that possibly I was feeling sick from low blood sugar, which has happened before. After dinner, I got SICK. I went to do an enema, because I normally have a bowl movement first thing in the morning but hadn’t had one at all that day. My abdomen was HUGE and felt like it was about to burst. As I was in the bathroom I was certain I was going to vomit. I did the best enema I could under the circumstances then laid down in a hot bath. By his time I was also freezing and shaking out of control. I had to lay on my left side. I can’t explain this, my body was just telling me to. I don’t know how long I was in the bath. I faded in and out of sleep for some time. The nausea continued to come in waves which would wake me. When the water cooled off I got myself out and fell into bed. I was so cold. I had my daughter bring me a bowl because I was still certain I was going to vomit and I couldn’t have made it back to the bathroom. Luckily my husband was there to help with the younger children through this. I spent the night on my left side going through some sort of transformation. I don’t know how else to explain this, here’s where the cuke comes in. My body went through phases of processes. It would repeat the same thing over and over and over and every time I would see a part of my internal body in my mind. This is very hard to explain. I didn’t even know what all of these parts are, I just know that what my body was doing was healing that part. There was a lot of work that went on in my ascending colon, where (if you’ve read earlier posts) I’ve had a hard, noisy lump topped with a tight, painful area for over a year and no doctor knows what it is. After a few hours I started to get sore from lying in the same position, but my body kept telling me to stay there. When I did try to move I would get extremely nauseated. If I stayed on my left side, it was mild. I had the feeling that his is because these toxins were moving through my colon and if I lay on my left side it would help them along as they wouldn’t have to be moved uphill against gravity. I have never had my body talk to me like it did that night. I was reassured that a “process” was taking place and that I should just rest and have faith. As I prayed I saw in my mind and felt angels surrounding me, countless in number. They were on all sides of me and all of them had their hands on my body. They were glowing white and emanated a blue light. At this point my husband came in a said I was burning hot. He took my temperature and it was 101.1. I hadn’t been aware that I had a fever at all. So this was Sunday night, and here I am Tuesday morning, upright for the first time. The nausea slowly got better, but until today every time I tried to stand I would be in too much pain in my stomach. It felt like gravity was just pulling on my guts in the wrong way. Yesterday I still had a fever and my muscles were killing me, but interestingly, my abdomen was VERY soft all over for the first time, and the lump was gone. Last night I released A LOT of gas. Probably stuff that’s been stuck in there for a very long time. I also did an enema yesterday afternoon, but my 3 year old woke up from his nap and I wasn’t able to get as far as I’d hoped. If he naps today I will do another. I’ve done a lot of pondering as to whether this was a flu or a healing crisis. If your unfamiliar with that term, a healing crisis is a set of symptoms that arise when the body releases a tremendous amount of toxins. Typically they will mimic illnesses you’ve had in the past or the flu. I really thought that I would be able to avoid this doing enemas. While I was lying in the bathtub Sunday night thinking I must have the flu my instincts told me a healing was going on. Right now I feel like something has been torn down and stripped away and that there is a rebuilding going on. And I woke up HUNGRY!!!! Unfortunately, during this process I’ve consumed a total of 5 pieces of sprouted grain bread, which is not to be eaten on this cleanse and will slow the cleansing process, but at several points I became hungry and that was all I could stomach. I also managed to get down 64 oz of fresh veggie juice last night. I had 2 of those slices of bread, a piece of raw goat cheese and some baby carrots this morning. I will go make my juice when I’m done here. This morning as I was getting in my last bits of sleep before the kids woke up I dreamed I had woken up and was scarfing this HUGE plate of cooked food, thinking all the while how sick I would feel after eating all that, especially first thing in the morning, but being too hungry to heed my own warnings! By the time I got the kids lunches made my blood sugar was so low I was shaking and hardly able to stand, so I ate those 2 pieces of toast to get my blood sugar up fast so that I could drive them to school.
I’m still coughing up chunks. Here’s something else interesting, I can breathe! Ever since yesterday I’ve been feasting on big, deep breaths. I haven’t been able to breathe deeply in SO long. It feels amazing. My husband is in finals now, but I intend to have him check for egophony again and see if I still have some infiltrates in my lungs, or if those little buggers have seen their last days in my body.
Another interesting thing. I had gained weight on this cleanse. This was very depressing. So when I had those 2 days of discouragement and wasn’t eating as well as I should have been I opted not to weight myself… I just didn’t even want to know how much I’d gained. There is a very basic principal with weight and that is that waste = weight. So it would make sense that if I am awakening more toxins than I can eliminate and only doing enemas without colon hydrotherapy I would be heavier. Well, I did weigh myself after those 2 days and MUCH to my surprise I’d gone from 122 to 117. 117 is the lowest I have ever weighed as an adult, I typically end cleanses at this weight and then bloat back up to 120-124. Well, this morning, after having been sick, I weigh 115. If you haven’t read previous posts I will repeat that I am 5’7”. And I will repeat this: most of you have NO CLUE what your true form looks like! Believe it or not, I am not emaciated, I am just taking on my true form. Humans are meant to be lean and strong. Remember, waste = weight, and you are likely carrying much more than you are aware of.
That’s my update for now, I will let you all know in a little over a week when my cleanse ends how things turn up. If you have any questions about cleansing or would like help doing your own cleanse contact me through my website www.InnateWellnessCoaching.com.

Happy, and Healthy, Holidays!!!

12.01.2011

The Cleanse Is On!

I gave an overview of my cleanse in my last post. Now that I’m a few days in and feeling settled I thought I’d show you what my typical day looks like:

*Upon waking: 1-4 oz. Aloe Force (raw aloe vera, I’m starting with 1 oz and will be building to 4), Water, as much as I feel I need
*When my body feels the need: 64 oz veggie juice, usually carrot and leafy greens but I change it up every few days
*Around 11 or when I feel the need: 50-64 oz Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl (32 oz carrot juice, 1 raw sweet potato, ½ avocado, ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice, stevia to taste, blended well), Renew Life Critical Care 50 billion Probiotic
*Around 1-2:00: Large salad with mixed greens, tossed in lemon juice with stevia and sprinkled with several ounces of shredded raw goat cheese, 1 TBS coconut oil
*Snack on raw veggies until dinner (I like baby carrots and sugar snap peas)
*Dinner (around 5:30): Large salad with mashed avocado mixed with lemon juice and stevia as a dressing, topped with tomatoes and sometimes alfalfa sprouts, a properly combined cooked side (like an omelet, OR steamed veggies, OR baked root veggies like beets, parsnips, carrots, OR steamed peas OR veggies sautéed in a little butter and covered with marinara and goat cheese OR vegetable soup… just to give a few ideas, 1 TBS Coconut Oil
*Later in the evening: peppermint tea with chocolate flavored stevia, or raw veggies, or more of the cooked side from dinner (if I feel the need), 1 TBS Coconut Oil

Things are going well. I’ve gained some weight and I’m having some cramping in my low abdomen so I know I’m holding the awakened toxins. I did an enema today and will continue to do them. I will also be making a few appointments for colonics in about a week. But, this is a good sign that the cleanse is working! If I can’t get into a good release pattern with the irrigations I will back off a little and add a little fruit back into my diet. Constipation happens when toxins are awakened faster than your body can eliminate them. This is the cause of detox symptoms, and leads to autointoxication (re-absorption of the toxins), we don’t want that!! I will keep you updated, I’m sure my eating pattern will move around a bit. Day 1 was pretty difficult but it’s easier now. I accidentally went raw until dinner yesterday and it looks like I will comfortably be able to do it today too! That is a huge step for someone with hypoglycemia! The first 3 days I had some nuts (like 10) to help my blood sugar along, but doing well today (day 4).