Days 25 - 30
I am once again rolling five days' experience into a block, partly due to my stone age laptop's interface with this neolithic wi-fi and also because you probably don't need a blow by blow account of every single day.
I am surprised to feel at this stage of the game some peaks and troughs of tiredness still. I believe this is chiefly governed by how much water I drink and not maintaining protein levels properly. I stress that this is what works for me, and you may be different. I already have certain food intolerances which make my diet convoluted at times. I have taken to carrying bags of nuts, almonds, cashews and walnuts mainly, around with me and rotating which ones I eat each day. I have been advised to avoid "mould" nuts and all dried fruits as "mould" carrying food stuffs but I have to be honest and say I am not entirely sure what this means. Something may be lost in translation from the Polish. I hope that the sugar detox may even improve my intolerancesin the longer term. Yeeha.
I now have a confession to make and am including it as an interesting (if only to me) insight into my own relationship with habits, cravings and my pleasure centres in my brain. About 10 days into this detox I had a tobacco relapse and have been smoking on and off throughout. Nooooooooooo! I hear you squeak. How unhealthy. How un-detoxy-acceptable in a health kind of a way. Yessssssssssss. I hear you and I will be getting back off them pronto. I can only put this down to a teenagery kind of a sulk about not having any "treat" (sweet) foods and feeling like I need to indulge a part of me that I can't put my finger on. The detox has made me realise that I don't need to indulge parts of me every bloomin day and what am I trying to comfort by doing that anyway? Its a misnoma as its not solving anything, comforting long term or nourishing my body to actually feel well. Going to stuff sugary snacks or slosh back wine or toot on a fag are all short term pleasure hits with no real substance. We all know this anyway. I am trying to take a longer term vision with food, looking at it over whole days or even weeks now to see if I can get the right nutrition in. I hasten to add I am not achieving this. However looking beyond "the next meal" can help to maintain energy over longer periods and make me feel more able to take on the day. At 36 I recognise and feel that I do not have the juice I had at 26 and better food stuffs will just help me truck on more efficiently without being frustrated at this. My energy levels can be very variable and bottom out sometimes so keeping things steady is important to me. Knocking out sugar, despite mid afternoon crashes from time to time, has given me a much steadier and more constant energy available throughout the day. The reason that I mention the smoking relapse is that normally when I do this it puts me back on a (double stupid points here) rota with my asthma inhaler. Over these three weeks I have not used it once despite smoking. It is summer and warm and dry, in the damp of winter it is always worse. I am not using this as carte blanche to now become a professional smoker, yet I cannot help but feel that something is happening regarding sugar here. Without sugar inhaler unnecessary. Why is this? The stomach and the lungs are linked in terms of wellbeing and problems in one area can fire off problems in another. What really are the knock on effects of sugar on other areas of the body? Can it really cause poorer breathing in an asthmatic or is that just crazy talk?
The final day of my detox was my friend's wedding and I had already decided to enjoy the wedding meal and one or two drinks. The savoury lunch tasted amazing as I had salad dressing and a carrot and rice concoction with raisins for the first time in a while. A friend made a lemon polenta cake and it was gluten free, so I cut a piece in half and caved in to that with a few strawberries. The hand fasting also finished with a glass of elderflower fizz.The glass of bubbles came first in the day's proceedings and did taste fantastic, the second half glass just tasted sweet and underwhelming. Throughout the day I felt up and down and kept dashing to the kitchen for water. I have drunk a lot of water throughout the detox and it has been important. I have dabbled with hot and cold showering in alternation and wanted to do body brushing. I am still without a permanent base to live, currently the showers where I am are broken, so this has not been possible to keep up but I would recommend it for anyone trying a similar detox for whatever reason to shift stuff on through.
The weddding day was long and there is always much socialising which is also tiring in a good way but the energy ups and downs were frustrating and didn't make me glad to be back on sweet stuff, although the flavours in the foods were hugely welcome. My excursions on the dance floor were brief and flaily but no real change there.......I am actually glad to not be drinking bitter herbs three times a day and sprinkling tintcures on my tongue. The herb tea had to be made up the night before carefully and covered. My last brew ended up with a bar of soap falling into it, evidence enough that I was done with that ritual.
I have decided to slowly re-introduce native fruits into my diet, like apples and pears and berries and a little honey. This morning I had bilberry gluten free flat breads (gorgeous) with fruit harvested on Dartmoor yesterday. I want to stay off refined sugar for longer. I would like to keep updating the blog for another month as to how I feel and also as to the outcome of my second meeting with Ewa to see if the parasite has cleared properly or not. I am fully open to referral to a tropical disease unit to see what is going on if not. Conventional medecine can be useful in equal measures and I am under no illusions as to this being a miracle cure. However my stomach has generally settled and does feel less like it directs my life which is a boon. I also felt at times that my energy on the detox may not be up to full power excerise but I went to the pool in Exeter on Friday and swam a mile comfortably so that was reassuring.
I have realised I can get by on less food generally and not panic. I still do not like to go for long periods food-less (ideally 8 hours maximum) so I am not sure I could ever fast effectively. However it is good to realise I can physically eat less and be fine, I just need to plan well. I am looking forward to the potential prospect of a base in September so I can take better control of my diet and hopefully make it less of a spiky, prominent feature of my life, just something I see to like everyone else. I do not give up things for Lent or Ramadan (although I believe my detox may have overlaid part of Ramadan) but it has been an experience and an adventure. At times it has been a very frustrating and emotional journey, quite literally feeling like death. The height of summer was certainly the time to crack on with it, but a July heatwave was not the easiest choice. The denial of what I thought was essential a really important journey. I invite anyone who says "I couldn't do without", (insert - tea/coffee in the morning, biscuit at 11am or whatever) to do just that. Being tied to things which we don't know for certain we will always have is not helpful. Everything in life moves, changes, grows and eventually dies. Letting go of things allows other things to move in and inhabit the space. It doesn't mean you can't maybe have those things back, but its fascinating to see what takes up the space instead......
I hope you have enjoyed bits of the blog so far and thank you to everyone who has got in touch and shared their thoughts and experiences with me. The blog will go on, for now, and so will I.
I am once again rolling five days' experience into a block, partly due to my stone age laptop's interface with this neolithic wi-fi and also because you probably don't need a blow by blow account of every single day.
I am surprised to feel at this stage of the game some peaks and troughs of tiredness still. I believe this is chiefly governed by how much water I drink and not maintaining protein levels properly. I stress that this is what works for me, and you may be different. I already have certain food intolerances which make my diet convoluted at times. I have taken to carrying bags of nuts, almonds, cashews and walnuts mainly, around with me and rotating which ones I eat each day. I have been advised to avoid "mould" nuts and all dried fruits as "mould" carrying food stuffs but I have to be honest and say I am not entirely sure what this means. Something may be lost in translation from the Polish. I hope that the sugar detox may even improve my intolerancesin the longer term. Yeeha.
I now have a confession to make and am including it as an interesting (if only to me) insight into my own relationship with habits, cravings and my pleasure centres in my brain. About 10 days into this detox I had a tobacco relapse and have been smoking on and off throughout. Nooooooooooo! I hear you squeak. How unhealthy. How un-detoxy-acceptable in a health kind of a way. Yessssssssssss. I hear you and I will be getting back off them pronto. I can only put this down to a teenagery kind of a sulk about not having any "treat" (sweet) foods and feeling like I need to indulge a part of me that I can't put my finger on. The detox has made me realise that I don't need to indulge parts of me every bloomin day and what am I trying to comfort by doing that anyway? Its a misnoma as its not solving anything, comforting long term or nourishing my body to actually feel well. Going to stuff sugary snacks or slosh back wine or toot on a fag are all short term pleasure hits with no real substance. We all know this anyway. I am trying to take a longer term vision with food, looking at it over whole days or even weeks now to see if I can get the right nutrition in. I hasten to add I am not achieving this. However looking beyond "the next meal" can help to maintain energy over longer periods and make me feel more able to take on the day. At 36 I recognise and feel that I do not have the juice I had at 26 and better food stuffs will just help me truck on more efficiently without being frustrated at this. My energy levels can be very variable and bottom out sometimes so keeping things steady is important to me. Knocking out sugar, despite mid afternoon crashes from time to time, has given me a much steadier and more constant energy available throughout the day. The reason that I mention the smoking relapse is that normally when I do this it puts me back on a (double stupid points here) rota with my asthma inhaler. Over these three weeks I have not used it once despite smoking. It is summer and warm and dry, in the damp of winter it is always worse. I am not using this as carte blanche to now become a professional smoker, yet I cannot help but feel that something is happening regarding sugar here. Without sugar inhaler unnecessary. Why is this? The stomach and the lungs are linked in terms of wellbeing and problems in one area can fire off problems in another. What really are the knock on effects of sugar on other areas of the body? Can it really cause poorer breathing in an asthmatic or is that just crazy talk?
The final day of my detox was my friend's wedding and I had already decided to enjoy the wedding meal and one or two drinks. The savoury lunch tasted amazing as I had salad dressing and a carrot and rice concoction with raisins for the first time in a while. A friend made a lemon polenta cake and it was gluten free, so I cut a piece in half and caved in to that with a few strawberries. The hand fasting also finished with a glass of elderflower fizz.The glass of bubbles came first in the day's proceedings and did taste fantastic, the second half glass just tasted sweet and underwhelming. Throughout the day I felt up and down and kept dashing to the kitchen for water. I have drunk a lot of water throughout the detox and it has been important. I have dabbled with hot and cold showering in alternation and wanted to do body brushing. I am still without a permanent base to live, currently the showers where I am are broken, so this has not been possible to keep up but I would recommend it for anyone trying a similar detox for whatever reason to shift stuff on through.
The weddding day was long and there is always much socialising which is also tiring in a good way but the energy ups and downs were frustrating and didn't make me glad to be back on sweet stuff, although the flavours in the foods were hugely welcome. My excursions on the dance floor were brief and flaily but no real change there.......I am actually glad to not be drinking bitter herbs three times a day and sprinkling tintcures on my tongue. The herb tea had to be made up the night before carefully and covered. My last brew ended up with a bar of soap falling into it, evidence enough that I was done with that ritual.
I have decided to slowly re-introduce native fruits into my diet, like apples and pears and berries and a little honey. This morning I had bilberry gluten free flat breads (gorgeous) with fruit harvested on Dartmoor yesterday. I want to stay off refined sugar for longer. I would like to keep updating the blog for another month as to how I feel and also as to the outcome of my second meeting with Ewa to see if the parasite has cleared properly or not. I am fully open to referral to a tropical disease unit to see what is going on if not. Conventional medecine can be useful in equal measures and I am under no illusions as to this being a miracle cure. However my stomach has generally settled and does feel less like it directs my life which is a boon. I also felt at times that my energy on the detox may not be up to full power excerise but I went to the pool in Exeter on Friday and swam a mile comfortably so that was reassuring.
I have realised I can get by on less food generally and not panic. I still do not like to go for long periods food-less (ideally 8 hours maximum) so I am not sure I could ever fast effectively. However it is good to realise I can physically eat less and be fine, I just need to plan well. I am looking forward to the potential prospect of a base in September so I can take better control of my diet and hopefully make it less of a spiky, prominent feature of my life, just something I see to like everyone else. I do not give up things for Lent or Ramadan (although I believe my detox may have overlaid part of Ramadan) but it has been an experience and an adventure. At times it has been a very frustrating and emotional journey, quite literally feeling like death. The height of summer was certainly the time to crack on with it, but a July heatwave was not the easiest choice. The denial of what I thought was essential a really important journey. I invite anyone who says "I couldn't do without", (insert - tea/coffee in the morning, biscuit at 11am or whatever) to do just that. Being tied to things which we don't know for certain we will always have is not helpful. Everything in life moves, changes, grows and eventually dies. Letting go of things allows other things to move in and inhabit the space. It doesn't mean you can't maybe have those things back, but its fascinating to see what takes up the space instead......
I hope you have enjoyed bits of the blog so far and thank you to everyone who has got in touch and shared their thoughts and experiences with me. The blog will go on, for now, and so will I.
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