Holy moly… is this for real? http://www.heartattackgrill.com/menu.html. They are offering to feed people who weigh over 350 pounds for free! Warning: Don’t go to that site if you are craving burgers. I have to admit the thought of eating meat now grosses me out. However, a picture of a juicy cheeseburger still tempts me slightly. Although I’ll never give in.
Anyway, my switch back to fruitarianism came none too soon… I woke up with a couple of my fingers slightly irritated and itchy again. Last night I had a veggie burger on a sprouted grain all-natural bun; the bun was clearly the culprit.
Today I started my day with cantaloupe. In another hour or so I’ll have some mango, then maybe some oranges. I woke up around 4am this morning feeling pretty energetic, which is great. I’m definitely back on my early-morning schedule, which is great!
I’m contemplating taking a walk this morning as the sun is coming up.
TGIF!
The detox is over and so is my insomnia, thank goodness! Now I seem to be in “catching up on sleep” mode. I slept 10 hours last night which shocked me. I went to bed EXTREMELY early last night, too. Heck, it wasn’t even officially ‘nighttime’ when I went to bed. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. And I’m tired today. All I managed to do was my yoga.
Honestly, I still don’t have my old energy and good frame of mind back. So, I feel it’s time to go back to my previous high-raw fruitarian lifestyle. Cooked vegan food is not cutting it for me. It just doesn’t make me feel as GOOD as I felt on fruit. Also, the more ‘cooked’ food I eat, the more I want. It’s not extremely satiating like the raw stuff.
So I’m going back. I figure that I’ve been off dairy long enough that it won’t be too hard. Cheese cravings have died down, thank goodness!
So as of tomorrow, it’s back to me having mostly fruit through the day, plus other raw foods as needed, and dinner will be half raw/half cooked. I ordered a few delicious fresh-made (not at all processed) exotic salads and noodle/veggie ‘meals-for-one’ from one of my favorite online organic companies. This might sound crazy, but since I cook for one (me), I find it hard to only cook one serving of something. I end up making too much, and consequently, eat too much. I’m referring mostly to pasta and rice dishes, by the way.
And… drumroll please… I finally broke down and ordered a Vita-mix blender, which should hopefully arrive next week sometime. I CAN’T WAIT!!! It will be SO much easier to be a raw vegan with that blender. I will be able to start having green smoothies again – and this time they will be actually be BLENDED properly. I will turn into a blending fool. I’ll also be able to make cold fruit/veggie soups and stuff.
Anyway, that’s all for now! Here’s hoping that my energy returns in the next couple of days! Usually only one day on the fruit plan makes me filled with extreme energy again. And dammit, I want my euphoria back! I’m PMS’ing and bitchy right now. (Well, only sort of on that last part). 
I can’t help but be amused at people’s reactions to my “dairy detox” claim. Yeah, it sounds insane, but I’m not the only one whose ever gone through this. (Search “dairy detox withdrawal” on Google, you’ll see.) My sisters think I’m crazy and I’ve gotten some comments on here from people thinking I have either whacked-out hormones, the flu, or low electrolytes.
And to most of those claims I say: Nope. It’s dairy detox. Been through it enough times to know. I’ve had low electrolytes back in my low carb past and this is nothing like it. No fever or cough, no flu. If my hormones are out of whack it could be from all the dairy hormones getting flushed out of my system? It’s well known that dairy (except organic) is chock-full of hormones, antibiotics, and other bad stuff. When your body is flushing chemicals out, they have to enter your blood stream to be processed by the liver. So perhaps that comment was on target.
I know it’s hard to grasp that dairy is “bad” because we’ve become SO programmed to the dairy industry’s influence. Me too! I spent all my life programmed that way! But now I’m unlearning the programming.
As far as I’m concerned, the proof is in the pudding. Your body doesn’t “withdraw” or “detox” from the GOOD stuff when you cut it out. When I cut fruit, veggies, nuts or seeds, I never go through one iota of detox. But stopping refined sugar and bad processed foods (with artificial flavors, color, chemicals, etc) caused me withdrawal. Cutting out meat several months ago caused me to “lose” several pounds of material that was being stored in my intestines or colon. (Sorry, I know, TMI, but it’s true). And you all know by now about the dairy.
But once I got through the unpleasant symptoms of the withdrawals from these foods, I felt better than ever. Better than I had when I was still eating them!
Yesterday, I was so extremely tempted to go buy some cheese. But I didn’t. AND I was right in the dairy aisle at the store (picking up more hummus). The cheese section smelled rank and like bad body odor and rotting milk.
Anyway, I feel a LOT better today! It’s hard to explain. I feel lighter, cleaner inside, more alert, at peace emotionally again (finally!!!) and my previous energy is finally returning. Granted, this is how I was feeling for the most part over the past few months while doing the fruitarian thing, but it had left about a week ago. Now it’s back with a slight difference: a feeling of lightness. How do I describe it? I can’t.
The scale is down .6 pounds this morning, which is another thing to be happy about. I am only .4 pounds away from an official 25-pound loss from my highest weight!
I still feel like crap. Finally got to sleep at about 10am but slept pretty fitfully. The spasm below my left breastbone turned VERY painful early this morning. We are talking a shooting, stabbing pain. I’d go to the doctors but honestly I just don’t feel like it. So I’ve taken some ibuprofen which dulls the pain.
The good news is, I just got on the scale and I’m back down to the lowest weight I’ve seen on this weight loss journey so far, which is amazing considering the fact that I ate quite a bit of calories and fat yesterday! So of course that makes me happy.
I know, I’ve been complaining about ailments a lot in my last few posts. Sorry if it’s off-putting to anyone out there. I am however noticing benefits as well… I have no doubt that I’ll come out on the other side of this feeling and looking 1000% better!
Anyway, I’ll update more later.
by Rian on July 27, 2009
in Updates
It’s 4am. I’m still wide awake but tired. Insomnia is rearing its ugly head. I have muscle relaxers and Benadryl here – both of which would likely put me out – but I just can’t bring myself to take either. I haven’t had anything stronger than an Advil in a LONG time. If I took a Benadryl now I’d probably be asleep until tomorrow night!
My body is still expelling dairy toxins and mucus. It hasn’t been fun tonight but I’m grateful for it. I’ve developed another couple of symptoms that aren’t very fun. One is a weird spasm occurring high on the left side of my stomach. (Right under where my heart is). I got this the last 2 times I gave up dairy for any extended period of time. I wonder what it is? It doesn’t really hurt but it’s uncomfortable. It spasms sporadically on and off. It seems the detox symptoms get worse late at night (after midnight). Of course, I’m also craving cheese terribly right now. Visions of sharp cheddar and cheese-enchiladas are dancing in my head. The good news is that the cravings allegedly go away within 3 weeks.
Dairy supposedly takes a full 6 weeks, however, to be completely removed from the body. In my case it might be quicker since I had cut way back in the past several months. I used to eat 3-5 servings per day pretty much all my life.
Funnily enough, through this, my good mood has finally returned. I’m feeling better on some level. (Which level, I can’t really figure out yet). I took a good look at my face in the mirror tonight and despite feeling crappy, I look better. My skin – which was kind of ‘bad’ looking earlier this week – has cleared up again. The face/chin puffiness that I mentioned a couple of days ago has also gone away seemingly overnight.
OK, enough whining for now… time to go back to bed and toss and turn for a few more hours! (Or read, which is what I’ll probably end up doing).
I’ve officially been off dairy for 11 days… (it would be two weeks but I found out there was casein protein in something I thought was vegan last Wednesday). So… I’ve been feeling a bit ‘out of sorts’ over the past week and a half. I’ve been more irritable and cranky than usual. I thought that was from adding in more cooked vegan food.
Last night things started getting weird. I started to sweat – a lot – for no reason. I turned my AC down to 68. And still… I was sweating nonstop. Not to mention I was getting some aches and pains in my leg muscles. And I couldn’t sleep although I felt tired. I turned down my AC to 66. (I know, ridiculous!) Still I was sweatin’. Not to mention my tongue felt disgusting and I had a bad taste in my mouth. Very odd stomach pains on and off. And I had terrible insomnia. I slept 3 hours the night before, and 2.5 last night. I got up at 3am and went back to bed this morning and tossed and turned for hours.
I suddenly realized that I felt like I was going through… detox. All those symptoms are exactly how my previous detoxes felt!
So, my question is/was, what am I detoxing from? Dairy and dairy products are the only thing I’ve recently given up. So it must be that!
It’s well known that when a person gives up dairy, their body gets rid of the excess mucus. I experienced that a lot last week. It’s gotten better over the past few days. (Sort of).
But an actual detox from dairy? No way! Why?!
So today when the sweating started back up (which it did about 30 minutes ago), I did what I usually do: opened up my trusty google browser and started searching for other people’s experiences. And boy did I find some interesting stuff. Apparently, people sometimes do go through detox when they give up dairy for long enough. During my previous high-raw fruitarianism, I would still cheat with dairy every few days or so (and sometimes once I ate it, I’d have to keep eating it for the following few days. I really have had a hard time giving it up!) The longest I went before was 7 days.
So I guess when I hit the 10-day mark yesterday, my body realized that I mean business this time. So it’s “cleaning house”.
I can’t help but wonder how I’ll feel in another few days?
Other people who have gone through this usually start feeling better by week two. I am going to consciously up my distilled water intake for the next few days.
So, onto swiss chard wraps… ok, that probably sounds gross to some of you. I’ve been looking for a way to include raw swiss chard into my diet since it’s SO nutritious. The only problem is that it’s a bit too bitter to eat plan. So my solution today was to make a swiss chard, green chile hummus & yellow pear tomato wrap. And it was delicious! I warmed the tortillas up for just a minute or two before adding the veggies and hummus.
Mmm… I foresee many ‘veggie wrap’ experiments in my near future!
I’ve done pretty good on food intake today even though I’ve had NO appetite! I had 3 quarters of a pound of cantaloupe for breakfast; 2 swiss chard wraps, plus a romaine, tomato and guacamole salad for lunch. I’m not sure what dinner will be. I’m really working on upping my raw veggie intake again. I may have a veggie burger and spinach salad later. I’m not sure.
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