Could you survive without food on a detox?
I wake up at 6am, bright as a button and fresh as a daisy and any other cliche that describes 'wake up - wide awake'. I put on a load of washing and dry the dishes, then read for a while, have a short nap, wake up at 8, get up and take 11 supplements and two spoons of linseed oil, make an apple, orange and ginger juice, and go for a walk. This is not my normal Saturday routine. The colonic seems to have unleashed a new energy field in me.
Unfortunately this is probably the last good thing to report about the weekend. For the rest of it I am just hungry hungry hungry.
I've reached the 'power phase' of the diet and for the next three days will consume nothing except 42 supplements, six tablespoons of linseed oil, three teaspoons of Pure Probiotic, and as much fruit and vegetable juice as I like. That's right. Just juice. No food.
For a while it's not so bad. Any time I get hungry I just blitz a few more carrots in the juicer. Only I can't lurk by the juicer all day and as soon as I leave the house - first to go to the country fair in Brockwell Park (complete with food stalls and meat barbecuing), then on to a friend's birthday party (with huge groaning buffet table - I was groaning too) - hunger takes over. Chris James says that you should not feel hungry during this period as the fibrous agent in the supplements 'will swell in your stomach and make you feel full'. My stomach laughed hollowly at this notion, then rumbled loudly. Though once I was back home, safe in the juicing zone, everything was fine again.
In fairness, Chris James advises limiting your activities over the 'power phase' weekend. And I can see how this rather extreme form of detoxing could work very well on a retreat for example - far away from chickens barbecuing and friends knocking back Cosmopolitans. But I was reluctant to put my life on hold for a weekend, particularly as many things - like the country fair and friend's birthday - come only once a year.
So it was a struggle. But it's made me appreciate one thing - the fact I can choose whether or not I go hungry. I often complain about the craziness of our super-busy stressed-out Western lifestyles. But my lifestyle gives me access to as much food as I like and for this I am, now more than ever, utterly eternally rejoicingly grateful.
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Read the detox diary here
Getting started on a detox: oops, maybe not!
Detox diet day 1: probably would have been a good idea
to get some food in ...
Detox diet day 2: the joys of reflexology while
detoxing
Detox diet day 3: wailing expected
Detox diet day 4: massage and Koi Carp
Detox diet day 5: Unbelieveable. Am enjoying this!
Detox diet day 6: Gulp. Time for a colonic ...
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