I was invited to go for a hike and then to the hot springs last Sunday.

I was very excited about the hike part, but not about the hot springs. I didn’t want to wear a bathing suit.

(If you haven’t read, I’ve gained a lot of weight since eating meat. And I am FINALLY OK with it… so much so that I’m a little embarrassed to recount this story, but feel called to, so I am.)

Here’s what happened:

I am very aware that everything I say comes true. The power of our subconscious is HUGE.

When I was younger, if I ever tried to get out of going to school by saying I was sick, I’d get sick. Even if I was totally healthy before.

When I was working as a cashier in high school I wanted to call out of work. I knew that I’d get sick if I told them that, so I decided to go a different route. I had my stepfather name a random car part. He told me “catalytic converter”, so I called and said my catalytic converter broke.

The next week… boom,  my catalytic converter went out.

I’d never even heard of that before.

So while I know lying isn’t that great anyway, this fast manifestation stuff ensures I generally don’t do it.

But I was so worked up about the stupid bathing suit that Saturday night I told Otto I was sick. I figured I’d get myself sick real quick so I could avoid having to go on the hike the next day.

(I am not proud of this.)

I felt very bad for lying, and so in the morning, the first thing I did was wake Otto up and (tearfully) confess. I hate lying and feel bad that I did it. It’s amazing how much emotion and power I had been giving to this weight gain.

After I confessed I realized I was being ridiculous and I went on the hike. I had an AWESOME time. In fact, I think it “clicked” me back. I’d been having a not-stellar few months, and after the hike I feel like I got “me” back. No more cranky, miserable Rachel, thank you.

But I guess I’d already set the process in motion for getting sick, because on Monday, boom… runny nose, sore throat, laid around for 3 days because I couldn’t work up any motivation to get out and go to the cafe.

(As a side note, it was kind of nice to be lazy. I drew, journaled, and drank lots of tea.)

Last night I was sicker than any other day.

I was sick of feeling yucky, so I decided I was finished.

Before I went to bed, I told my mind that I wanted to wake up feeling good, with enough motivation to go to the cafe, no more runny nose and no more sore throat.

I still have a slight runny nose (much less than yesterday), woke up with no sore throat, and am at a cafe right now. Motivation is running through my veins.

It’s fascinating how much power we have over our minds.

And to make myself feel better about the fact that I’ve been so whiny about my weight… I’d like to mention I’ve made tremendous strides to stop being so upset.

I bought a pair of jeans yesterday in a new size. I was resisting buying new clothes because I didn’t want to admit defeat, that this size is the new size I’d be…

But I decided yesterday that I’d feel better if I wore something that fit well and made me feel good.

So I got a new pair of jeans in a size that would’ve been unthinkable for me in the past.

And I am OK with it.

So I am moving forward, and definitely using the “power of my mind” to make magic happen.

Next up… changing the world.

The other day Otto told me that when we first got together, one of his friends told him he shouldn’t date me. He said I wasn’t beautiful enough.

Why did Otto tell me this? I don’t know. Probably because I push too much.

When he told me, I had several thoughts at once:

The one I verbalized: “I never liked that guy… I told you the minute I met him that I didn’t like him.”

“This is why I hate southern California! It’s so f*cking superficial!”

“I wonder who else feels the same way?”

“Let him come to me and try to get me to promote something of his. Just let him try!”

“What has he done with HIS life? I just launched 2 #1 best-selling books, am co-running a million dollar business, and raised $50k for charity last August. He’s still an unevolved asshole!”

…but mostly, I felt hurt.

If this was 6 months ago, I probably would have forgotten it by now.

But because I’ve gained so much weight since eating meat (like 10-20 pounds… I don’t know exactly how much because I’ve been too afraid to step on the scale), I’ve been incredibly sensitive about anything looks-related.

My mind has been going to how I’m probably the same weight now as I was when I first met Otto.

How the world probably sees me the way his “friend” does/did.

I told Otto about a guy I met the other day who invited me to be on his radio show within a few minutes of meeting me, but weirdly seemed to lose interest once I told him how I traveled so much. Otto told me the guy was probably hitting on me and it completely threw me for a loop.

The idea of my being hit on hasn’t even entered my realm of possibility lately.

I forgot that could actually even happen.

For a while it was my every day reality. But every time I go into coffee shops NOW, I find myself silently willing people to not look at me.

I know I “shouldn’t‘” feel this way.

And I know that looks “shouldn’t” matter so much.

But the fact of the matter is, we’re 99% chimp. And female chimps need to know that they are desirable. It’s a mating thing. If they can’t mate, they’re totally screwed.

So even if “intellect” tells me not to care… I don’t know how I can help it.

Yes… I’ve been exercising. And I’m signing up with a personal trainer this week.

The old me would just go on a juice fast and be done with this. But I’ve committed to eating the way my body wants.

See… the crappy part of all this is I’ve FELT so much better since I started eating meat.

My mind is much more alert, on focus, and I’ve been really productive.

My moods have been much more consistent.

But this f*cking weight has been the bane of my existence.

I’m going to stay with this meat-eating plan, because I FEEL (mostly) better and I’m holding on to hope that the weight will eventually come off.

The nutritionist said she gained weight initially too, and so did some of her clients, but it came off eventually.

She also told me to “love” the extra weight.

I am trying as hard as I can, but it’s not easy.

Otto gave me his sweatpants to wear the other day.

When I put them on, they felt “off”.

Tighter.

Normally I love wearing his sweatpants.

But this time I got so upset that I just lay in a ball, bawling, for a good 20 minutes.

I can’t wait for this phase of my life to end.

Just wanted to make a quick post about this because I LOVE Salina and KNOW you will too:

My good friend Salina wants to spread the joy and abundance that she’s received with other women – so she’s throwing a two day LOVE FEST during which she’s giving away twenty FREE 30 minute coaching sessions to WOMEN ONLY (her sessions normally run $250) for the first 20 women who sign up.

First come, first serve. You don’t want to miss out…her work ROCKS.

30 min session will include:

•    A brief health assessment
•    Secrets to permanent weight loss
•    Proven techniques for manifesting your personal and professional goals

If you want to schedule your free session, contact Salina ASAP…her sessions are only good for this Thursday & Friday.

She is OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD GORGEOUS and totally “walks the walk”.

Email her at salina.munoz@gmail.com or call (408) 310 7797.

Additional details can be found in the newsletter here: Love Fest, Ladies Only!

I make no money from this… just sharing the love! Feel free to send this to anyone who you think might be interested.

For several years of my life, I let a machine (for under $20 at your local Wal-Mart) dictate my self worth.

Back when I was in junior high, I couldn’t even go near this machine. I was petrified of it. When I knew teachers at school were going to try and make me use it, I’d fake being sick and miss school. If I *had* to use it, I’d use all sorts of tricks to manipulate it. Heck, sometimes I’d be so scared of it that I’d close my eyes when I had to use it.

As I got older, our relationship changed. I got a bit more brazen. Not only did I not avoid the machine, but every morning I’d allow it to tell me my future. This thing was INCREDIBLE – it told me exactly how my day was going to go!

If the machine gave me good news, I’d be in an excellent mood. There’d be a little more skip to my step.  My smile would be extra friendly.

On the other hand, if the machine gave me bad news, my day would be tinged with a bit of annoyance and frustration. I’d feel less worthy… less confident… less attractive.

What a powerful machine this was.

This went on and on for several years, until one day recently.

I realized how there are so many other things that dictate my self worth – like… my SELF. How I treat other people. How much I contribute to the world. How I spend my time. What I’m learning. How I’m able to empower myself and others, and a SLEW of other criteria.

And that is why I threw my scale in the dumpster and will never look back.

—

I know for a fact that a lot of women (and men) feel the way I used to. Several of my female friends have confided in me that they go through the same thing I did.

If you are one of those people that could relate, I invite you to try on a few new thoughts:

1. I know someone who went down several jean sizes without the scale moving at all. She was literally shrinking by the day but feeling like she was a failure because the scale didn’t do anything. That scale is NOT an accurate measure of fat loss.

2. Even if the scale WAS a measure of fat loss, who cares? You don’t need it. Eat the foods your body asks for and get some movement in. If you listen to your body, it’ll tell you exactly what it wants. It’s the best ally you could possibly ask for. Once you truly get in tune with what it wants, you’ll be the healthiest you’ve ever been.

(Just use your intuition to know the difference between if your body is ASKING for something or if you’re CRAVING it – ie a Snicker’s bar.)

I bet you’ll save a lot of money on weight loss stuff, too.

3. Consider throwing the damn thing out – or at least giving it to someone to hold for a while. I know some people will say it’s a good barometer of where you are with your weight, it’s important to keep track, what is not measured is not managed, blah blah blah… but odds are, you’ve been measuring for a long time, and it’s only making you miserable.

I talked to an awesome guy on the phone today who gave me a great question to ask yourself. “If I would have known what I know now, would I have done it?”

His philosophy is if the answer is no, then why still do it?

If you could go back to the past with the knowledge that you would spend years making yourself miserable by giving your power to a scale, would you have done it?

If the answer is no, then stop.

Lou Corona, the guy that I mentioned in my last post, can look at someone’s blood and tell them what areas of their body need to be worked on.

While visiting Otto in Orange County last week, I decided to take advantage and schedule blood testing with Lou.

The results were REALLY eye-opening.

First of all, this is what normal blood is supposed to look like:

It’s supposed to be nice circular round cells with fluid around them, not overlapping with other blood cells.

When I went to go get my blood tested, I thought my blood would look great. I’m part of the 1% of Americans who eat 5 fruits and veggies a day, I make healthy choices, and I do lots of cleansing.

…That was NOT the case.

Now, to be fair, there is a reason why my blood might look so bad at this particular time (I’ll get into that in a few moments). It was still very unexpected though.

Here’s what my blood looked like (keep in mind these pictures aren’t in color):

(You can see all the pictures here if you want. Some of the pictures there are listed individually or you can get the full 29 – including my “layer” pictures – by uploading the .zip. Please keep in mind I had to make these pictures smaller so they’d fit inside here, so stuff might be skewed.)

It was amazing how many pictures I was able to see. The girl who took my blood took ONE PINPRICK out of my finger but was able to find out landslides of information!

Our bodies work REALLY HARD for us.

I’ve got to say though -

Some Of These Results PISSED ME OFF!

For example – do you see the second to last picture where I have that disgusting black blob in there? That’s an indication of SMOKING… but I’ve never once smoked a cigarette in my life. I asked Theresa (the lady who did my blood) about it, and she said it could also be from smoking other things, or from second hand smoke.

Considering I’ve tried smoking weed like 3x in my life and hated it every time, I can safely reason that the big blob is from SECOND HAND SMOKE.

That kind of makes me mad! I don’t like how other people can influence MY body so much… but at least now I’m empowered with the information to do something about it.

Since the last time I was around second-hand smoke was years ago, this leads me to another point, too.

It’s INSANE How Much Our Body Remembers.

Theresa (the lady who took my blood) did a cleanse when she turned 50. The results she found were SHOCKING.

At one point 6 weeks or so into her cleanse, she saw tons of nicotine crystals in her blood. She had no idea why they were there so she called her mentor. She said, “I know these look like nicotine crystals, and I know you’ve told me these are nicotine crystals… but am I going crazy? Are these REALLY nicotine crystals!?”

When her mentor said yes, she was stunned. The crystals were from when she last smoked 23 YEARS AGO.

23 YEARS AGO!!!!

Our body holds on to so much stuff it’s insane. When we keep pummeling it with food, it has no choice but to “hide” the stuff it doesn’t have time to work on in order to keep up with the workflow of the new stuff.

When Theresa took the time out to cleanse, old stuff was able to get worked on. She eventually got it all cleared out, and it proved to be a very fascinating process.

For me, I think the reason my blood looks so awful at this particular moment is because I just did a 7 day cleanse. Lots of stuff had time to come out and get fixed.

This really makes me think, though… WOW. I still have MORE to cleanse. And it makes me wonder what other people’s blood is looking like… and what happens if they don’t do anything about it!

This Is Information People NEED To Know!

I mentioned to Theresa that if I learned THIS kind of stuff in science class, I’d have been a lot more interested.

This is CRUCIAL stuff. It affects how long we live, to diseases we get (do you know how easy it is to cure things like arthritis???), our energy levels… and on and on and on.

Theresa told me that one time a soccer coach had entire team get tested with her. The 14 and 15 year old girls, as well as some of their parents, were stunned at the results. Girls who were eating Skittles and Oreos for breakfast looked at their blood and were flabbergasted at the results — and the fact that their parent’s blood looked better than theirs. A lot of them made a lot of changes… QUICKLY.

I am willing to bet most people would be willing to eat healthier if they knew EXACTLY how it was affecting them.

Another interesting thing is,

One Look At Your Blood Can Tell You What Parts Of Your Body Need To Be Worked On!

The pictures I showed you were pictures of “live” blood. Theresa also took a picture of my “dead” blood so she could see what areas in my body needed to be worked on.

Because blood can change quickly in the short term, practitioners go back several layers to get a long-term view of what’s going on.

From looking at 8 prinpricks in my skin (remember, this is different from the first part), she was able to tell me:

- I need more green vegetables (I already have a ton, but I JUICE them. She told me I needed the fiber from them.)

- That my liver and gallbladder needed to be flushed out (Incidentally I passed about 50 gallstones that week!!!… without doing any kind of flush).

- That I should have some kind of “defect” somewhere around my chest or ribs. I actually DO have a weird looking bump on my back in that location.

In general from looking at my blood, I learned:

- I am enzyme deficient (so now I am taking multi-digestive enzymes with every meal)

- I am not properly digesting carbs (she gave me a 4 out of 10 on digestion there), and fats and proteins get a “6″ (taking proper supplementation to fix that now too)

- I have yeast in my blood (do you know almost every American has candida?)

- Glucose is fermented in my blood

- I need to breathe better

It’s also interesting that our EMOTIONS can severely impact our blood.

Lou told me that when we feel an angry word, every single cell in our body adjusts to that feeling. Say enough negative and bad-feeling words, and your blood gets REALLY ugly.

Theresa was able to tell me how much stress I had in my life just by looking at my blood. It was quite fascinating.

Like I said, I think a lot of my blood looked this bad because my cleanse had “opened” some stuff up. That being said though, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I’m going to stop cleansing any time soon. I want beautiful, clean blood effective IMMEDIATELY!

I respect my body too much to NOT give it that.

A lot of people have been asking me lately about recipes for juices, smoothies, and other energy potions.

Here are some of my favorites:

Lemon-Ginger Blast:

I have this one every morning. Lou Corona was the one who came up with it, and the guy is a freaking BEACON of health knowledge. He’s 57 and looks like he’s 25, tops. I can tell you countless stories about him that would blow your mind (like how he started working with a paraplegic whose head was tilted to the left hand side all the time… and two years later, the guy become a yoga teacher).

Lou has been having this recipe every day for the past 20+ years.

I like to have it every morning, and then I wait an hour before having anything else to allow my body to fully digest it. The entire combination is WONDERFUL your metabolism.

1 lemon (super-alkalizing)
2 apples (for taste I think, but apple’s also a great blood cleanser)
1/2 inch to 1 inch of ginger (so amazing for digestion)
Pinch of cayenne (internal fire – really gives you energy, especially the more you add on – but use sparingly till you’re used to it)
4 oz of purified water

When I first started drinking it, the taste was too much for me to handle (I was also putting in just 1 apple). I put in pineapple to dilute the taste.

I don’t do that anymore, and I also put in a jalapeno instead of cayenne. As you get more and more used to it, you can increase the intensity of the pepper.

I’m not saying this drink is my favorite tasting out of all of them that I make – but because I know how wonderful it is for my body, I happily drink it. The pineapple made it a lot better when I was using that as a transition.

I know Lou adds stuff to it, and so do I now. The beauty with this drink is that you can add ordinarily bitter tasting veggies and you can’t taste them at ALL inside the drink. This is a phenomenal way to get your greens in without having to deal with not liking the taste I’ll usually add parsley, kale, cilantro, or dandelion greens. If I want a big batch I’ll also add celery. Celery is super-hydrating (they say 4x more than water), but I usually just add it because it juices really well and gives a lot of juice-base very easily.

Banana-orange-date-almond

This is a smoothie recipe I tell people about when they want to start having more healthy stuff, but want some delicious transitional drinks before committing to too much.

It’s incredibly filling and REALLY delicious. When Tim stayed here for a week, he tasted all sorts of delicious things (including my prized Tsoynamis), but said this was his favorite.

For this, you need a mason jar (they cost around $1 or less – I just got a box of 12 for $8 or something) where you soak RAW almonds with purified water. This helps remove the enzyme inhibitors so you can get all the benefits from them. Soak them for 12 hours, change the water (it’ll be dirty), and then soak for another 12 hours.

How much of each ingredient will really depend on how many people you’re making it for.

If I were making it for myself, I’d put in a small handful of almonds, some purified water, a small banana, an orange, and 4 dates.

When you put the dates in, it usually works better if you chop them up to lots of little pieces first – even if you are putting them in the blender.

This is incredibly delicious and VERY filling. I made Otto a mason jar full for his 6 hour ride home and he was stuffed – so stuffed, in fact, that when someone invited him to his favorite restaurant later that night, he had to think twice. (If you knew how much he loved that restaurant, it’d mean a lot to you ).

That means you can use this as a meal replacement. It’s super cheap, super filling, and much more healthy than most things you’ll find elsewhere.

Chocolate Jump

This is an insanely energizing drink I have.

I won’t list the ingredients since it comes in a mix, but there’s 23 of them. I like to have this when I want a healthy drink that’s fast. I’ll just mix the powder with agave or dates or honey and make a smoothie out of it. I’ve been meaning to buy an ice cream maker so I can make ice cream out of it, too!

My friends Steph and Todd sell it, and I’ve been thinking about selling it too. I made a super-quick (think: 2 hours or less) site for it at ChocolateJUMP.com that I desperately need to update, but as of right now I’m shooting orders their way. It was on my goal list to sell 500 this month though so I plan being more diligent about it soon.

(This post is not to sell it, though – it’s just to give my favorites. I thought this would be a good one to add because of how energizing it is and how QUICKLY you can make it – which I know is a factor for a lot of people).

Some of my other favorite drinks:

Yerba mate tea – Energizing, great for focus and clarity
Spinach/orange juice – Something about this combination just screams DIVINITY to me. It tastes so damn delicious!
Watermelon juice – Super-yummy. As my body gets cleaner and cleaner, I find that it almost gets TOO sweet now, so I dilute it with water for massive perfection.

If you haven’t read my post on the differences between juices and smoothies, that might be of benefit too

Lately I’ve gotten really into different herbs (Mother Nature’s “medicine cabinet”) and the different things that they can do to help our bodies.

It’s so interesting to me how I might get an herb because I heard it does one thing, but then feel additional things happening to my body. I’ll look it up and then find out that the herb can do whatever I’m experiencing too.

It’s incredible how potent and powerful herbs are. It constantly shocks me at how behind us westerners are compared to easterners with medicine/healing.

You can use herbs in lots of ways. I plan on making some kind of ebook soon and then donating 100% of the profits to charity. For this post though, I’m just going to mention a few things about one way to infuse herbs into your body, which is by making tea.

I recently went to Souvia Tea in Phoenix (they also have an online store) and asked a ton of questions.

Here are some cool things I learned:

- When you buy a tea bag, you’re getting mashed up stuff. You have no idea where the herbs are coming from or what they’re remnants of. With looseleaf teas, you get fresher, higher quality herbs and flowers. They smell significantly better and look a ton more vibrant.

- Rooibos teas make excellent iced teas and regular teas. These are my favorite because they’re caffeine free (I’m not sure about you, but caffeinated tea dehydrates me bigtime).

- A lot of looseleaf tea is the same price as tea bags. I got a few kinds of tea for $5.99 for the “trial” package, which makes 20-25 cups of tea. Some of the other ones were more expensive, but I got those more for the herbs in them, which are traditionally expensive.

- If you’re making iced tea, instead of putting 2 tablespoons of tea in your tea ball or french press, put 3 or 4 (this more concentrated batch accounts for the ice in the tea).

When I went, I first asked for a tea that includes fennel (great for digestion – something else I’ve been learning a lot about lately). The girl showed me this one. It smelled awesome and I bought it.

I also got this one (it’s a phenomenal cleanser) and this one (just because it smelled amazing).

The other one I got includes the “Chinese herb of immortality”, and I’m excited to see how it works for me. That’s this one.

Another phenomenal tea is yerba mate. I have been in love with that since I lived in Buenos Aires. Both the looseleaf kind and the bottles that are riddled with sugar are extraordinary for focus, clarity, and energy. I recently learned that some of the popular energy drinks like Monster (I think that’s the one) include yerba mate.

As you know if you follow my Twitter or Facebook streams, I drink a TON of juice (and sometimes smoothies).

For my body (NOT EVERYBODY), juicing is better than smoothies at this time. That’s for a few reasons:

- When you make a smoothie, all of the fiber from the fruits and vegetables is still included. With juice, it is NOT. That means you can directly digest all of the nutrients from the fruits and veggies without any hold-up from the fiber. This gives your body a break and creates a nice healing process.

- Because there’s no digestion hold-up, you get an immediate surge of energy.

- With juicing, it’s easier to get important veggies in. If I put kale in a smoothie, for example, the smoothie is NOT going to taste good (in my opinion). The same goes for cilantro, parsley, and dandelion greens. In a juicer, the taste will easily get concealed when other key ingredients are put in.

- I can’t eat a ton of food. Juice is nice and light and doesn’t make me feel weighed down.

- A juice usually has more veggies versus fruit, so you’re not taking in as much sugar.

- There’s a juice I drink every morning (recipe coming) that jump-starts my whole day. I drink it right away and it gets my digestion jump-started and gets me going with lots of focus and energy.

The juicer I use is the Omega 8005 Juicer – Wheatgrass, Fruit and Vegetable Juicer. This is what Dr. Mercola recommends and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.

The other “holy grail” juicer is the Green Star Juicer. This is what Otto uses (and loves). After using both, I think my Omega is more powerful, but the Green Star makes more juice (because of the blade it uses). The Green Star is more expensive initially but probably cheaper in the VERY long run if you make a ton of juice like I do.

If budget is an issue, you can also get an inexpensive juicer. My friend Mona successfully juice feasted (drank juice alone) for several months with a Jack LaLanne juicer. She just strained out her juices with a bag to remove all pulp/fiber.

There are some reasons why smoothies might work better for people:

- Smoothies will keep you fuller for far longer. I think juicing and smoothies take the same amount of time to make, but a smoothie lasts longer. If you don’t have the luxury of time like I do and want a way to get more fruits and veggies in, a smoothie is a great choice.

- Random thing, but spinach is a lot easier to put in a smoothie versus juice (it seems to take forever to go through the spout of a juicer). There are lots of superb minerals in spinach, and I think it’s probably the BEST veggie for smoothies since you can’t really taste it when you throw a banana inside.

- The fiber in smoothies helps cleanse your body out and keeps your bowel movements regular.

- A smoothie usually has more fruits versus veggies, so if you’re easing your way into eating healthier, a smoothie might taste significantly better to you.

- You can throw in tons of supplements with a smoothie. Some things I like to add are bee pollen (FYI: We do NOT need as much protein as people say… and what we really need are the amino acids, not the protein. Bee pollen is an amazing source of every single amino acid needed for our body), MSM (great for de-calcifying the bones), marine phytoplankton, etc. If you’re working out or strongly feel like you need more protein, you can also throw some of that in. Sun Warrior Protein is the best one I’ve found.

I use a cheapskate blender, but most people swear by the Vitamix. I might end up getting that later if I feel the intuitive need for more smoothies.

I think that’s the biggest thing – listen to what your body is telling you. For example, Jaime has been craving tons of fruits lately. It’s what’s best for her body right now. I’ve been craving lots of greens – and definitely a ton of water.

I read a story in Victoria Boutenko’s 12 Steps to Raw Foods about when she and her children started eating raw. At one point, her son asked her to get some blueberries. He kept eating them as fast as she could buy them. At one point she bought a FLAT of them to last him for a while, and he ate them in a day. The same went for her daughter – I think she was eating grapefruit or something. Both of the children had health problems, and when Victoria took them to the doctor, it turns out that both kids were intuitively eating what helped them with their health problems. Her doctor had told Victoria to have her son eat blueberries because they’re supposed to be awesome for asthma (what her son had). Grapefruits were the suggested food for whatever her daughter had.

It never ceases to amaze me at how ridiculously wise our bodies are.

That being said, I’ll post some general recipes soon, since a lot of people have been asking for them.

I decided to quit the juice fast after 4.5 days. It just wasn’t working for me.

I made the first video a few hours ago, and then spoke to my friend Joshua, who inspired me to add more – hence the 2nd video.

(I’m sorry about the lighting the second time, I wasn’t thinking about any of it as it was totally impromptu. I’m wearing my PJ’s in it. )

This was an excellent learning experience for me and I thank you for letting me share it with you.

I posted this from my 5am – 9am experience:

This morning wasn’t super-awesome.

I woke up, sat at the edge of my bed for a while (because every time I got up yesterday I blacked out for a good 30 seconds), and got up. Luckily today I could see, so I thought today might be a better day. I know Steve Pavlina mentioned his Day 4 was much better than Day 3, so I hoped for the best.

When I went to go stand up to make juice, I had very little energy. I put the first bunch of celery in and found myself dwindling. I put a cucumber in and was REALLY dwindling. When I went to cut up the second cucumber, I knew I was about to pass out so I went to go sit down on my couch for 5 minutes. After I got up to try and finish, I had to sit down again. Finally I was able to finish the juice, but I had no energy to drink it so I put it back in the fridge and went back to bed.

Oddly enough, during the juicing this morning, I had almost no motor skills or brain function. It was very weird. I went to go throw some cucumber mash away and put it right in the hole part of my cutting board, so that when I lifted the cutting board, the cucumber fell right through again. I went to go pick up a plate in my sink and didn’t account for all the water on it, and ended up soaking myself. Those were just some weird things that obviously normally I would remember to do.

After I took my nap, I felt a lot more clear-headed but still didn’t have a lot of energy. I put one sock on, finished some emails, and then put the other sock on. I couldn’t do them both at the same time or it’d wipe me out.

On the good side though, I’m not feeling nauseous or light-headed today if I sit down… only when I exert any energy on anything.

All of this is making me strongly consider how long I should fast for. I started out intending 30 days, then thought 14 days at minimum, but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll do 7 days this time and then next time I’ll do another 7 days. While I know it’s very healthy for all this to be happening, I also don’t want to overwhelm my body.

I mean, I have no desire to eat or anything (even though I keep having food dreams. Last night I dreamt about these popcorn chicken things I used to eat all the time when I was 16-22)… it’s just that I read that these days are supposed to start getting better, and so far, no dice.

I know Jaime said after 7 days she started feeling worse and worse too…

Hmm, I guess I’ll play it by ear.

Oh, and I’ve lost 6 pounds in 3 days.

From 9am – 2pm:

I was randomly crying a few times throughout the day. I knew there’d be a lot of emotional detox from the getgo so I was prepared for it.

The thing is, any emotion one feels is really meant to last for a short while. Normal people are supposed to feel through an emotion and then let it be done. When you emotionally eat, you block those emotions and that energy stays stuffed in your body. Since I emotionally ate my weigh into being over 100 lbs overweight before, I clearly have a ton of stuff to detox. I knew that going into this.

I also forced myself to drink some more juice (36 oz so far) and also 40 oz of water. I’ll be drinking more of each later.

In the beginning of this time period I couldn’t even sit without feeling lightheaded, but now I can sit for a few hours… I just can’t stand for more than a minute or two without wanting to collapse.

I’m thinking more and more about ending this after 7 days. That’s because:

a) I don’t want to screw up my metabolism, and quite frankly, I’m afraid I’ll gain the weight I lost with a quickness if I do this too long. It’s well known that this fasting WILL slow down your metabolism. Advocates of fasting say that if you eat an all raw diet afterwards, it won’t matter.

I don’t want to eat an all raw diet after and don’t think that’s what’s best for my body.

I was also thinking it might be nice to do 7 days now, maintain my new weight, and then do 7 days later.

b) The idea of laying around in my bed for 30 days is a pretty crappy one. I know there are times when I’m supposed to feel euphoric, but I seem to be having the same reactions Jaime did… and she said she was bedridden from the middle of week 1 through day 12.

I have work to do.

c) Most people say they love green juice during the fast and want tons of it afterwards. Everything about that damn drink nauseates me right now (and I used to drink tons of celery, cucumber, or celery-cucumber juice pre-fast).

d) Even though I set up some conditions to make this easier than normal, they’re still not optimal. When Jaime did her fast, she was able to have a plethora of spa treatments to help make things easier – tons of massages, oxygen treatments, a sauna, elixirs to ease the pain of detoxing, and a full staff of support to help her with any concerns that came her way.

Maybe I should go to a retreat or set myself up with better conditions in the future.

e) Most people that do best on extended fasts do it when they’re eating raw or vegan for a while. This wasn’t the case for me.

I guess my hesitancy is that I don’t want to look like a quitter. I talked to Jaime about this though and she made me feel a LOT better. She too, ended her fast a few days earlier, and was worried about what people would think. She ultimately decided that it was HER body and she knew what she was feeling better than anyone else could.

I know I’ll probably be judged if I end the fast after 7 days, but to be honest, unless someone has gone through the fasting themselves, I really could care less what their opinions are. This is a very intense, grueling process that I underestimated.

Even if only do 7 days (the bare minimum), I’ll be really proud of myself.