Category: Personal Stuff

Well, here it is. We’re at T-minus-zero today. So, I had a breakfast of toast and blueberry preserves (2 pieces of toast, thanks!). And I had as much apple juice as I could before 2pm (14:00). According to the recipes I’ve seen, I’m not allowed to eat or drink after 2 (14:00). So, it’s 6:45 in the evening (18:45) now, and I’m home. I didn’t get to write my entry at midday today due to various scheduling conflicts.

So anyway, I did actually do the salt water flush this morning, with the usual expected results. Apart from that, I drank a lot of apple juice, but I didn’t get around to eating any of the apples I took. Even for lunch, I only had 15 minutes between the end of one task and the beginning of a meeting, so I had to eat my rice and beans with the quickness. I find I’m chewing my food a lot more since coming off the cleansing fast. It’s weird the things that I’ve become aware of that way. I used to just scarf my food down like the earth was ending or something. Now, I take a little more time about it.

So, anyway, at 6pm (18:00) I’m supposed to take a 3/4 cup of water mixed with epsom salts. Well, you’re supposed to actually mix 4 tablespoons of epsom salt with 3 cups of water and then refrigerate (at 14:00/2pm). I wasn’t home so that wasn’t a possibility. Instead, I did it when I came home at 6:15 (18:15). At 18:40 (6:40pm) I drank my 3/4 cup. So at 20:40 (8:40pm) I will drink another 3/4 cup, and shortly thereafter I will mix a half cup of olive oil (cold pressed extra-virgin organic) with a half cup of freshly squeezed grapefruit (what else? organic) juice.

I basically have to get prepped for bed, then drink that mixture in under 5 minutes and lie down immediately and go to bed. That’ll happen at about 22:20 (10:20 pm) tonight. So that’s what’s in store. Tomorrow I’ll report on my unpleasant night. Wish me luck!

See what happened on Day 4

Read about my liver cleanse tomorrow

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First of all, my apologies to all your RSS reader users out there for filling up your screens with my other two entries for today. But, uh, back to the lecture at hand (Perfection is perfected, so Im a let em understand), the apple juice “fast.” So, with all the bloatiness of yesterday, I was barely able to drink two glasses of apple juice at work. I got home and the bloat started to rid itself off, let’s just say.

Aimee and I went running again last night (put off from the night before remember). We had a pretty good run, over all. I found it much easier yesterday, than even the first 90-second jog day. Aimee’s shins were a little painful (not splints), but I suspect the cause is her cross-trainers. We’re going, on Saturday, to get her a pair of running shoes. Last night was quite warm, in fact — we definitely did not need those sweatshirts, though the forecasts indicate that we will need them this weekend. So, now I’m thinking about this running schedule, and I don’t think I’ll be able to run on Friday because of the no-liquids-after-6pm thing (we start our run at 6pm). And Saturday, I may be too weak/exhausted from all the expelling of stones, but I’ll give it a good American try.

That means that Sunday can not be the start of our third week of running. It’ll have to be Monday. Week three is challenging because it involves 90 seconds of running then 90 seconds of walking, followed by 3 minutes (!) of running and 3 minutes of walking, followed by a do-it-all-again. To go from 90 seconds of running per block this time to 3 minutes for half the blocks next time will be a challenge, I think. It might not be, but the prospect seems somewhat daunting, anyway.

Now, dinner. Let’s talk about that. We must, even though I’ve been avoiding the subject thus far. Now, you’ll recall that we bought red apples, green apples and pears for me to eat this week. I’ve been eating the pears and red apples. The green apples are sour/tart, and definitely not my favourite. So I had this idea, a brainwave really, that I would chop up apples and pears and maybe some boiled potatoes into squares, and then sprinkle some chaat masala over them. I figured the spiciness of the masala and the sweetness of the other apples and pears would help with the tartiness of the green apples. Turns out, we threw out the box of chaat masala we had before we moved out of Winchester last month. So there went that idea. I still wanted relatively raw fruit and vegetables, so I wound up ordering two chaats at the Punjabi Dhaba for take-away: a potato chaat and a banana chaat (which they ran out of so I got a papdi chat, which isn’t so fresh fruity, but had some fresh veg in it). Aimee had chhole bhature of course (it’s her favourite Punjabi dish).

I’ve noticed that my eyes pop open at 5 in the morning every day. The alarm clock doesn’t ring until 5:30, so I always go right back to sleep, and then snooze till 5:40. This morning, I snoozed till past 6. As a result, I skipped the salt water flush (because I really really do need 90 minutes to 2 hours for the damned thing). Instead, I will do it when I get home tonight. For dinner, we’ll be having rice and beans (probably Indian style rather than our usual Puerto Rican style — minus the ham).

The Icky Bit: The reason for the rice and beans tonight and tomorrow for lunch (left overs, you know) is two fold: it’s light and relatively fat free, and I need some weight in my digestive system for the liver cleansing process itself. Tomorrow, all this comes to a head, are you all excited as me?

Catch up to Day 3

Find out how the last day (Day 5) goes.

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Yeah, so I’ve discovered something. Unfiltered organic unsweetened apple juice is thick. It bloats me right up. I’m physically unable to ingest a gallon a day. So I’m doing my best to ingest half a gallon, on the theory that some is better than none at all. So, the idea is that the mallic acid (is that what it’s called?) in the apple juice softens the stones. I’m not a biologist, an internist, a physiologist or a gastro-intestinologist, so I can’t say that that statement is true. It is what I have read, and so I dutifully report.

So anyway, I did eat some soup last night. I even had it with a bit of challah-alike bread (very soft, and made even more so by dunking) with it. I had half gallon of juice yesterday during the day. I’ll do the same today. I usually drink a glass or two at breakfast time, and then drink what I can throughout the day at my desk. For lunch. I’ll be having an apple and a pear, probably. More soup tonight, or maybe arroz con frijoles (rice and beans, Puerto Rican style) or something. So, needless to say, the title of this miniseries is a little misleading. It should actually be “The Liver Cleanse: T minus 2 days”.

Now, I’d like to have my insides clean for the actual liver flush, so I’ve been taking bentonite in the mornings for the past two days. So, when I first announced my cleansing fast, a good friend of mine commented with some wise words. And in response to my post about printer suggestions, I got an email from Renat saying I could have his old one for cheap. Aimee and I were planning on going to visit Renat and Anna (the first commenter, and Renat’s wife) that weekend to see their new digs and to buy the printer. Turns out, Anna has gone on this fast before and had a few words of caution, which I took to heart.

Well, while we were there, Anna told me all about Bentonite and the eggshell effect, and how it cleans your insides as it passes through. She even kindly gave me a bottle of the stuff. That was during Day 2 of the cleansing fast, and so I did not want to add it to my regimen. Instead, I opted to try it once that fast was done. Yesterday was the first day that I tried bentonite. I didn’t notice any effects from it, to be honest. I will be sure to report if I do see any, though.

So, the blood report did come in the mail yesterday, as did the ultrasound report. The ultrasound does show an enlarged (fatty) liver, but the blood report shows normal liver enzyme levels, but it has the added gluten allergy thingy in it. So, yeah, I’m even more sure that the hospital mixed up their blood samples. I’ll be going in on Monday or Tuesday to have that redone.

We were supposed to go running last night. With traffic, I got home fairly late, and so it had stared raining pretty strongly (and got really cold), so we skipped. Today, Aimee’s getting us some sweatshirts so we can at least stay somewhat warm for tonight’s run. I do notice that my personal running schedule is now screwy, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to run on Friday night (seeing as how I can’t eat anything after 2pm and can’t drink anything after 6pm). I guess we’ll have to run on Saturday and still start the new week on Sunday. Or maybe our new week will start on Monday night instead. We’ll play it by ear, I suppose, but I’m open to suggestions from any of you still reading me.

Till tomorrow then.

If you missed Day 2, it’s probably a good thing.

Will we run tomorrow? Will I eat more apples? Will I throw up the apple juice? Find out in Tomorrow’s (Day 4’s) entry!

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I tend to not post political things, but I’ve been seeing something on those internets that has been pissing me right off for a long time. And since I just posted about governance within Gentoo, that put me in a political mood, so here I go. The Republican party has its issues. The Democratic party has its issues. By and large, I don’t see much separation between the two. Justin Raimondo said it best: they are both just two wings of the war party.

On some message boards and blog comments I see some Democrat supporters lament that had Al Gore won in 2000, a lot of the problems we currently face would not be problems for us to face. I don’t know how to even begin to gauge the veracity of such a speculation, but I will say this: do any of those lamenters even remember who Al Gore’s running mate was? There’s a certain irony there, don’t you think?

It’s that same mentality that led to the asinine “Anyone But Bush” campaign in 2004. How do you even imagine winning with such a campaign? “ABB” led Democrats to get exactly who they deserved: anyone, but Bush. Anyone even remember the guy’s name? All he had going for him was that he wasn’t Bush, for crying out loud.

There is a little bit of analogy to Gentoo here — there are people with noble goals for the project, but with little vision/direction on carrying them out. Being on the Gentoo lists is probably what it feels like to be in congress: a lot of noise over absolutely nothing.

By the way, my tone here is one of observation, not one of frustration.

Edit: linked to the irony

Ickness Alert. Skip this entire blog post, is my advice, quite frankly.

True story: When I was an undergraduate in the arctic colds of Rochester, NY, I lived, for a while, in the on-campus housing. Now, a central facet of most dormitory buildings is the shared bathrooms. So each “hall” typically has its own set of bathrooms and showers that is shared with your neighbours. I detested these for anything but showering (and even that because my choices were rather limited, as you’ll see). My uncle has a phrase “making water” to refer to it, and that was fine. I could do that in there. Number 2, on the other hand, was a complex issue for me. Actually, it still is (as you’ll see as well, later). Anyway, I had to come up with something creative, or just die, I suppose. Now, since I was in the College of Engineering, I frequented the science and engineering library on the far end of campus. It sat right next to (and was connected, physically, with) the Computer Science building. Up on the 5th floor, the bathrooms were smaller and got cleaned at 1 in the morning every day (except weekends). Thus, my bathroom time was 2 in the morning on weekdays (including Friday). It was relatively untouched on the weekends as well (with me being the only user), so that was OK.

What? Neurotic? Me? Seriously?

The implication here is that I don’t much care for public restrooms. They tend to be dirty, filthy and disease ridden (they may not be, but I perceive them as such). This is why I go before a long trip and at the hotel at the end of the trip. Throughout the trip, I will not go (except to make water). If, on the off-chance, I do have to go (this happened once in my life, when I was 12 I think), I went in the airplane’s restroom — I was flying unaccompanied, and so I was the first one on the plane.

Oh yeah, the shower thing. I solved that by wearing rubber slippers (chappals if you’re in India) in the shower. Icked me the hell out, I can tell you.

So, yesterday, I did the salt water flush in the morning, as per usual. And I thought I’d gotten it all out of my system before I left the house (took 3 visits). I got to work, and I still felt like I had to go. This was 8:30 in the morning. So, I decided “it can’t be that much, I can just hold it till I get home.” Well, that wasn’t happening. At 9, the pressure was too much, so I had to go. I had to perform the ritual of carefully layering the seat with pristine t.p, of course. And I went. I had to. I’m almost ashamed of it.

At 11, I had to go again. Same ritual, same feeling of shame, heightened level of “ick!”

I had to stay late, so I got home at 7 that night, and I had to go once more. I don’t know if all that was from the salt water flush, because it all “whooshed,” or whether it was because I finally had something other than lemonade. But yesterday was not such a pleasant day.

The soup last night was simply delicioso. Aimee did well. she made a broth with potatoes and celery and carrots and onions and tomatoes. It was relatively bland, but the flavours of the vegetables were so rich. The master cleanse fast surely cleared up my nasal passages (!). My sense of smell has definitely improved significantly. I used to have a horrible (read, virtually non-existent) sense of smell up to now.

I brought some soup for lunch, and am about to eat it. I also brought with me today two apples (of which I’ve eaten the green one) and a pear, just in case. I’ve gone through about a third of a gallon of apple juice as well. This isn’t a starving fast, that’s for sure.

My sincerest apologies for all the ickiness in the post, if you’ve made it this far. Frankly I’m astonished that I even divulged all that. Just, um, keep it to yourself, yeah?

My on-the-scene thoughts of Day 1

I bet you wish you had skipped right through to Day 3.

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Well, I transitioned this morning from the lemon juice to a glass of orange juice. I did the salt water flush, of course. There’s still flushing happening, which is inconceivable to me. Whatever, I’ll be flushing all week anyway.

Right, so I took a half gallon bottle of apple juice to work with me. Sure enough, the apple juice takes care of your hunger. People, I’m at the point where I can watch someone eat and smell their delicious food (today I could smell my boss’ pesto pasta thingy during our lunch meeting), and…

…it does nothing for me. No salivation, no pangs, no hunger, nothing. I’m full up on apple juice, and apparently satiated. I will be having a light vegetable brothy soup tonight that Aimee’s making for me for dinner. I’m pretty excited about that. And mainly behttp://planet.gentoo.org/developers/seemant/2006/10/17/the_apple_juice_fast_day_2cause I’ll have that tonight and for lunch tomorrow, then it’s back to apple juice until Friday lunch. I bought fruits to eat, but this apple juice makes me not hungry during the day. In fact, it’s after 5 right now, and I’m still on my last glass of juice. Certainly, I will not be drinking the full gallon today, but half a gallon is still pretty good.

Read ahead to Day 2

I want to thank all my readers for enjoying my adventures in the Master Cleanse. To be honest, I don’t know if I could have finished the fast, had I not constantly blogged about it. I kept having this 3pm like deadline to submit a status report to you all. And really, that helped. It kept me motivated to continue on with the fast, despite some of the unpleasantness.

I should shout out to The CureZone forums and FAQ for all the helpful information. Well, the information I took from them were the other users’ experiences with the fast. It helped knowing what kinds of things to expect.

Before I began the fast, I invested in the inventor’s book about the fast. Dr. Stanley Burroughs apparently developed the fast in 1941 and published that book(let) (it’s only 50 pages long) in 197something. Granted, the book does not have any real clinical information, just anectdotal evidence; still, it was good to read his directions for the process.

If anyone is inspired to do any of the fasts (or indeed other naturpathic cures), I’d be really interested to know about it, so by all means leave me a comment or send me an email!

Thanks everyone!

Obligatory Disclaimer: Dammit Jim, I’m a Gentoo developer, not a Doctor! Please seek the advice of a professional, before embarking yadayada.

Edit: Added Disclaimer

Here I am, on the penultimate day of this fast. Looking back, it hasn’t felt as long as I thought it would feel. Admittedly, there was a day back there when I thought it would never end. I woke up this morning from the effects of last night’s laxative tea. I woke up in pain from the, well, contractions, I guess. And that is strange, you know, because I haven’t eaten anything, so the only thing it can be is the old waste stuff. So, again with the dark stuff. Not a lot of it, but there it was. Salt water flush went as expected.

I had to go at about 6:30 this morning, then I went back to bed to arise at 8. I did the flush at about 8:15. by 9:30, I was done with it, so I drank some water, hung out, cleaned the house. I had my first glass of lemon juice at 11:30. Since then, I’ve been drinking a glass of it every 75 minutes or so.
I’ve also felt like going all day, with nothing there to actually go.

I’m sorry for the exceedingly graphic nature of this post, by the way. It’s 9:27 in the evening (21:27 for all you hip people) and I’m only now writing, because of how limited this day has been in terms of things happening.

Tomorrow is the last day of this fast. We’ll be heading out to the grocery stores for apple juice and cold pressed olive oil and grapefruits and, oh yeah, epsom salts. Oh right, lots of fresh fruit and veg. as well, because that’ll be pretty much my diet for the week: a gallon of apple juice a day and fruits/veg when I’m hungry in between chugging the juice. Will I even be hungry I wonder?

Well, good night, everyone.

See how Day 8 went for me.

Look at my summary in the final day of this fast.

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The final day is here! I’m really happy to be at the end of the line here! Now, don’t get me wrong: the lemon juice/lemonade drink is actually quite delicious. And it satiates hunger. It’s just, well, it’s not exactly a dosa, you know what I’m saying? It’s definitely not warm chocolate chip cookies or apple pie or pumpkin pie or anything I’m looking forward to eating. I may be taking back the whole apple pie thing next weekend, after a week of apple juice, apples and pears.

Tomorrow night I’ll be eating some veggie soup for dinner and I’ll have the cooked veggies (sans soup) for lunch the day after. Tomorrow morning’s breakfast will be organic orange juice with pulp (Aimee likes it without, but I don’t). But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s wrap up this fast first.

All in all, I’m really glad I did it. I certainly feel clean. My tongue is pink again, by the way. This morning again I had some dark stuff with the flush. And even some before, but mind you, I forgot to drink my laxative tea on time last night. I remembered to go make it once I was in bed, and I kept intending to go do it. Next thing I knew, it was morning. Apparently, I didn’t need it.

Now, yesterday was a bit of a down day for me, but I think it was just because I was decompressing from the week. Today was a lot better. Aimee and I went out to Nashua to get me a replacement wedding band (I lost mine a week ago). Then we bought some sweaters for me to wear to work, because the weather has definitely taken a turn — it’s truly autumn, now. Finally, we went grocery shopping to get some apples, pears and organic unsweetened, unfiltered apple juice.

Aimee and a few of my friends have been worried throughout that I wouldn’t have enough energy. To be honest, I didn’t really feel lethargic or lazy at all. In fact, we went running three times. Our second week of running kicked off earlier today. This time it was alternating 90-second running with 2-minute walking for 20 minutes. Actually, 21 minutes, but let’s not split hairs 🙂 The whole idea for running was inspired by my friend, Felipe. We were talking in some irc channel once about weight and fitness and stuff, and he runs and highly recommended it. That, combined with my secret desire to run (but my consistent failure at it), made a compelling case. That Aimee felt the same way sealed the deal. Plus, we get to work out together for a change.

In sum: I recommend this clean if you’re feeling a little stuffed up with toxins and left over stuff. I definitely lost some weight in the bargain, though I will actually gain half that weight back (water weight, you know).

Tomorrow I take a break (hence the soups), but I also start my apple juice fast in preparation for the liver cleanse that happens on Friday/Saturday. I’ll fill in the details of that as the time comes. So, we bought 5 gallons of apple juice. One gallon per day for me. I don’t know that I’ll get hungry at all, but I got the apples and pears just in case I feel like eating anything solid. Additionally, the salt water flushes will continue up to Friday morning. I stick with my original statement that I made on day 1: no pictures of anything.

Wish me luck! Oh yeah, it’s almost 7pm, and I still have 3 glasses of lemonade to go!

Catch up to yesterday

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Exactly a week ago was the first real day of my fast. I hadn’t eaten since 7pm the night before (though I did not do the flush that morning). I had an ultrasound and a blood test, but more on that in a bit.

Aimee and I went on our run/jog last night. No hurty muscles before or after, which was nice. We kept transitioning from jog to run though, so I think our legs are getting used to this stuff. Sunday should be exciting, though it does seem a little daunting to run those 90-second blocks from running these 60-second blocks. We’re both looking forward to that. I got home late, so by the time we started, the sun had set, and so we ran under the glare of the floodlights at the park.

During one particular stretch of the run, there are houses right across the street. In front of one house, I kept smelling barbecue or steak or something. Interesting/freaky: it made me hungry! It didn’t smell bad, though it didn’t smell like something I wanted to devour right away either. It just made me want food.

We get home and Aimee put a pizza in the oven (one of those Amy’s organic pizzas with olives). Oh man, that was the roughest dinner I’ve had to be around. I came thisclose to breaking my fast right there and then. Instead, I drank my 5th and 6th glasses of the lemonade, and that satisfied my hunger. But I could still smell it! And that was torturous.

Now, others have certainly blogged about their Master Cleanse experiences. However, one lady in particular goes into fairly graphic detail, which I actually appreciated. It was somewhat nice to know what to expect. Well, except that I don’t have the menstrual thing happening, of course.

This is the icky bit, kids. She stated that there’s some dark stuff that you start to eject. I couldn’t find anything in the Burroughs book about it, so I didn’t know what to make of it. The thing is, I had to “go” before the flush this morning. And what little there was, was certainly dark. Who knows?

OK, icky bit done with (for now!). So, after my ultrasound last week, I went upstairs to get my blood drawn. In the waiting room were 4 other guys. There were two nurses taking the blood, so we pretty much went in two at a time. They took my blood and I left. My doctor called me earlier this week and said that I have a pretty severe allergy to gluten, apparently. Now, I know next to nothing about it. He asked me if I have any caucasian blood in me. People, as far as I know, I’m 100% Indian, though I guess a DNA test or whatever that is that you pay a hundred bucks for would confirm that. Anyway, apparently this gluten thing affects caucasians and only in extremely rare cases does it affect others. He wanted me to go in for an endoscopy. Question: which end does the scope go into? I don’t think he understood when I asked him, because I still don’t know. So anyway, I asked him to please let me have another blood test to verify that because I’d rather be sure, before some camera starts exploring my innards. Especially if it’s entering the exit-only zones of my body.

So, since I am fasting, I’m not going to go in for the blood test today. And next week I’m pretty much on apple juice and fruits, so I’ll go in during the week following instead. I’ll probably report here what happens thence (if “thence” is the word I want).

Oh yeah, the appetite update, I almost forgot. It’s about 3pm and I’m slightly over halfway done with my flask, so hunger @ work is apparently a non-issue for me, but Aimee’s food is.

See how Day 7 went for me.

Check out how I’ll feel on Day 9.

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