Chapter 2.2: Exercise & Pain

There’s a reason for the obesity epidemic sweeping the country.
(Well ok, millions of reasons, many of which have drive-thru windows, but let’s focus on just one for now…)

Working out HURTS.

Your muscle fibers start tearing up, the oxygen in your bloodstream gets used up, and the lactic acid your body produces because of this can make your over-worked muscles feel sore for DAYS.
(These are super-simplified descriptions of highly scientific science, by the way. Check out the links throughout to get info from people more in touch with their inner scientist.)

Now, if you haven’t noticed by now I have an addictive personality, food being at the top of my sin list.
So you can imagine how excited I was when I realized that endorphins are a drug naturally produced by your body to reduce pain–ever heard of the “runners high”?
…could it be possible to replace my addiction to sweets with an addiction to the sweet sweet feeling of running five miles?

All About Endorphins

Endorphins 101: This great guide to all things endorphins makes working out seem sexy. Speaking of sexy, turns out that not only working out, but sex, happy thoughts, art, and chili peppers can also get your endorphins going. Hot stuff!

Others tout the 3 E’s: Exercise, Endorphins, and Euphoria as a team with as much success as the three musketeers.

And if you weren’t already convinced, exercise has been shown to help with depression, according to the WebMD. Check out the awesome benefits of exercise-related endorphins:

Regular exercise has been proven to help:

* Reduce stress
* Ward off anxiety and feelings of depression
* Boost self-esteem
* Improve sleep

Exercise also has these added health benefits:

* It strengthens your heart.
* It increases energy levels.
* It lowers blood pressure.
* It improves muscle tone and strength.
* It strengthens and builds bones.
* It helps reduce body fat.
* It makes you look fit and healthy.

Makes sense that my grueling yoga class last night left me feeling great, despite the pain of repeated plank position. I’ll be ready for more at Zumba tonight!

Chapter 2.1: Exercise & Setting Goals

I talked a lot of smack yesterday about I’ve moved on from food obsession, upgraded to Chapter 2 , where I pledged to focus on exercise and get an hour workout every day.

Talk is easy.

Doing stuff is hard.

This is lesson one.

I found right off the bat that trying to wake up early and be jazzed about push-ups was not going to happen. Sure a goal of working out 1 hour a day seems solid and specific, both good characteristics of goals, in my humble experience.

So I thought back to the thoughts that had even led me to my fancy for buffing up as my next endeavor to live to see the year 2100. I must admit a seductively exotic Yoga Journal article (November 2010) about yoga vacations in the rainforest had enticed me to dream of being the type of person who went here:

So my big time dream?
Go to one of these retreats one day. Gotta be in shape for it though! So that’s something to keep me motivated when I begin to doubt my real devotion to living for(almost)ever…and working out an hour a day.

Unfortunately, just envisioning sunset-plumed parrots swooping down on me as I practice my pigeon pose doesn’t get me working out in the morning.
I need a super-duper-mega-ultra goal.
So what’s it gonna be? The goal that trumps the brain-awake but body-sluggish laze of the first waking moments of consciousness in the morning? The vision, including the attached regular and long-term effort?
Becoming a yoga teacher. If you haven’t noticed my now, I’m an uber-nerd. I love school, and to be a certified yoga teacher most of the programs require 2 years of daily practice (30mins to an hour). Awesome looking schools in cool cities like Asheville, North Carolina, Boston, MA and more would be a hoot to spend 3 weeks or so in reading the Dhammapada and learning about yoga massage.
One day.

Till then, my goals, from the tiniest daily goal to long-term yearly goals/dream vacations, are set. Makes it much easier to do my thing on a day like today, when my Zumba exercise class was canceled and beach yoga (a rare pleasure) was deemed impossible due to the tide. Despite all odds, I made it through a cathartic hour-long yoga session at home. Yoga Journal’s November 2010 issue led me through 10 poses to build strength & grace. Good stuff.

Chapter II: A New Level in Living Longer

Well, it finally happened. I officially crammed so much trivial information about eating, detox, food and nutrition into my brain that gravity collapsed within me last weekend, forming a black hole which was noticed to devour:
-at least a dozen Reeses,
-a six pack of beer so black most people don’t even like it,
-oreos,
-snickers, and
-a tantalizing trio of dark chocolate truffles.
Other, even more horrifying sights, like the late-night Taco Bell that was consumed, oozing greasy red hot sauce, disappeared into the black hole without anyone even noticing.

Truly horrifying, even despite the health benefits supposed about dark chocolate and dark beer.

Still, there’s something to be learned here!

The experience reminds me of miserably trying to master math. I would think that I could never possibly understand and quadratic formula of chapter 5 until, against my will, chapter 6 came along, which was twice as hard! I could barely get through it, but damn, looking back at my homework from the week before, the quadratic equation sure was easy!
The so the moral of my story: No matter how hard you study or practice eating right or whatever, you will generally continue to suck at it for awhile…until you push yourself to do something even harder, and in that way master your former challenges.

So! Whats the next big challenge?
Exercise!

I’ve been detoxing, fasting, eating raw food, looked orthorexia right in the face and shot back with a weekend of binge eating that says, “sure I might be crazy, but I’m not your kind of crazy.”
I’m sick of thinking about food! I know enough to know better by now if I’m really screwing up, and even plenty of good tidbits, like to always get plenty of omega-3s for great skin. If food was Chapter 1, I’ve learned it all, mastered it, and gotten drunk after the test. Time for Chapter 2: exercising!

Right now I’m keeping things very simple.
My goal is to work out for 1 hour a day.
I’m not talking hardcore sweating-trembling-muscles-at-the-brink-breakdown exercise, I mean brisk physical activity of any kind, with at least a few times a week being more intense.
Today I did some energizing yoga stretches, including the Wild Thing, before going on a long bike ride. Turned into quite a battle with the wind coming over the bay, but the flowers blooming at Moody Gardens distracted me. An hour well spent.

We’ll have to consider this Chapter 2.1 in the Big Book of Living to 2100– just like in math. Let’s see how it goes this week before moving on!

Juicy gossip Juice Day

“You hear about that chick doing the master cleanse? Has nothing but spicy lemonade for a week and looks great, then gets off and practically moves in to a fast food joint. Probably looked better before she even did the cleanse, with all the re-toxing her body is going through.”

The first days after a food fast are the hardest, because the second your tongue touches it’s first unadulterated whole food morsel in the longest you’ve ever been without… Well, fireworks are a good description. In that, stop everything you were doing or thinking about and pay attention to THIS! kind of way.

It’s very easy to fall to the temptation of such sensuous explosions. Alas, temptation, post detox only snowballs to more tenptation. I only know this from my last cleanse, months ago, when I might well have been worthy of such dissapointed gossip as kicked off this blog.

Maybe that’s one reason the master cleanse was so easy this round. Somewhere I realized that the hard part was not making one decision when it came to what to eat today–spicy lemonade–it was going to be the days after the cleanse, a million decisions about what to eat.

So today, to avoid being the subject of juicy detox gossip, I dub this day, post-detox day 1, Juice Day, and henceforth shall it be known as such.

Juice Day, often celebrated instead of Columbus Day (seriously, what is that for?), has proven essential for me as I slowly return to the world of the eating.

Today’s Menu:

3 Odwalla juices
2 POM teas
Lots of water
1 green smoothie

Had I not held out and consciously rationed myself, today would have been very hard. As it is, I’ve decided to treat myself (on an unexpected day off from work) to a COOKED meal out tomorrow at Yelapa, a fantastic looking new Mexican restaurant I drooled at while I watches a friend eat the best looking cevice I’ve ever seen. Except for that, 2 days of raw starting tomorrow! Yay whole food. More gossip to come…

1 Hour Later

Shoot I really wasn’t expecting this…crap.
See, I got sideswiped by the Ukrainians….they’re my friends from afar, in town temporarily…and they were cooking, this, magical exotic Ukrainian thing, right? I can’t remember the name of it but as the girls rolled out dough and stuffed seared onions and potato into adorable little puffs of pasta pastry they tried to teach me how to say it. Something between a purr and a meow. They were so gracious and eager to please with the first of this Russian dish they’d made in months I thought, well…maybe just one?

Which of course turned into a whole bowl.
It was delicious.

Damn.

Master Cleanse Day 10

Well, I must say, 10 days is kind of a long time. It seems ages ago that I decided to become a guinea pig to test the Master Cleanse and see if it was really all it was cracked up to be, or just a passing fad. I’ve heard it said, though, that we have invented time as a way to mark change, and if you measure my last ten days by the amount of change in me, I can see why it was a long week and a half.

Noticeable Changes at the End of the Master Cleanse:

-I didn’t weigh myself before the cleanse, but let’s just say the shorts I’m wearing now didn’t quite fit before I started this. Now I have to use a belt to keep them in the right spot, since there’s no chub to hold them in place!

-Words people have used to describe my skin: glowing, angelic…the difference I notice is smaller pores and overall softness

-soft shiny hair–and is it growing faster or is that just me?

-An intangible that I vow to find a way to continue when I eat again is the stable, even keeled and vibrant energy I’ve had this week. Before the cleanse I remember the day being a roller coaster, with me on a high after coffee or tea or sugar, and low after dealing with stressful situations at work. Mornings were far from alert. After the first few adjustment days, I woke up with the same balanced, alert energy I kept all day.

-An appreciation for food–I can’t wait to slow down and savor every bite, every meal, every day.

-Finally, I really feel like I have pressed the Restart Button on my mind & body when it comes to how I interact with food. After saying no to EVERYTHING for so long, it seems totally doable to say no to the things that I know will be unhealthy or will interrupt my smooth-flow of energy and well-being. It’s like I just cleaned my room, so of course I’m not going to just dump everything in my drawers out next time I need to get dressed. That brings me to yet another benefit:

-I’ve had time to organize the way I want to eat and better know WHAT I want to eat when I eat again. Setting clear, weekly goals is something I’m used to now, and is a perfect format for menu planning and ensuring I get all the essential nutrients (and occasional splurges) I need to live a long, happy life.

Still, as great as this Master Cleanse had been, there’s still more before I’m a full-fledged eater again! Before eating all willy-nilly, your body needs an adjustment period so that it isn’t stressed suddenly digesting solid food. Most web sites and the original Master Cleanser book recommend one day of juice before eating returning to food. And of course, you don’t do the Master Cleanse and then go back to eating fast food and processed grossness. That restart button affects the decisions you make about whether or not to put toxins in your newly pristine, cleansed body.

So tomorrow, juice. And then–and this has been making me hungry just thinking about it today– 2 days of raw, where I will attempt the first of many lasagnes I intend to test out in the next few weeks.
Isn’t it glorious? And it’s totally raw! I will be sharing the recipe, and my next few days of post-cleanse come down, in next week’s posts.

A Call for Guinea Pigs

In the meantime, I know quite a few people who have told me they’re starting the Master Cleanse themselves in the next week or two! I think this calls for some SCIENCE.
If you are considering doing the Master Cleanse yourself, would you be interested in answering a few simple questions every day of the detox as part of a tiny study of Master Cleanse effects? A fabulous benefit would be knowing you are accountable and that the results would be published when you finish–having a partner (even if it’s a blog) is a beautiful thing on this kind of challenge.
Please comment below if you are interested or email me at jescantonelli@gmail.com

Master Cleanse Day 8 & 9

My last few days of the Master Cleanser are steaming along quite well. Hunger has only been an issue once, before bed the other night, and sleep cured that craving. I feel good and look better, with clearer skin, silky hair, and a few pounds of water weight absent.

Thankfully, I have tons of energy, which is useful for the researching storm I have embarked on to figure out what kinds of foods to reintroduce to my freshly cleansed body.

Now that I’m done with this detox, I’m ready to have a stable diet–diet as in my everyday food being as healthy and sustainable as possible. Here are a couple of gems I’ve found in my research so far.

Fab Frugal- Insanely good looking recipes with yours truly in mind…vegetarians on a budget

Top 10 Foods that Prevent Cancer:
Reproduced from Care2.com

1. Cruciferous vegetables: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, bok choy and kale. These score high for containing many anti-cancer substances, such as isothiocyanates.

2. Globe artichoke for very high levels of salvestrols.

3. Dark greens, such as spinach and romaine lettuce, for their fiber, folate and a wide range of cancer-fighting carotenoids. Other dark colored veggies, too, such as beets and red cabbage.

4. Grapes and red wine, especially for the resveratrol.

5. Legumes: beans, peas and lentils, for the saponins, protease inhibitors and more.

6. Berries, particularly blueberries, for the ellagic acid and anthocyanosides.

7. Flaxseed, especially if you grind it yourself and consume when fresh, for the essential fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid, lignans and other “good fats.”

8. Garlic, onions, scallions, leeks and chives, for many anti-cancer substances including allicin.

9. Green tea, for its anti-cancer catechins, a potent antioxidant.

10. Tomatoes, for the famous flavenoid lycopene.

Master Cleanse Day 7

I miss food.
The thing is, I’m not really hungry, but, I just miss food.
I feel like me and food were getting into an unhealthy pattern in our relationship. We were bringing each other down, I was abusing food, and food was fighting back with a muddled complexion, low energy levels, and chub (a primo storage site for toxins!). I came to food when I was emotional, stressed, or bored and restless. This is not a healthy relationship pattern! We needed time apart.
And so now I have no food.
Haven’t eaten in a week now, and I’ve figured quite a few things on this “break” me and food have taken. I feel like I’ve been cleaning not only my physical body from toxins, but also my act when it comes to the bad habits I’ve formed. In this time-out from food, I’ve had time to think about what I’ve been doing to my body and mind when I treat food irresponsibly.
And I’ve learned my lesson! Really I have!

I was taking food for granted.
The sharp impact of teeth against the taut skin of an apple. An explosion of moisture and flavor, the sugars a tree made to….

WHOA.

So I just realized that I didn’t know for sure why trees make fruit. At least, why so sweet and delectable, each fruit tree in it’s own style and flavor?? I know fruit holds seeds, but is the sugar helpful in getting the seeds dispersed somehow?
Well yes it is. Fruit is exploiting us to spread their seeds. In other animals it’s a simple in and out, but with humans, we go so far as to plant huge crops and bend over backwards to make fruit happy!

This reminds me of Michael Pollan’s awesome TED lecture.

You know, I didn’t realize that food is just as dependent as I am on it in this relationship. This is a whole new level of my relationship with food that I have been taking for granted, forget rushing to food itself already!
I think I may still need more time apart to really process all this…3 more days of master cleanse…thank god!

PS-Mom is back! She had a mere slip, not a fall! It makes such a huge difference to have a partner, I couldn’t have imagined. I got anxiety-”hungry” the minute I was without her, but managed to drink tea instead of giving in to a craving.

Master Cleanse Day 6: The Good and the Bad

The spa today was wonderful, fantastic, rejuvenating and detoxifying all at once. Mom and I walked out feeling reborn and smelling like flower shops, with a good chunk of toxins that are held in the skin melted away. After so much good, how could there possibly be bad news? Well, first thing’s first.

We booked it to The Galvez Hotel Spa immediately after school. After a rough day with my class of 30, I was ready to relax, and relax we did. We arrived about half an hour early to enjoy a stint in the steam room, where our pores prepared to detox by opening up to the cloud of heat we wrapped ourselves in.
Next came a meditative moment in the relaxation room, where we were given a warm neck wrap to begin to un-knot our shoulders and a chilled water zested with lemon to stay hydrated. We lounged on the fluffy chairs and cleared out heads until the spa therapists came in to steal us away to our treatment rooms.

With a low key and melodic flute drifting into my ears, I let go of every ounce of stress from the day as Donna, my masseuse for the day, began to open my pores with an exfoliating pad that woke my whole body up and got circulation going. Next, jasmine scented sugar was scrubbed over (almost!) every inch of me to exfoliate. After a good scrub, she wiped the sugar away with a tension-taming hot moist towel in preparation for the main event:

The clay body mask.
Now as a respectable human being I’ve had plenty of clay masks on my face, but never before have I given my body the same treatment. It’s especially nice letting someone else do all the messy work of coating the warm, creamy mix onto arms, legs, back and belly. After I was thoroughly covered in mud, Donna took the plastic wrap I’d been laying on and wrapped me snugly within. Underneath I found there was a thermal blanket (looks just like aluminum), which was my next layer, and to top it off she tuck me in with a big down blanket to add heat.
When she took another satisfyingly steamy towel and gently wrapped my face with it, I felt like I was floating in a cocoon through heaven. For the 15 minutes or so I must have been in there, she massaged my scalp and eased the muscles in my face that had grown tense from giving the “teacher look” at school.
At one point, I sensed that she was using a lemony aroma therapy oil, wafting it toward me. The strong scent woke up my mind and kept me at an alert relaxation, all the better to enjoy the pampering.

Finally, after unwrapping me and releasing me to a quick Swiss shower (it would be quick with 4 shower heads coming at you from all directions!) she ended with a full body massage using a creamy and hydrating Hawaiian lotion.

Paradise.

I steamed a few minutes more waiting for mom, who soon arrived in a similar state of bliss. And to think that this all came from the master cleanser! How fantastic to know that this treat was a reward for doing something that was already good for our bodies. My masseuse even mentioned that cayenne pepper, a main ingredient in our cleanse, is a metabolism booster.

So, what’s the bad news?
We lost mom today. No, she didn’t keel over from starvation, as many people who hear about the master cleanser expect.
After running a few errands after our spa trip, I walked into mom’s room with a question. And found her…
Chewing.
Food.
I had a sudden flashback to walking in on a particularly cheesy (now ex) boyfriend kissing a girl that wasn’t me, and knew that I was now going solo for the rest of the cleanse.
I’m still very proud of mom–this shift in eating patterns has been MUCH more challenging for her, since her habits before were of the emotional/snacky/addictive kind we both share that got us so toxic to begin with. She made it a whopping 6 1/2 days without real food on this cleanse, and that’s amazing.
I am worried though about how the food–a sandwich of some kind on white bread– will affect her tomorrow. Everything you can read online or off stresses the importance of gradually building back to eating everyday processed foods. I suppose the benefit of this is that now we’ll know just how true that is!

So now I go it alone for the last 4 days. I can already feel how much I am missing a partner–my insecurity over it already has me growing emotional munchies….or maybe it’s the delish smelling zucchini soup dad’s making. Either way, day 6 was a roller coaster, so we’ll see what direction things go next!

Master Cleanse Day 5

Day 5 already! We’re already over the halfway bump and managing pretty well. Still not hungry, believe it or not. Mom has the evening-TV munchies, but I’m willing to bet that has a direct link to the amount of McDonald’s commercials she’s seeing.

I suppose I should mention I’m on an almost total TV fast–just don’t watch the thing. I’m sure you don’t need to be hit over the head with more statistics about how gross TV is for your health, but perhaps one thing that has made this easier for me than for mom is that I’m not being bombarded by hundreds of images of junk food every day. It adds up!

Tongue check shows we’re still detoxing. Blogger Natural Vitality has a great breakdown of what exactly your tongue is trying to tell you when you have different shades or patterns of fuzzy tongue on a detox.

My energy level is weird. I feel alert, capable, and very level with my energy today. Much more on point than usual when facing particularly belligerent teenagers, as was the case this Tuesday afternoon. But I feel a touch grumpy. And when I’m not grumpy I’m just quiet–I don’t really feel like talking.
On the flip side, my body feels great. I’ve been walking with better posture (for some reason I always remember to do this while detoxing), went on a brisk walk with the dog, and will hopefully squeeze in some yoga before bed. It’s almost like the heightened mental activity I usually get from stimulants like coffee and tea have trickled down from my brain into my body. My brain is pretty neutral about it, although since it’s the one with the voice in my head, it’s telling me it’d like some more attention.

Just to Review our Master Cleanse (We’re doing it a bit differently than the original book, still very close though!)

-Senna Tea or quart of water with 2 teaspoons Real Salt in the morning

-Lemonade concoction of 12 tbsp, fresh squeezed lemon juice, 12 tbsp Grade b organic Maple Syrup, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, and 60 oz filtered water

-Senna tea before bed

-Wheatgrass supplements, for a punch of protein that is essential for liver detox

-Occasional uncaffeinated herbal teas, including a tasty artichoke tea my dad made form scratch, which also helps open detox pathways in the liver

And the big surprise for tomorrow….

A detoxifying trip to the Hotel Galvez Spa to enjoy a clay mask and massage. Massage is always recommended for detox-ers, since it gets fluids moving and helps release blockages in the body. Check out what we’re using all the money we’ve saved not buying food this week:

Hawaiian Embrace – Detoxifying

The Koke’e (pronounced koe- kay- ee) Clay Ritual leaves your skin deeply cleansed and detoxified while the benefits of all the ingredients nourish the skin, soothing away tension and stress. Koke’e aroma is named in honor of Hawaii’s oldest rainforest and captures the crisp, green, refreshing scent of the rainforest; unique yet diverse enough for both men and women. This signature ritual begins with the koke’e body polish formulated with Awapuhi Ginger, Aloe, Chamomile, and Hawaiian Sugar. Following the polish, experience a full body clay mask, infused with Kauai Clay, Organic Aloe, Noni, and Kava. After rinsing the clay, your skin is pampered with a full body massage using warm koke’e body cream.

It’s going to be amazing. And talk about having something to look forward to to keep you motivated! Full report tomorrow!

Say AHHHH! for Master Cleanse Day 4

Open up. Look at your tongue.

This is what me and mom have been doing all day to see how much we’re detoxifying. We’re getting a little ridiculous.

“My breath smelled awful all day.”
“Oooooh, lucky, that means you’re burning keytones!”

When your body is detoxifying, your tongue gets a light white fuzz. Altmedicine.com says

“In Ayurveda, tongue coating is called “ama” and reflects metabolic debris. Tongue scrapers can be purchased in a drug store or health food store for a few dollars. They are an effective way of removing the thick coating and ama toxins.”

(It also mentions “Lemon is a traditional liver cleanser that stimulates the release of digestive juices.” SOOO cool the main ingredients in my lemonade is totally–well…yeah…)

Today my tongue has ranged from average-looking to noticeably detoxed. Mom’s looks a bit pinker, I wonder what’s going on with her? Both of us, either way, have felt great day 4. Mom got the promised super-surge of energy, while I thought not. Then again, I had a bright and sunny morning, woke up alert a few minutes before my alarm rang, and rocked the day just as hard as when I have a cup of coffee and multiple ginsengs…Hey, maybe that is a surge of energy! Wow, running on clean energy. I feel like much unlike a coal factory right now.

So woohoo! Day 4, and here’s to an awesome day 5!—upon which, by the way, I will reveal the recently planned Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mid-cleanse treat that is going to get me and mom over hump day. Hasta mañana!