March 12th, 2009 - March 23th, 2009

I am currently doing a detox program in assistance with trying to better my eating habits as well as losing some of the excess weight I have put on in the past few years.  The experience has been interesting and very ‘rollercoaster’ like with ups and downs.  Please see my day-to-day progress and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

This diet consists of not eating any refined sugar, tropical fruits, melons, flour, breads, peanuts, cheese and any foods that contain active cultures or yeast (ie - yoghurt, soy sauce).  The program also comes with a meal plan allowing to eat 20% protein and 80% starch and bulk forming foods (split into 3 columns).  However, fish is allowed at anytime of the day at any amount.  

Overall,  truth be told, I don’t feel any different than before.  I stuck to the diet and took the pills as per the instructions.  I feel satisfied knowing that I’m almost done my cleanse and I definitely feel that I’ve succeeded without guilt.  I also believe that most of the weight that I’ve lost is due to my excercise regime rather than the cleanse itself.

The really nice thing about this cleanse, though, is that you do think about what you eat and question every piece of food that gets shoved in your mouth.  It also does contribute to a healthier lifestyle as after 12 days of no sugar nor carbs, at the end, I really didn’t miss it.  Okay, that’s a straight out lie, I miss sugar!  However, not as much as I used to.  The program is pretty strict in terms of what you can and cannot eat.   

This program also keeps you regular.  It’s really bad the first few days but it definitely subsides down.  Any laxative would have been the same really.  

This cleanse is not for the faint of heart.  ;-)  Will I do it again?  Absolutely not. I rather stick to a healthy choices and excercise to feel cleansed that take 12 pills and 60 drops per day.  

Day 1

I started this program off not expecting much from in.  In fact, the first day, I ate sashimi without soy sauce (which does not taste all that good as I really appreciate the salt) and a dab of wasabi.  I didn’t have a chance to eat lunch at all which is probably my first mistake.  However, I bought some herbal tea (Our Compliments — Peach Melba & Tetley inspire — Summerberry) to go with the drops that came with the box of herbal pills.  I didn’t taste the drops at all using the flavoured teas (hint!).  I took the first 6 pills at around 10am and felt pretty good.  There were no headaches, cramping or other side effects… yet.  I sipped on water and tea for the rest of the day.  

During dinner, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and had their Tofu Tom Yum soup.  However, after realizing that there was sugar in it, I only ended up only eating the tofu, bean sprouts, veggies and a few slices of lean beef.  Before the meal, I also took the 6 pills and added the 30 drops into my green tea (THAT was terrible, note to self, always go flavoured).  Since I didn’t eat much, my head was feeling a little dizzy.  I didn’t feel any different otherwise.  I ended up eating some Almonds and mixed nuts (no peanuts were harmed) and about 3 cups of plain popcorn.  

At around midnight, things started to turn, I was running to the bathroom and my stomach didn’t feel well at all.  It came in a sudden leaving ill time to prepare.  

 

Day 2

I also had to run to the bathroom in the morning, in a sudden frenzy of half-tired almost tripping over the cat kinda way. After that attack, I felt quite significantly better and weighing myself it seemed that I lost about 3 lbs of water weight.  I made some oatmeal in the morning (plain rolled oats) and took the 6 pills again.  I added the 30 drops into all natural fruit juice (only about 1/4 of a cup) and drank it like a shot.  I still tasted the herbal drops, but it wasn’t as bad as drinking it with the green tea.  

The rest of the day and the afternoon were ups and downs of very tired to having a lot of energy.  Again, no headache this day and bathroom adventures have not started yet.  I did feel a little dizzy and spacey on and off during the day though.  Regardless, nothing too crazy.  

I ended up going to the gym today.  No doubt, I didn’t have as much energy as I normally do.  I believe this is pertained to the fact that I don’t have any carbs in my diet right now and it’s taking a toll on me.  I worked out the same speed and resistance as well as adding weights.  I was tired much faster while doing my normal 1 hour of cardio.  In terms of weights, I didn’t do more nor less than I would do on a given day.

I returned home to eat vegetables (asparagus), chicken and turkey breasts along with my 6 pills and the 30 drops of terrible licorice crap.  I’m now feeling very sleepy but yet no problems in terms of bathroom requirements or like.  I am eating almonds for snack food and drinking herbal tea pretty much all day.  Around midnight, still felt  hungry I went out with my friends and had sashimi (without soy sauce) and a salmon tomiko roll (raw salmon rolled with veggies and tomiko).  

 

Day 3

In the morning, I felt more tired than usual and ended up in the bathroom around 10am.  I was so tired I went back to bed again until 1am.  I realized that I’m not tracking my process properly if we didn’t know how much in fat loss and water loss is happening during this program.  So, I’m deciding to track my morning weigh-ins.

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  168
Fat percentage:  37.5
Water percentage:  43.5%

I will average out the losses at the end of the program.

at around 1:45, I made oatmeal with nuts and strawberries taking my usual 6 pills again.  I get nauseated thinking about the taking the pills as I know how bad all of them taste as well as those drops.  Also, I feel that I’m eating a lot more than usual because anytime I get a craving, I would grab the nuts and munch on them for a while.  

The rest of the day, I felt sleepy and needed to return to bed for a nap.  My body is exhausted which hardly happens.  I had plans to go to the gym amoungst finishing my homework for school but never seemed to happen.  Now it’s 7pm and my time is running out as I’m preparing to go to a birthday party in North York.  It almost feels like I’m about to get a cold or flu.  Normally, having to nap throughout the day means that my body is fighting a bug.  I know my body well enough to decipher that.  As well, I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on tasks.  Homework assignments are taking me a ridiculously long time where normally I can get it out within an hour or so.  

I was doing some research online that was saying that the Laxaherb shouldn’t be taken longer than 7 days.  I find it interesting that in this program, you must take 4 pills for 12 days.  Seems pretty distressing.  

I took my 6 pills at 8pm (with the drops) and ate it with a few pieces of turkey.  I have a slight headache , feel a little dizzy and not feeling all that wonderful.  I’m also still tired.  I can’t wait to return back to my normal supplements (Every Woman Multi-Vitamins).

 

Day 4

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  166
Fat percentage:  37
Water percentage:  42.5

Today didn’t suck as much as the last 3 days.  I didn’t feel nearly as tired getting up in the morning and had a little bit of energy at 10:30 doing my homework.  I got up and took the same pill amount eating an apple with it.  At around 1 o’clock, I decided to go to the gym.  I did about 1 hour and 10 minutes there in 40 and 30 minute intervals.  I also did about 40 minutes of weight training without too much trouble.  Although, I admit that the first 40 minutes were quite diffcult, I was able to still get through it.

I came back to take the combination of pills again right before dinner.  I ended up eating sashimi and edamame.  I was still hungry!  So, continued to a boiled egg that was marinated with a glass of iced lemon green tea.  I was STILL hungry and around midnight I had chinese broccoli and beef with blended strawberry kiwi fruit drink.

At 2am, I was pooped out!  I’m ready for bed.  I had a bad case of needing to take jogs to the bathroom this evening and hope that by tomorrow that will subside.

 

Day 5

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  168
Fat percentage:  36
Water percentage:  45

I’ve been eating so much lately!  Phew.  I feel like I’m just craving everything.  Going out to restaurants are just impossible trying to figure out what is in their dish and whether or not there’s sugar or starch.  So far, every time we’ve gone out, I’ve had sashimi or salads.  It gets pretty boring after awhile.  

Today has been alright.  Nothing significant to report in terms of tiredness, bathroom horrors or such.  I had oatmeal, strawberries and almonds for breakfast.  

When I got to work, I was very focused today on tasks at hand.  Now, the problem I found with this is that if there’s someone speaking really loudly on the other side of the office, it would be distracting and make me VERY irritated.  

At lunch, I had a lemon vinegrette salad with toasted almonds on top as well as a home made tomato vegetable soup with white beans.  I also snacked on nuts for the rest of day and sipped herbal tea.  I think I’m going to get FAT on nuts!  It’s tough to snack on anything else really.

I went to the gym, and I hate going there on Mondays cause it’s almost *always* packed.  There were no cardio machines left.  I ended up doing 10 mins of rowing, 20 minutes of biking and 30 minutes of eliptical.  There was no room to do weights so I decided to wait until tomorrow.   

Dinner, once again accompanying my set of pills, I had sashimi (surprise!) with beef sashimi.  Further to such, we decided to go see a movie and I had 3/4 of plain popcorn from the theatre.  

When I got home around 1:30, when my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

 

Day 6

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  167
Fat percentage:  36
Water percentage:  44

I’m a exhausted this morning.  I couldn’t get up.  In fact, I was so tired that I felt sick almost.  However, I sneered and went to work.  Throughout the day, I was yawning.  All through the day people must have been wondering what in heavens I did the night before.  Sadly, nothing exciting.  I had my pills with an apple and natural juice.  

For lunch, once again, I had my lemon vinegrette with almonds and a chicken, apple, leek soup.  I was contemplating on not eating the soup since it had mushrooms in it, but I decided to eat around the mushrooms instead.  

I am noticing that I do not have to go to the bathroom as much now and I am actually getting pre-warned when I do have to go.  It’s also better as it’s now more of a solidify state.

Also, the constant munching of nuts is driving me crazy!  

I went to the gym for only 45 minutes today as I was late for a birthday dinner.  I also forgot my herbal pills with me so I had to go home to get it.  I had the pills with filtered water and the drops with juice.  During dinner, I ate cooked salmon with seasonal vegetables at Milestones (downtown Toronto at Dundas Square — don’t bother going there, btw, the staff is rude).  

Now, I’m home, feeling more tired and ready to pass out.  

 

Day 7

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  43

So far, so good.  This morning I woke up very early in the morning!  In fact, I woke up earlier than my alarm which is a rarity in itself.  I feel pretty good — took the gross and terrible pills with water and drops with all natural fruit beverages and continued with my day.  It’s pretty clear that the fluctionation in water has been up and down.  Although my diet has been pretty steady and I’m sticking to the meal plan, I feel that the major losses in weight is in water.  My fat percentage is mostly due to me working out and since I’m doing at least 1 hour of cardio with an added 40 minutes or more of weights, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t be losing fat mass.

At lunch, I had edamame (soy beans, boiled and salted) with chicken and turkey.  To augment it, I also had an apple.  I’ve also been eating a lot due to the fact that I haven’t smoked in over 1 week now!  Yes, dieting, cleansing and trying to quit smoking.  You’d think I’m nuts, right?  Well, I am!  

I must have eaten about 200g of nuts this afternoon as well.  That certainly didn’t help.  Then I had an herbal tea and off to the gym I went.  The gym was the same as usual, nothing to report there.

At dinner time, we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant in town called “New Generation” (it’s pretty good and open late [until 3am] if anyone is ever interested and in the Toronto area).  I forgot my herbal pills and ended up taking them when I got home that evening.  I added the drops with Orange Herbal tea (Wow, that’s good stuff!).  

 

Day 8

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  43

Yay, day 8 — I’ve much surpassed my half way mark and am I ever glad.  I’m counting the next 4 days by the minutes until this cleanse is over.  Then, I’m going to eat a gigantic cake!  Chocolate!  Okay, probably not, but I’ll likely have a piece of candy or similar.  It feels promising knowing that there are less pills in the bottle and I can see an end.  

 I woke up very early this morning, hours before my alarm could even go off.  I’m not feeling tired more than I probably just have my adrenaline going due to an issue at school.  Nevertheless, I decided to try to sleep for another couple of hours — which I managed to do successfully.  In fact, it was so successful, that I dreamt of cake, sugar and pasta.  Yikes.  That’s not a good sign.  

For lunch, I had mixed steam veggies and skinless chicken thigh.  I also had 2 hard boiled eggs accompanied with my Tangerine-Orange Zinger herbal tea.  Mmm.  I’m really digging the tea.  

I had to go to a going away shindig and decided to forego the gym today.  

During dinner, I had steamed veggies, steak and sweet potatoes.  I had fresh squeezed orange Juice with the herbal pills.  I also decided to watch the movie “One Week” (Canadian flick featuring Joshua Jackson) and had a small bag of popcorn.

 

Day 9

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

This morning was a little exhausting after a long evening, but overall I was able to wake up pretty early and get on with my day.  I had a few pieces of grapefruit right in the morning with the pills and attempted the drops with “African Nectar” from Mighty Leaf which was a peach nectar — I really did not enjoy that tea.  It was terrible.  What a shame considering how much Mighty Leaf costs.

For lunch, I had a really hearty chilli that was super spicy!  Mmm, was that ever tasty.  The rest of the day went on just fine.  I was able to complete all of my work and still have room to do some research for school.

I went to the gym and did 1 hour of cardio, 45 minutes of weights.  When I came home, I also ran up 18 flights of stairs and 24 flights down.  So, a lot of activity today indeed.

Dinner was fresh squeezed OJ with the herbal pills and Tazo Wild “Sweet Orange” from Starbucks.  The tea was fantastic and definitely beat out the African Nectar variety.  Then, SURPRISE, went to eat Sushi at New Gen.  I had cold tofu, pan fried shrimp with garlic and butter and my salmon tabiko again.  

I’m happy this diet is almost over.  This has been the longest 12 days ever.

 

Day 10

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

Alright!  I made it into the 2 digit days.  This is a good sign indeed.  I’m definitely excited for me to complete this program.  I woke up around 10:30 in the morning and was feeling pretty decent.  I had a going away dimsum brunch at Sam Woo in Mississauga.  The food there is really good but talk about not being able to eat anything.  Practically everything was wrapped in rice, had sugar or was starched.  I only ended up eating about 3 - 4 pieces and a bunch of tripe.  I had my pills in the morning with water as usual.  

The program said not to take any multivitamins in this diet, although, I was feeling pretty sluggish throughout mid-day.  When I asked the nutritionist, I was told to take my vitamins during this program.  Thus, as of today, I will be taking multivitamins with my pills.  

Brunch was okay sized and didn’t eat anything else for lunch.  Although, at around 7ish, I had a couple pieces of asian pears.  They were delish!  

Monte and I were about to hit the gym around 9 when we realized that all gyms, including the 24 hour ones, are closed on weekends.  We decided to go to Markham and eat some Shabu Shabu (Japanese hotpot).  Not only was it healthy, it was just so tasty.  I had the “house special” with included seafood, lamb, chicken and a whole plate of vegetables.  I felt cleansed after that meal. 

I did some homework and slept around 3:30am.

 

Day 11

One more day left!  

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  165
Fat percentage:  35
Water percentage:  47

Sadly, my weight has not changed since the beginning.  Took pills with lime herbal tea and filtered water.  I went to the gym to excercise and spent 65 minutes on the cardio machine on a very hard workout (mostly all cardio).  I felt alright — though I should have eaten a little bit more for breakfast.

I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch and went straight to dinner at Momiji All you can eat japanese restaurant.  Sadly, there wasn’t too much I was able to eat there.  I only ate the sashimi with wasabi and that’s about it.  I  peeled off the tempura batter on the yams and ate that too.  Other than that, everyone was pretty stuffed except for me.  :-)  We had too much food and WAY too many hand rolls.  I had the pills with water and the drops in the green tea. 

I finished off my homework and off to bed I go. 

 

Day 12

I MADE IT!!!!!!  Final day. 

Morning weigh in:

Weight:  163
Fat percentage:  36.5
Water percentage:  44

As you can see, I shed a lot of water here and therefore am weighing less. Since this, the depiction of the fat percentage is now skewed.  The body fat monitor sends short pulses throughout the body to measure the amount of fat, water and muscle.  It does so by calculating how fast the current moves. The faster the current, the more water you have in your body.  

I had Oatmeal with mixed nuts today for breakfast and took the 6 pills with fresh squeezed OJ.  I drank the drops with my orange herbal tea.   Mmm, so tasty.  I can see the end!  The gold at the end of the rainbow.  

For lunch, I had very spicy chili, grapefruit juice and a garden salad with lemon pepper vinegrette.  I also had an expresso after the meal as well. I ended up going to the gym and doing cardio for 40 minutes + 20 minutes of weights.  I was pretty exhausted after the first 30 minutes of cardio maybe because I did such a long and hard cardio session the day before.

For dinner, I had a house vinegrette salad with chicken and onions at The Grille.  I couldn’t even finish all of it and left about 1/3 left.   It was a perfect ending to a decent 12 days of very difficult will power.  

 

Next Steps

I will be posting my results after 1 week and then 1 month to give you an idea of how I’m fairing with the new cleansed me.  I will also give you some results on my cravings the day after the cleanse.  Stay tuned!

One week Later

I admit, I’m so much happier eating the foods that I love to eat (just in moderation).  The small amount of sugar and tropical fruits is a great start and allows me to just feel like myself again.  Feel happy even.  My gym workouts are still on the rise and my love for food hasn’t changed any.  I’ve definitely eaten MORE and binged since last week though since I felt deprived of all the different foods that I was eating.  Again, this was an interesting experience but not a very worthwhile endeavor for me.  I don’t feel any different than I did and honestly, I feel like my body is in shock after going from no carbs and back to normal food again.  At a short point after the cleanse was over, I had some problems breathing properly.  

Since then, I haven’t lost too much in terms of weight, but I certainly feel human again.