Days 1 and 2

Day 1
I. Love. Convoy. Living at the heart of San Diego's Asian-ville is plain awesome. I walked to Nijiya, a nearby Japanese grocery store, early this morning to gather my supplies. Organic lemons were $.99 each, so I bought 10 of them, thinking that they would last me a while. They didn't have cayenne pepper so I got me some regular red pepper.

Hours later.
I left Nijiya a very happy shopper, all 1.5 miles with three huge bags of groceries, excited of all the dishes I'll be cooking for James (my brother) even though I'd be stuck with my magic concoction. I warned him last night of this wave of insanity, and he agreed to help me stay on track (yeah right!). Also last night, I drank my detox tea as prescribed, and the salt water bath this morning. Thank goodness that I stayed right by the toilet for the hour that followed.

Minutes later.
It finally sank in. I forgot to buy me some maple syrup. Txted James to get me some on the way home.

Noon.
James called after class, he's in a neighboring Vietnamese supermarket. Have I told you that I love Convoy? He couldn't find any maple syrup and went home with a bottle of "syrup" that has a picture of pancakes on it. He said that this one English speaking lady at the store thought that it's probably a maple syrup. I should have suspected why an English speaking lady would work there, cause the ingredients list screams high fructose corn syrup, along with other gunks of factory synthetics. Was happy anyway that James went through all that effort to help me out. I greeted him with a healthy steak of salmon for lunch.

Later on.
For my daily jog, I decided to run back to Nijiya to get that elusive syrup. There are 3 grades of maple syrup: A, B, and C. Grade A is lightest in flavor and contain the least nutrients, not to mention the most expensive. Grade B is ideal for the diet, whereas Grade C are basically store brand material that aren't even graded or something like that. Nijiya only had Grade A, which is twice as expensive, and has far less nutritional benefits than molasses. I somewhat recalled the manual mentioning that it could be used as a diabetic substitute. I grabbed both, with plans to double check at home and return the one I don't use. Did I mention that because I didn't have the maple syrup I ended up eating some sashimi combo for lunch? Yum. That's one delicious mistake. I jogged home with that, a kg of sea salt (the one I had came in a grinder, so it's hard to measure), and 5 more lemons, and my shoulders were sore for over a day since then.

Later still.
People were having complaints that their lemons don't yield the 4 Tbsp. they should... mine did, even more than that in fact. I read online that if you microwave them for 30seconds and rolled them up with your palm over a hard surface like the kitchen counter it would help with the juice. Sure enough, I had more than 2 Tbsp. with each half a lemon. I actually put 3 Tbsp. per glass just because I doubt if my Ikea spoon is of the proper measurement.

A pleasant surprise a little later.
THE JUICE TASTES DELICIOUS! Seriously, I can live off this stuff for a while! I put way more pepper than directed, and it gives it quite a kick, almost as if you actually ate a real meal.


Day 2
The toilet is now my new habitat. Elimination, so to speak, is ideal in this program, at least twice a day, and boy oh boy do I have an active system.

One of 'em bathroom runs.
My butt hurts :(
I think I overdid the peppers and the acidity ain't being too kind on poor old me. I read somewhere that wetting your tissue paper with cold water helps. Now I know why cartoon characters dunk themselves in a bucket of water.

Evening.
The time I'm actually typing this. I took a nice relaxing bath and it did wonders to my shoulders. I had some doubts earlier, and even thought of quitting by the time I run out of lemons, just because I don't think that it's all that healthy, really. As I've mentioned, my main goal is rather unique, it's not for weight loss and I doubt the detoxifying prowess, but I do wanna exercise better consumption discipline. I have quite a bit of lemons left, enough for another 3-4 days, I'm gonna take it from there. Reading other people's logs and testimonials really revved up my motivation. Placebo kicked in, I can breathe freely out of my two nostrils. Yes, I still do have sinus / allergy issues. I haven't felt hungry, though I spent the whole day looking up recipes... have I mentioned that I made some bomb steak for James tonight. I've been getting him to eat healthy too, like oranges for dessert, and baby carrots and ranch for appetizer. See where I'm going? His diet is far healthier than mine! I can't wait to run out of lemons ie. O.J. Day, regardless of what the diet suggests.


Why O.J. Day?
Coming out of a fast is just as important, if not more so than the fast itself. You have to wean yourself out slowly. On the first day you're advised to drink glasses of orange juice, thus O.J. day. The following day, stay on the orange juice and you can have a vegetable soup, the less cooked the better. As you probably notice, I'm the kind of person who doesn't usually touch the veggies on their plate, and eats the skin on the chicken, and asks for extra whipped cream on my coffee. Aside from the chicken skin and some occasional whipped cream treat, I'd love to be able to enjoy vegetables and be out of my own little Pauline stereotype box.

I have the determination to start this diet, and I know that I can finish it if I want to. The juice ain't bad at all, I'm starting to enjoy my weird herbal tea, and I can't see why people have so much problems with the salt water. I'm not hungry and neither am I tempted enough to sneak a little food. I'm not experiencing any withdrawal symptom whatsoever, and... my sense of smell, like many have noted seemed to have improved, which is why I could enjoy my tea.