Cleanse: Day 2 >_<

I woke up tired, and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. But you know how it is, once the eyes are open, it's impossible to shut them again. So I got up, poured myself a glass of water, and set to what I do every morning: scour the internet looking for a job.

I wasn't hungry, so I skipped breakfast, which now seems like a really bad idea. I didn't have anything except water and green tea until 1pm, and then I had a leftover baby potato from that wonderful salmon dinner we had on Monday. Then I had some leftover pasta sauce I'd made on Sunday - it was all-natural, no dairy or meat, so it was alright to eat. Kind of strange without the pasta, though.

Usually, I'd go to the gym. But for the cleanse I decided to stay home and, if I felt the need to exercise, use the stationary bike in the living room. I did about 15 minutes before the weakness set in and I said to myself, "I'll just go for a ride on the real bike."

I should say, before going any further, I haven't ridden my bike in a year. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, the tires were completely flat, and I think it'd gotten heavier since the last time I'd used it. Anyways, I cleaned it off and set to work pumping up the tires.

Maybe I was weak from the lack of food, or maybe I'm just generally weak, I don't know. But it took forever to pump up the tires. In fact, I don't think I pumped them up enough, but had to stop because my arms couldn't pump anymore! I thought it would be okay for the quick trip to the grocery store, though... it's only like 20 blocks round-trip.

So. I get on the bike, start riding, and everything's fine. Until I get to the first hill. I gear down, hoping a lower gear will make it easier. I start to pant. I start to sweat. I push harder. In my head, as usual when I ride this bike, I'm screaming. "JUST MAKE IT TO THE TELEPHONE POLE! THEN YOU CAN SLOW DOWN! YOU'RE ALMOST THERE! JUST A BIT FURTHER! COME ON!" I made it to the telephone pole, and all the way to the grocery store, without stopping. Good for me. But when I got off the bike my head felt like it was spinning, and there were little stars in my peripheral vision like fireflies.

When I was a teenager, I had this bad habit of passing out for no particular reason. The first time it happened was, ironically, in a grocery store parking lot. I'd broken up with my boyfriend a few days earlier, and I was depressed. Didn't want to leave the house. But my mom yelled (actually yelled, which is strange for her) at me to get off my ass and DO something, so we went to the grocery store. I told her I wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay in the car. She wasn't having any of that, so I got out of the car and... stars. The world turned blue and caved in on me. I could hear people around me, panicking, and an unrecognizable woman asking my mom, "is that Amanda?" I didn't hear my mom's answer, though. Next thing I remember, someone's lifting me into a truck and driving me the two blocks to the hospital.

At the hospital, the doctor said I fainted because of poor diet. He told me to eat a bagel and drink some orange juice, although I can't remember why. Lack of carbs or something. My mom spent the rest of the day scolding me for not eating, then apologizing for not listening when I said I didn't feel well. I ate a couple of bagels, drank some orange juice, and was fine again.

Until the next time. It was almost a year later, and I was living with my dad, working part-time at the grocery store deli. My first time away from "home". My first real job. I cut meat and cheese, made pizzas and rotisserie chickens, packaged salads, and tried to make some new friends. At the end of each day, we had to clean and sharpen the cutting machines. So what do I do? I cut myself on the newly-sharpened (and, luckily, newly-sterilized) blade. It was a deep cut; I still have a faint scar on my finger from it. So deep it didn't even hurt, and I thought I'd just put a band aid on it. So I went to the first aid kit, and the other girls (who, by the way, were just standing around letting me do all the work) asked me what was up. I told them nothing, it was all fine, I just needed a band-a...

Stars. I felt something soft, like a pool noodle or a Nerf ball, hit the back of my head (in reality, as I fell, I hit my head on the edge of a counter). Everything was blue. I woke up to a group of people, most of whom I'd never seen before, standing over me in a half-circle, their eyes full of concern and helplessness. I guess they'd never seen anyone faint at the grocery store before.

Anyways, when I came to, they asked me if I needed anything. I said bagels and orange juice. Someone rushed off and brought me a bag of bagels and a carton of orange juice, then they sent me home early. I had to walk. And it was snowing outside. The next day, there was a bill for the food I'd taken home.

My point is, when I got off the bike, I knew that feeling.

Luckily this time I didn't pass out. I took a few minutes to rest, pretending I was having trouble locking up the bike. Then I slowly made my way though the store, picking up fruit, putting it back. The stars faded, but they didn't totally go away, so I bought some Happy Planet juice. I guess I broke the cleanse diet, because you're not supposed to have anything "processed". But my thinking was "if I don't have anything, I'll pass out, and at least Happy Planet is organic..."
I don't remember paying for the groceries. I remember standing in line, I remember the cashier and the girl who helped put the food in my backpack, the annoyed glances at me from other shoppers waiting to pay for their purchases. I remember it was the first day of the Thrifty Foods "no plastic bags" rule, and the woman in front of me put her groceries in a cardboard box. I remember the cashier was wearing Buddy Holly glasses, for utility and not fashion. But I don't remember actually PAYING. I must have paid, they wouldn't let me leave the store if I didn't. Right?

The ride home is mostly uphill, and this bike of mine? I don't know, man. I think there's something wrong with it. I mean, even for someone of my size, there should be a setting where it's easy (albeit slow) to ride uphill, shouldn't there? It's a 21-speed bike, after all. But it's a cheap, no-name, made in China bike, so maybe not.

I made it all the way up the hill, and the next hill. In fact, I got within two blocks of home before I had to get off and walk the bike the rest of the way home. Then I had to sit down for a long time and catch my breath. I'm definitely weaker than I was a few days ago, because even on my weakest day, I can ride on a flat surface. But not yesterday. It's my own fault, though, because I barely ate anything. I have to remember to EAT things. A restrictive diet doesn't mean starvation. In fact, it means the opposite. I have to eat more of the things I CAN eat, because I have way fewer choices.

For dinner I made turkey with lemon rice - flavored with garlic, onion and capers. Even with all the strong flavors, though, the food tasted bland. It was the same thing the night before. I made curried tofu with peanuts. Curried tofu! And it was bland! Maybe it's my palate - without the (red) meat, dairy, sugar, salt, and all the rest, my taste buds are rebelling? I don't' know, but it sure feels that way. The only thing that really has any taste, it seems, is sweet sugary fruit.

The cravings started yesterday too. I thought I'd be desperate for some cheese, but the thing I wanted more than anything, yesterday, was a shot of amaretto. It doesn't help that we have a bottle of it sitting in the bookcase. I'm looking at it right now. Oh, the sweet nutty flavour, the warmth as is slides down the throat, the happiness in the center of the stomach... I could mix it with coffee, or in a drink, or make tiramisu with it! Oh, tiramisu! So decadent! So forbidden!

D.'s on a non-dairy diet right now as well. Sent her an email yesterday:
"I didn't realize how much my diet depended on cheese!"
She replied:
"Cheese and yogurt and ice cream and butter and and and.... >_<"

I think it must be harder to cut out one thing at a time, because you can overcompensate (and therefore get sick of) other things. If I cut out dairy, I'd overindulge on soy. If I cut out meat, I'd... overindulge on soy :) If I cut out sugar, I'd overindulge on salt.

Salt. That's another thing. The inside of my mouth has tasted really salty for the past few days. I brush my teeth (but no mouthwash, because it contains alcohol), I rinse my mouth with water, whatever. Nothing seems to remove the salty film from my mouth. Maybe this is a good thing, though? Maybe it's excess sodium leaving my body? That's what I'd like to think, at least for now, because another reason I'm doing this cleanse is to (hopefully) get my sodium levels back down to normal.

Before I gave my grandma a kidney, my mom said, grandma had been on a low-sodium diet for years. The diet, apparently, was to help extend her kidney function. My mom is worried that since giving grandma a kidney, my body's not processing sodium the way it did before, and maybe that's why I'm gaining weight. The doctors didn't say anything about that. They didn't say anything about long-term effects of the operation. What they said, and I'll quote as best I can from memory here, is "you won't have to change your lifestyle in any way." They warned me about complications during and right after surgery, like hernias from heavy lifting, but that's about it. My grandma had problems with sodium because her kidneys didn't work right. So maybe, just maybe, I could have sodium problems too. Who knows? It's worth a shot. And in the process, I'm getting healthier, and hopefully losing some weight.

After dinner, I settled in for a night in front of the new digital cable box: Wipeout, I Survived a Japanese Game Show, Krog Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire. (Side note: In three years, when I read this over, am I going to remember any of these TV shows? Probably not.) But I got restless. I just... and this is unusual for me... I just couldn't sit on the couch, watching TV. Poor H. probably thought I was going crazy. First I filed all our old bills, cleaned up the piles of paper on the coffee table, and swept the floors. Then I cleaned all the old food out the fridge. Then I got out a bucket, filled it with water, added a dash of bleach, and disinfected the fridge. Then I... well, then I was done.

One last note before I go: poo. That's what a cleanse is all about, right? It's about cleaning the bad stuff out of your colon, and the colon expels things in the form of poo. You're supposed to stick close to home because of poo. I don't really want to go into the details of poo here, but I will say this: the first day of the cleanse, I pooped a lot more than usual. The second day, I barely pooped at all. As I write this, I'm into the third day, and... something's definitely happening in there. The size, the texture, the... yeah, I've gone too far into poop talk now. Let's just say that something is different, and I feel... yes it's true... cleaner than I did a few days ago. Not minty fresh, but... lighter. It doesn't feel like my body is a black hole anymore.

Also: I've lost 2lbs. Woot! Only 90-something to go!

Also: H. is supportive, but he's not doing the cleanse himself. That means yesterday he went out and bought chocolate bars, Coca-Cola, cinnamon buns. You know, the usual. And because he's a sweet and generous guy, he offered me some chocolate. I refused, and you know what? It wasn't all that hard to say no, because I knew there was an awesome peach in the fridge with my name on it.
I know he wasn't trying to make me "break my diet" by offering me chocolate, that's not the way he is. His mom runs a daycare, he was raised around small children. He's the best sharer I've ever met. He was just being polite. But still, on the off-chance he was trying to tempt me, I countered by trying to tempt HIM to join me on the other side. How did I do that? I gave him my last organic Valencia orange. I said to him, "this is the best orange you'll ever have. Do you want it?" So simple, so effective. :) He ate it and loved it.