Vomit Party, Porcelain Throne, Yummy Twisty Poison

If I had to describe my day today in pictures:

pauvrechaton

tama

scott ferry

(artist unknown)

Day 6: All praise the raw gods and goddesses day!!!

The past five days, I’ve been fading fast from eating only raw, lukewarm produce and then having to do a lot of manual labor at my job.  Now that it’s day six, I feel incredible.  The mind fog has lifted, I feel focused and energized, the hunger pangs and junk food cravings have almost entirely dissipated, and most importantly, my body feels really good.  In about an hour, I’m going to start drinking some crazy juice concoctions which will overload my now pristine gallbladder, so tomorrow I can spend my day off meditating, drinking lots of water, and flushing out my system (yes, that’s a more pleasant way of saying enemas and laxatives:P).  

This is the final stretch so it's important to eat super clean, small, entirely raw meals.  So I kicked juices to the curb and ate pretty much salads and fruit.  So here's the rabbit cuisine I had today:

Breakfast:

• 1/2 Apple (35 Calories) Get that last minute pectin and malic acid in!!!
• Tomatoes (10 Calories) + a teaspoon of olive oil (40 Calories)
• Cup of spring mix (10 Calories) + 2 Cuties (160 Calories) + a teaspoon of olive oil (40 Calories)
• Detox Tea (5 Calories)

Lunch:

• Kale (55 Calories) + Lime Juice (1 Calorie) + 1/4 pint of Strawberries (30 Calories) + oil (40 Calories)
• Detox Tea (5 Calories)

I also made sure to drink tons of water with a bit of lemon juice in it.  (5 Calories) Epsom salts & laxatives are both dehydrating, so my body needs to be super prepared to handle that.

Here my plan for the evening:

9 PM: Apple Juice + Apple Cider Vinegar (150 Calories)

10 PM: Go see scary movie! (maybe it will scare the CRAP out of me ;D )

11 PM: Drink grapefruit juice and olive oil that I smuggled into theatre (290 Calories)

Midnight: Do it again! (290 Calories) + Epsom Salt in water (5 Calories)

1 AM: One last cuppa apple juice (110 Calories)

Calorie Consumption:

• 1,276

My spirits are high!  Wish me well!

Day 5: Break down and start sobbing day

I predicted that today would be the hardest day of the purge (it most certainly was), so I allowed myself to be weak and eat two vegan sushi rolls... oh yeah, and have a shot, okay, two shots, of whiskey.  ;)  I was so fuzzy headed and out of energy by day five that I'm actually writing about it retrospectively, because I just didn't have the energy.

Breakfast:

• Apple juice (110 Calories) Couldn't do the vinegar anymore...
• 2 Cuties (160 Calories)

Lunch:

• 2 Avocados (500 Calories) + Lime Juice (1 Calorie) + Garlic Seasoning (5 Calories)
• Carrot Beet Ginger Odwalla (120 Calories)

Dinner:

• Wakame~ Seaweed Salad (40 Calories)
• Sunomono ~ Cucumbers in rice vinegar (30 Calories)
• Avocado maki (180 Calories)
• Cucumber maki (110 Calories)
• Lettuce (5 Calories)
• Sesame Dressing (85 Calories)
• Green tea (5 Calories)

I must say, I started to feel a lot better with some soul healing purist Japanese cuisine, but I was pretty weak, foggy, grumpy, and upset at this point, so the effects were very temporary.

Snacks:

• Nori (10 Calories)
• 2 Shots of Whiskey (135 Calories)

Calorie Consumption:

• 1496

Day 4: Red!

Breakfast:

• Apple Juice (110 Calories)
• Apple Cider Vinegar (40 Calories)
• Carrot Beet Ginger Odwalla (120 Calories)  All of these things are super good for gallbladder health, and it's actually pretty tasty.

Lunch:

• Carrot Beet Ginger Odwalla (120 Calories)
• Detox Tea (5 Calories)
• Red Apple (70 Calories)
• Blood Orange Pellegrino (140 Calories)
• Kale (40 Calories)
• Nori (30 Calories)

Dinner:

• Apple Juice (110 Calories)
• Apple Cider Vinegar (40 Calories)
• Detox Tea (5)
• 4 Watermelon Wedges (340 Calories)
• Cup of Cherries (75 Calories)
• 1/2 Pint of Strawberries (55 Calories)

Calorie Consumption:

• 1,300 

As you can probably tell from my hyper enthusiastic blogging, 

I'm running outta steam.

I was doing a little more research, and I found this site to be helpful: http://www.justcleansing.com/livercleansing.htm.  It has a list of drinks & supplements to help you on your way, plus information on a cleansing diet that is much more forgiving than eating strictly lukewarm raw produce (such as eating seeds, nuts, & unrefined carbs).  To me, it seems like as long as you avoid alcohol, cholesterol, meat, fried foods, & butter, you're golden, I just wanted to do a hardcore cleanse. ;)  The only thing that has me concerned about this link is that is says to avoid tea, but I think since I stuck to drinking detox, herbal, green, & oolong teas this week, I'm fine.  Besides, detox tea & green tea are both good for liver & gallbladder health. <3

Day Three: Blue/Purple!

Breakfast:

• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Blue Machine" (340 Calories)  (contains apples, bananas, pears, pineapple, blueberries, blackberries, coconut milk, tons of B vitamins, vitamin C, & fiber)
• Detox tea (5 Calories)
• Cup of Blackberries (62 Calories) eating berries is important while passing because you need a lot of water soluble fibers

Lunch:

• Cup of Blueberries (85 Calories)
• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Blue Machine" (340 Calories)
• Detox tea (5 Calories)
• Apple Juice (110 Calories) Not blue, just important. ;)

Dinner:

• 3 Beets (105 Calories) I've never eaten beets before, and they looked super gross, so I sliced them up, boiled them for twenty minutes, and sauteed them in a little bit of oil/pepper/salt, and they were actually pretty good!  Beets relieve gallbladder pain, help move fat build-up in the gall bladder, and keep bile thin.  
• 2 Purple Carrots (60 Calories) Carrots are also recommended for improving gallbladder health, but I'm casually allergic to orange carrots, so I chopped some raw purple carrots into my kale salad.
• Cup of Purple Kale (35 Calories)
• 2 teaspoons of Olive Oil (80 Calories) To wash down the beets and the raw kale.
• Edible Flowers (10 Calories) To make my salad kawaii & spicy.
• Lavender Tea (5 Calories)

Calorie Consumption

• 1,242

Feeling moody, but staying posi.

Day Two: Yellow/Orange!

I'm just a hot mess right now.  I've gained a couple of pounds from pure liquid consumption, which I'm sure will wash out in the next couple of days.  Other than that, I'm just bloated, burpy, gassy, & lethargic.  Big old noxious puddle of goo, belching out plumes of toxic fumes.

Breakfast:

• Apple Juice (110 Calories) It's important to drink apple juice every day because apples have a lot of pectin & malic acid, plus a mild laxative effect.
• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Mighty Mango" (contains mangos, oranges, apples, bananas, lemon, protein, and vitamins A & C) (300 Calories) These juices provided me with enough calories to get through a hectic shift at working, plus they have a lot of Vitamin C, which many recommend when passing gallstones.
• Detox Tea (5 Calories)

Lunch:

• 1/2 cup of Yellow Tomatoes (10 Calories)  
• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Mighty Mango" (300 Calories)
• 2 Cuties (160 Calories)
• Orange Pellegrino (120 Calories)  Maybe drinking this was cheating, but hey, it's orange and it helped my gastrointestinal issues.

Dinner:

• Apple Juice (110 Calories)
• 1/2 Cup Pineapple (220 Calories)
• Detox Tea (5 Calories)

Calories Consumed

• 1,340

I had a hankering for something savory around midnight, so I gobbled up a bunch of nori (seaweed) while watching some Sailor Moon.  Not only is nori ridiculously good for you, it has a lot of Vitamin C and it relieved my bloated tummy a bit.

Gallstone Cleanse: Day One: Green

Backstory:
I've been experiencing a lot a pain, nausea, & bloating whenever I eat for a long time now, no matter what I eat.  In my quest for comfort, I've tried eating alkaline foods, vegan foods, raw foods, yogic foods, non-processed foods, non-Monsanto foods, carb free, dairy free, alcohol free, caffeine free, gluten free, sugar free, smaller meals, earlier meals, tea-filled meals, low calorie diets, high calorie diets, candida health diets, and nothing seems to help.  I've spent too many days hovered over my porcelain throne, spewing out bile the color of Mr. Clean, and too many nights suffering with nausea or cramps from drinking a glass of water or eating a salad, so I think it's time to flush my body out, and see what interesting gallstone gems my body is hiding.

One of the things that inspired me was this snarky Vice article some hipster girls wrote about passing their gallstones called "I'm Empty Inside".  I'm not exactly of the economic status where I can afford to be massaged with hot stones while a vacuum sucks up my grody internal festerings, so I plan to approach this cleanse through strictly diet, but I found the article to be humorous & semi-enlightening.  She references Andreas Moritz often, who wrote the book The Amazing Liver & Gallbladder Flush, and while I'm sure this book is a worthy investment, I'm just going to take her word for it (again, economic status).  Another thing that inspired me was the short, yet informative, Natural Ayurvedic Home Remedies video on gallstones.  In the video, the woman talks about what causes gallstone problems, simple juice concoctions you can make to pass them, and what foods you can/can't eat while you're passing.

Between these two sources and a casual amount of internet research, I've been able to glean enough information about passing my own colorful pebbles, that I feel confident & psyched up.  Yesterday, my boo & I drank apple cleansers (45% apple juice, 45% water, 10% apple cider vinegar), plus we've been drinking dandelion root tea for a week (supposed to aid in gallbladder health), and yes, I bought a $2 enema and produce/juice for a week, so everything is ready.  I get discouraged really easily and raw food diets make me moody/dizzy, so I tried making this as fun as possible by eating green the first day, orange/yellow the second day, blue/purple the third day, red the fourth day, and Japanese raw cuisine the fifth day.  On the sixth day, I'm going to dramatically increase my fluid intake, prep my body (hint hint, wink wink T_T</3), start crazy juice cleansing, and down a bunch of essential vitamins and herbs.  And if all goes as expected, the seventh day will be the great cleanse!!  While, I'm making this more fun by eating in colors, I kept in mind foods that are good for gallstone health and/or aid the body as diuretics/laxatives.  Also, I made sure that each day I'm eating at least 1,300 calories so my body has enough fuel to run on.
Without further ado:

THE GREAT GALLSTONE CLEANSE: DAY ONE: GREEN

Breakfast:

• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Green Machine" (contains apples, bananas, kiwis, mangos, pineapple, spirulina, chlorella, broccoli, spinach, blue-green algae, garlic, barley grass, wheat grass, ginger, & parsley) (280 Calories)  Andreas Moritz suggests that the body only ingest lukewarm foods, so I let this sit out for a few hours.  *Caution: don't let it spoil.  We don't need bodily fluids coming out of both ends*
• Guacamole (1 Avocado, Lime Juice, a sprinkle of salt, a dash of garlic powder, and ground parsley) (250 Calories)  Avocados are delicious & help get the biliary colic started, aw yeah.
• Traditional Medicinals' "Every Day Detox" tea (promotes healthy liver function, contains dandelion and chicory root, and is naturally a bit sweet from anise) (5 Calories)  Technically, not supposed to consume anything hot, but there's no way I'm not drinking tea.  Sorry I'm not sorry.

Lunch:

• 16 fl oz of Naked Juice's "Green Machine" (280 Calories)
• Spinach & Granny Smith Apple Rabbit Food (1/2 cup of raw spinach is 5 Calories + 1/2 of an apple is 25 Calories  + a teaspoon of olive oil is 40 Calories) It might be fun to toss in some sunflower seeds, or green grapes, or snow peas, or alfalfa/clover sprouts as well, I just don't have these things.  Instead of spinach, you could also do kale, spring mix, or dandelion leaves.  
• Homemade Cucumber Juice (2 cucumbers are roughly 45 Calories, and I added some mint leaves in for an extra 5 Calories)  I used my juicer, but you could always blend them in a food processor with some water.

Dinner:

• Homemade Pear Juice (Pear + Water + Honey = 30 Calories)  If you don't want to make pear juice you can either buy premade juice or eat some pears, but it's important that you get some in your diet.  Pears contain pectin, which binds to cholesterol-filled gallstones and helps move them out of your body.
• Guacamole (250 Calories) (awww yeah... I could be raw for a long time if it meant guacamole every day!!)  This time I scooped my guacamole with some Sushi Nori (3 pieces= 30 Calories)  DROOOOOOOL...
• "Every Day Detox" Tea (5 Calories)
• 1/2 Granny Smith Apple (25 calories)

Calorie Intake:

• Roughly 1,275

Still pumped, but feeling a bit like a camera lens that's out of focus.